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Times Watch for 05/06/03
Touchy, Touchy
Paul Krugman thinks the Constitution is in peril because Bush arrived aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln via jet wearing a flight suit: “The Constitution declares the president commander in chief of the armed forces to make it clear that civilians, not the military, hold ultimate authority….George Bush's "Top Gun" act aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln — c'mon, guys, it wasn't about honoring the troops, it was about showing the president in a flight suit — was as scary as it was funny….Nobody seemed bothered that Mr. Bush, who appears to have skipped more than a year of the National Guard service that kept him out of Vietnam, is now emphasizing his flying experience.”
In the next sentence, Krugman gets defensive: “Spare me the hate mail. An exhaustive study by The Boston Globe found no evidence that Mr. Bush fulfilled any of his duties during that missing year. And since Mr. Bush has chosen to play up his National Guard career, this can't be shrugged off as old news.” (Krugman is notoriously touchy about criticism.)
From the opposite side of the page (but the same side of the political fence) is columnist Nicholas Kristof, who pokes warily at his seething inbox in “Missing In Action: Truth.” Kristof writes: “When I raised the Mystery of the Missing W.M.D. recently, hawks fired barrages of reproachful e-mail at me. The gist was: ‘You *&#*! Who cares if we never find weapons of mass destruction, because we've liberated the Iraqi people from a murderous tyrant.’ But it does matter, enormously, for American credibility.”
Kristof has acted hurt by criticism in the past, especially regarding a gun-phobic story, “Chicks With Guns,” which he wrote last year: “I got a barrage of e-mail. Much of it was thoughtful and well-reasoned criticism, but there were also plenty of blasts urging me to move to Japan or England. Thanks for the advice. And if you're so bothered by gun registration, and so convinced that guns don't kill people, then consider moving to a nice mud-brick home here in Suq al-Talh. With you and everybody else carrying around an assault rifle, with armor-piercing rounds in your bandolier, with a couple of grenades in your pockets, you'll really feel safe. You'll love the freedom!”
No one’s condoning offensive or threatening mail—though there’s no shortage of it directed at conservative commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. But if you can’t take the heat, fellas, then find another beat.
For Krugman's article in full, CLICK HERE
For Kristof's article in full, CLICK HERE
Bill Maher, Libertarian? Politically Incorrect
Times TV reporter Alessandra Stanley’s review of former “Politically Incorrect” host Bill Maher’s one-man Broadway show falsely characterizes the Nader-supporting Maher as a libertarian (Maher’s worldview is more accurately described by Jonah Goldberg as --“libertine socialist.”)
Having erroneously labeled Maher libertarian, Stanley then proceeds to criticize libertarians: “Mr. Maher is not a humanitarian; he is a libertarian who bears a somewhat vengeful grudge against the administration that helped hound him off ABC….But libertarianism, like polka dots, should be worn lightly. It is an épater le bourgeois [shock the middle-class] ideology, the political equivalent of an Oscar Wilde bon mot: ‘The world is a stage, but the play is badly cast.’”
Stanley also writes: “The White House chided him for a remark he made right after Sept. 11 that seemed to impugn the bravery of the American military, and the network later canceled his late-night show, ‘Politically Incorrect With Bill Maher.’”
Actually, “Politically Incorrect” was canceled in May 2002, a full eight months after Maher claimed on the show, the week after 9-11: "We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly." Given that most television shows don’t even last eight months, that hardly qualifies as Maher being “hounded” off ABC.
For Stanley's review in full, CLICK HERE
“Some People” (Like Me) Think Court Elected Bush
Reporter Adam Clymer’s story on the vagaries of campaign finance law, “Campaign Finance Muddle Recalls Election of ‘76”, opens with this charmer: “Some people think that the Supreme Court elected George W. Bush, and that he is the only president it ever chose. Maybe so, but in 1976 the court played a crucial part in the nomination of Jimmy Carter.”
For Clymer's story in full, CLICK HERE
Sen. Carnahan--No “Centrist” She
The Times special “small business” section leads with an interesting story by Edmund Andrews on the political clout of small business, but it’s marred by these opening lines: “Anyone who doubts that small business has big political clout need only recall the truncated two-year career of Senator Jean Carnahan. A centrist Democrat from Missouri, Mrs. Carnahan was appointed to the Senate in 2000 after her husband, Mel, the governor of the state, was killed during his senate race but won the election posthumously.”
Sen. Carnahan, centrist? Hardly. The American Conservative Union awards Carnahan’s 2002 voting record a 15 on a scale of 100. Sen. John Kerry, no one’s idea of a Republican, actually scored higher (20).
For Andrews' story in full, CLICK HERE
E-mail Times Watch Director, Clay Waters, with Times Watch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org