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Times Watch for
November 14, 2003
Warren Hoge's Rogue Attack on Bush
A Reuters report by Paul Majendie, "U.S. Expats in UK Hit by Wave of 'Anti-Bushism,'" carries this charming quote from Times London correspondent Warren Hoge: "America is now something of a rogue state, a pariah nation. People repeatedly say it isn't Americans we don't like, it is just Bush. He pushes hot buttons. Bush has so much to do with this rather stupendous fall-off in American popularity. It is quite amazing to think where we were the day after September 11 and how much of that goodwill has been squandered."
Perhaps Bush should be honored. On September 30 Hoge described pro-war Tony Blair in unflattering terms as well: "Mr. Blair's close alliance with an American president who is deeply unpopular in Britain has left him appearing the way cartoonists see him--as the slavering lapdog of George W. Bush."
• Tony Blair | George W. Bush | Warren Hoge | Iraq War | Reuters | Terrorism
Jehl Again Buries Details of Demo Memo
Douglas Jehl again
discusses the partisan conflict on the Senate Intelligence panel without detailing how the conflict came to a head in the first place--a Democratic memo showing Democrats plotting to use the Intelligence Committee hearings for political gain. Friday's piece by Jehl is titled (on my hard copy but not online) "Partison [sic] Feud on Iraq Review Leaves Senate Panel in Gridlock."
Jehl writes: "With the backing of Senator Bill Frist, the Republican leader, Senator Roberts said last week that all committee business would be canceled until Democrats repudiated an unpublished memo that described a strategy to focus criticism on the Bush administration for its alleged abuse of prewar Iraq intelligence. Republicans have also demanded that the Democratic staff member who drafted the memo be dismissed."
Again, Jehl fails to deliver the dirty details of the Democratic memo, which suggests using the committee to hurt Bush during the presidential campaign. (One quote from the memo: "We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation of the administration's use of intelligence at any time--but we can only do so once. The best time to do so will probably be next year.")
Jehl also fails to mention angry criticism of the memo from the Democrat's own Sen. Zell Miller, who calls it "the first cousin of treason."
For the rest of Douglas Jehl's report on the Senate feud, click here.
• Gaffes | Douglas Jehl | Iraq War | Memo | Sen. Zell Miller
Quoting Zell Only When Liberals Yell
Giving them Zell: While the Times is loathe to report Sen. Zell Miller's
excoriation of his own party over the Senate Intelligence memo, it doesn't mind quoting the senator when it might embarrass conservatives. Neil Lewis does just that in his Friday story on the Republican filibuster, "Marathon in the Senate: The Talk Is Long, but Temper Short."
Deep in the story he notes: "During the long debate, Senator Zell Miller, a conservative Georgia Democrat who often sides with Republicans, drew anger from some civil rights groups by saying that another Bush nominee to whom Democrats have expressed opposition, Justice Janice Rogers Brown of the California Supreme Court, was being faulted because her opponents would not tolerate a black conservative. The message to her, Mr. Miller said, is if she takes conservative stands, 'gal, you will be lynched.'"
A Cox News Service report provided some context, noting that Sen. Miller added, in response to criticism: "African-American columnist Thomas Sowell first used it in a column on October 24, 2003 and I think it sums up the situation accurately." Columnist Sowell has in fact published three columns on liberal resistance to the Brown nomination, titled "A Lynch Mob Gathers," Parts 1-3.
For the rest of Lewis' take on the filibuster over federal judges, click here.
• Filibuster | Judges | Neil Lewis | Sen. Zell Miller | Racism | Thomas Sowell
The Bush administration is under fire from both left and right about plans for U.S. troops to leave Iraq, according to Friday's story by Steven Weisman and Carl Hulse, "In U.S., Fears Are Voiced Of a Too-Rapid Iraq Exit."
The story begins: "The Bush administration's decision to speed the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq and replace American troops with Iraqis is bringing fresh warnings from Congress and policy experts against pulling out of Iraq too early and letting election-year considerations dictate Iraq policy."
Note that while the Times implicitly accuses the Bush administration of making war decisions based on political considerations, Times reporters at the same time refuse to detail the contents of a memo showing how Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee genuinely intended to politicize the investigation of war-time intelligence to hurt Bush.
Later, Weisman and Hulse see a potential Republican crackup: "For the most part, Republicans in Congress and among administration supporters in Washington have not parted company politically with the administration on Iraq, at least publicly. But that is beginning to change. 'We are in trouble in Iraq and I think there is no other way to say it,' said Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican, adding that he hoped that L. Paul Bremer III, the administrator in Baghdad summoned to Washington this week, told Mr. Bush 'that we are going to have to do some things differently.'"
The Times finds it convenient to count Republican Hagel as a Bush supporter to lend artificial gravity to its own criticism of Bush. Yet the Times knows that Sen. Hagel, though Republican, has never been an "administration supporter" on Iraq. Back in August 16, 2002, a Times story featured this line: "Sen. Hagel, who was among the earliest voices to question Mr. Bush's approach to Iraq, said today that the Central Intelligence Agency had ‘absolutely no evidence’ that Iraq possesses or will soon possess nuclear weapons.”
For the rest of Weisman and Hulse on U.S. troops in Iraq, click here.
• George W. Bush | Sen. Chuck Hagel | Carl Hulse | Iraq War | Steven Weisman
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org