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Times Watch for 04/25/03
The Times Santorum Obsession
The Times continues piling on Sen. Rich Santorum over recent remarks he made regarding gays. Besides reminding us Santorum is “conservative” in nearly every paragraph, Adam Nagourney and Sheryl Gay Stolberg pen this whopper: “Mr. Santorum, who has six children, led the Senate fight to ban the procedure opponents call late-term abortion.” Actually, that’s just what the Times calls it, as recently as a March 12 editorial and a February 15 news story. (Stolberg herself used the term back in 1997.) What opponents really call it (and which the Times never will) is the more graphic and accurate “partial-birth abortion.”
Also on the Santorum front, the Times grants opinion page space to sex columnist Dan Savage, who denounces as anti-gay “the Family Research Council, once headed by Gary Bauer.” Left unmentioned is Savage’s, er, unhealthy obsession with Bauer, dating back to Bauer’s 2000 presidential campaign. The details are disgusting, but let’s just say doorknobs are involved. If a column by Savage is considered Times-worthy, one shudders to consider what characters the paper turns away.
Adam Clymer: No “Major-League” Economists?
George Bush’s favorite reporter sneers at conservative economists. Reporting that Alan Greenspan will serve another term as Federal Reserve chairman, Adam Clymer appends this snotty conclusion: “Stability is certainly a desirable quantity in the economic policy of the Bush administration, and Mr. Greenspan offers that. Besides, it is not as though Republicans had a lot of bench strength in this area; highly respected economic figures who agree with the president that tax cuts and bigger deficits are the elixir the economy needs.”
The Times “Core Principles” of Hypocrisy
In its editorial, “The Class Action Unfairness Act,” the Times expresses respect for “core principles of federalism.” Nice to see the Times suddenly stand up for states’ rights—at least, when it may block conservative ideas of tort reform.
But what happens to the Times sacred principles of federalism when it comes to liberal laws it likes? Then federalism is just awful. Last week, the same editorial page accused a Federalist Society lawyer of “setting back the rights of the disabled” by convincing the Supreme Court individuals could not bring Americans with Disabilities Act suits against states in federal court.
Columnist Paul Krugman's latest concludes in typical conservative-bashing mode: “The right is likely to ram through even more tax cuts, while using deficits as an excuse for not helping the uninsured. But we have the right to ask why. And claiming that those who don't support tax cuts are somehow unpatriotic is not an answer.”
Do liberals have a guilty conscience on patriotism? They assert it more than those supposedly jingoistic conservatives. And Times Watch is curious to know (Krugman’s persecution complex notwithstanding) just who out there is claiming “those who don’t support tax cuts are unpatriotic.”
The Times Sets Back Women’s Rights 3 Years
…In the obituary section, anyway. Upon the death of Rep. Martha Wright Griffiths, Wolfgang Saxon says this about the late feminist: “Mrs. Griffiths pursued passage of the [Equal Rights] amendment calmly, with the persuasive skills of the trial lawyer she once was. Her arguments went a long way toward persuading a male-dominated House to subscribe to a cause that had been on the table for 47 years, since women got the vote in 1923.” Actually, that would be 1920, upon ratification of the 19th amendment, enabling women to vote in that year’s federal election.
E-mail Times Watch Director, Clay Waters, with Times Watch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org