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Times Watch for
February 3, 2004
Deep Cuts in a 2.4 Trillion Budget?
In her Tuesday news analysis, "Putting 2nd Term on Line, Bush Bets America Agrees With His Fiscal Priorities," Elisabeth Bumiller wonders if Bush can survive the "cuts to popular programs" in his new $2.4 trillion (yes, trillion) budget.
She writes: "Mr. Bush's calculation is that voters will care far more about protecting the nation from another terrorist attack than about cuts to popular programs, or, for that matter, the record-high deficit.…Like his State of the Union address, Mr. Bush's budget calls for no big new domestic programs and in fact forces him to cut so deeply that even his Republican allies in Congress called it politically impractical and said restorations were inevitable."
Yet Bumiller doesn't actually mention the names of these "popular programs" people prefer to Bush's anti-terror measures. And as a budgetary chart in the Times points out, the government is hardly being starved. In fact, it's not even being cut.
Based on figures from the Office of Management and Budget, the chart shows the Agriculture Department's budget reduced 8.1 percent, from $20.7 billion to "just" $19.1 billion. The EPA also takes a 7.2 percent cut. On the other side, the Education Department, already the second largest department next to Health and Human Services, will get a 3 percent spending hike, the Department of Housing and Urban Development 2.8 percent.
In all, as noted in the chart's introduction, "President Bush is proposing to hold discretionary spending outside of the military and domestic security to an 0.5 percent increase for the 2005 fiscal year." Overall, the Bush budget hardly seems to pose a danger of "deep" spending cuts.
For the rest of Bumiller on the Bush budget, click here.
• Budget | Elisabeth Bumiller | George W. Bush
The first (and perhaps only) "tell-all" book from the Clinton administration was "All Too Human," from Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos. Though regular Times book critic Michiko Kakutani liked it, when it came time for the Times' influential Sunday Book Review to weigh in, the critical assignment was handed to the extremely liberal columnist and
historian
Garry Wills. His first sentence set the tone: "In this tiresomely moralizing book, George Stephanopoulos proves that self-castigation can be a device for avoiding self-examination." Wills goes on to excoriate Stephanopoulos for hypocrisy and opportunism.
Flash-forward five years, to Ron Suskind's "The Price of Loyalty." Suskind's book is based on interviews with former Treasury Secretary-turned Bush critic Paul O'Neill, making it the first critical "kiss-and-tell" book about the Bush administration.
For the sake of balance and consistency, did the Times assign the book to a reviewer from the right, one likely to lambaste O'Neill and defend the Bush administration, as it did with the Stephanopoulos book?
Hardly. Instead, the nod went to Michael Tomasky, executive editor of the liberal American Prospect magazine. Tomasky isn't exactly predisposed to be critical of the Suskind book, and he doesn't disappoint in that regard: What enriches 'The Price of Loyalty,' aside from the accretion of persuasive detail, is its assertion that in this administration, a time-honored notion of public service has been deeply corrupted….whether O'Neill was a brilliant Treasury secretary or a mediocre one, he did regard the public trust as a serious matter, and the case 'The Price of Loyalty' makes about the debasement of the policy process is a strong one….One finishes this book hoping that those who consider themselves the guardians of Washington integrity will do more to demand that the distinction be honored."
• Books | Paul O'Neill | George Stephanopoulos
The Times could apparently use some religious guidance. Tuesday's Times corrections box corrects a previous correction: "A Critic's Notebook article in Weekend on Friday about religious films that have stirred contention included an erroneous reference to the Immaculate Conception in connection with Jean-Luc Godard's 1985 film 'Hail Mary,' and a correction in this space on Saturday misattributed the belief involved. It is Roman Catholic teaching--not the teaching of all Christian denominations--that Mary was conceived by her mother, Anne, without the stain of original sin. And the term does not refer to the conception of Jesus by Mary."
The incorrect Saturday correction reads, in part: "Christian doctrine teaches that Mary was conceived by her mother, Anne, without the stain of original sin."
For the Times corrections box, click here.
• Christianity | Corrections | Religion
Gay Marriage Ban "Discrimination"
Sunday's column by editor Frank Rich calls a gay marriage ban "discrimination" against gays: "It's against this backdrop that Diane Sawyer's 'Primetime Thursday' interview with Howard Dean and Judy Steinberg Dean, just 48 hours after the president's speech, was as depressing in its way as the president's threat of a constitutional amendment to discriminate against gay couples."
For the rest of Rich, click here.
• George W. Bush | Gay Marriage | Frank Rich
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org