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Times Watch for May 28, 2003
Dowd’s Dishonest Deletion, Part Deux
In her Wednesday column, Maureen Dowd perhaps comes as close as she ever will to admitting she dishonestly quoted President Bush in her May 14 column on Al Qaeda and the terror threat.
In today’s column on what Dowd considers White House cynicism regarding the war on terror, Dowd finally provides what Bush actually said on May 5: “‘Al Qaeda is on the run,’ the president said in Little Rock, Ark. ‘That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly, but surely, being decimated. Right now, about half of all the top Al Qaeda operatives are either jailed or dead. In either case, they're not a problem anymore.’ But Al Qaeda, it became horrifyingly clear a week later in Riyadh, was not decimated; it was sufficiently undecimated to murder 34 people, injure 200 and scare the daylights out of Americans everywhere.”
But Dowd’s May 14 column elided this vital part of the above Bush quote: "Right now, about half of all the top Al Qaeda operatives are either jailed or dead. In any case…” By doing so, Dowd made Bush appear to say Al Qaeda was no longer a problem, when he clearly said that only those members that were “jailed or dead” were no longer a problem.
Gregory at
Belgravia
Dispatch noticed how Dowd “corrected” herself “without in any way
acknowledging the misleading nature of her earlier treatment of the relevant
quote.”
The Dowd deletion, broken on this page by Times Watch reader Robert Cox, is
gaining media attention. Brendan Nyhan of
SpinSanity notes Dowd’s “distorted quotation has since been repeated by
MSNBC ‘Buchanan and Press’ co-host Bill Press, CNN's Miles O'Brien and others,
including numerous foreign press outlets.”
Most ominous, New York Daily News columnist Zev Chafets this morning notes “New York Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis says the paper is ‘looking into’ the column.”
Times Writers (Don’t)
Get Religion
This week brings two more cases of the Times not getting religion. A Tuesday front-page story by Laurie Goodstein, “Seeing Islam as ‘Evil’ Faith, Evangelicals Seek Converts,” sees a disturbing trend: Christians looking for converts in the Muslim world.
Goodstein writes: “At the grass roots of evangelical Christianity, many are now absorbing the antipathy for Islam that emerged last year with the incendiary comments of ministers. The sharp language, from religious leaders like Franklin Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Jerry Vines, the former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, has drawn rebukes from Muslims and Christian groups alike. Mr. Graham called Islam ‘a very evil and wicked religion, and Mr. Vines called Muhammad, Islam's founder and prophet, a ‘demon-possessed pedophile.’”
One can argue with the blunt statements by Graham and Vines, and many conservatives have. But “antipathy” is a strange word to describe the motivations of missionaries who would possibly risk their lives by preaching Christianity in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Goodstein herself notes that “at least six have been killed since Sept. 11, 2001” in Muslim nations.) She continues: “Evangelicals have always believed that all other religions are wrong, but what is notable now is the vituperation.” As opposed to people who believe their own religion is wrong?
Goodstein implies that conservative Christians are simply looking to fight another Cold War, now that the Soviet Union is gone: “Evangelical scholars and leaders cite several reasons for their quickening interest in Islam: the American defeat of a major Muslim nation, Iraq, which may open it to Christian missionaries, while other Muslim nations remain closed; the 2001 terrorist attacks, which led many Americans to see Islam as a global threat; the greater numbers and visibility of Muslims in the United States, and the demise of Communism, once public enemy No. 1 for many evangelical organizations.”
Today the Times proves it flunks the Old Testament as well as the New. The editorial, “Straight Talk From Ariel Sharon,” voices approval of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon’s acceptance of Bush’s “road map” for Middle East peace, despite disagreement from members of Sharon’s own conservative Likud party.
The Times writes: “Anyone who has spent time with the prime minister knows [Sharon] as someone who has a profound attachment to the biblical lands of what he calls Judea and Samaria. Giving them up--or a large chunk of them--in the name of security for Israel will not be easy for him.”
Note that bit, “What he calls Judea and Samaria.” Sharon can really coin a phrase, can’t he? But “Judea and Samaria” isn’t just what Sharon calls the region. It’s what the state of Israel calls it http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/go.asp?MFAH0dtq0, and what it was called for centuries from Biblical times up until 1948, when Jordan invaded and rebranded it the “West Bank” (because most of the territory is on the west bank of the Jordan River). Jordan was driven back across the river in the Six-Day War of 1967, but the term “West Bank” stuck.
For the rest of the Times editorial on Prime Minister Sharon, click here.
For the rest of Laurie Goodstein’s piece on evangelical Christians, click here.
E-mail Times Watch Director, Clay Waters, with Times Watch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org