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Times Watch for
February 9, 2004
Dennis Miller, Right-Wing Zealot
Can the Times forgive comedian Dennis Miller for his right turn? Times critic Caryn James takes on Miller's new MSNBC political talk show in Sunday's Arts & Leisure section.
After suggesting that Miller's lost his comedic fastball since becoming a Republican supporter ("Mr. Miller is a famous convert to the right wing, but that political flip seems to have cost him his satiric instincts"), she writes: "Like so many conversions, his seems to have led to zealotry, the last thing we need more of on television….although Mr. Miller's panels rarely include comics, he lets the shrillest guests ramble on. The conservative commentator David Horowitz indulged in a tirade in which he called opposition to the Patriot Act 'an hysterical campaign conducted by the left,' and 'a kind of seditious movement.' So much for the common-sense revolution."
For the rest of James on Miller, click here.
• David Horowitz | Caryn James | Dennis Miller | Television
Seth Mydans makes room to plug a liberal hero in his story on the ghastly aftermath of the terror bombing of a Moscow subway train: "The glasnost--or openness--that Mikhail Gorbachev brought to the Soviet Union does not run deep. There is little sense here of any public right to know. Reporters and family members were rebuffed repeatedly on Friday by hospital and government officials."
For more of Mydans on the Moscow subway bombing, click here.
• Communism | Moscow | Seth Mydans | Terrorism
In an analysis of Bush's performance on NBC's "Meet the Press," Elisabeth Bumiller quotes Sen. John Kerry, Bush's possible opponent in 2004: "This morning on 'Meet the Press,' President Bush said his decision to go to war with Iraq when he did was because Saddam Hussein had 'the ability to make weapons,' 'Mr. Kerry said. 'This is a far cry from what the president and his administration told the American people throughout 2002. Back then, President Bush repeatedly told the American people that Saddam Hussein 'has got chemical weapons.' '"He added, 'And it was on that basis that he sent American sons and daughters off to war.'
Bumiller could have pointed out that in 2002 Kerry believed the exact same thing, and said so on the Senate floor. In a speech delivered October 9, 2002, Kerry declared: "According to intelligence, Iraq has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of the 150 kilometer restriction imposed by the United Nations in the ceasefire resolution. Although Iraq's chemical weapons capability was reduced during the UNSCOM inspections, Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort over the last 4 years."
For more of Bumiller's story on Bush, click here.
• Elisabeth Bumiller | Campaign 2004 | Iraq War | Sen. John Kerry
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org