| About | |
| Contact Us | |
| Articles | |
| Topic Index | |
| Reports | |
| Quotes | |
| On the Web | |
| Links | |
| TW Tracker | |
| Support | |
Times Watch for
March 26, 2004
A Tale of Two Tax Plans
A tale of two tax plans: One, from the Democrat candidate for president, is a "response to widespread anxiety." The other, from the Republican, "would increase the nation's already swollen federal budget deficit."
Richard Oppel Jr.'s Friday story, "House Republicans Defeat An Effort to Limit Tax Cuts," opens this way: "Facing heavy pressure from the Bush administration, House Republicans defeated attempts by Democrats on Thursday to block new tax cuts that would increase the nation's already swollen federal budget deficit." Bush's argument "that the tax cuts had spurred the economy's rebound and that it would be foolish for Congress to limit its flexibility to pass new ones," is reserved for the 14th paragraph of the story.
In contrast, the first line of Friday's story by Edmund Andrews and Jodi Wilgoren, "Kerry to Propose Eliminating a Tax Break on U.S. Companies' Overseas Profits," casts a Kerry tax proposal as helpful: "Responding to widespread anxiety about the movement of American jobs overseas, Senator John Kerry plans to propose on Friday a sweeping revision of international corporate taxes intended to prompt companies to invest more money in the United States."
Kerry's proposal would in fact also be a tax cut, reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 33.25% in exchange for eliminating some business tax breaks. A budget-buster? That's hardly the Times' spin on Kerry's proposal.
For the rest of Oppel on Bush's tax plan, click here.
For Andrews and Wilgoren on Kerry's plan, click here.
• Campaign 2004 | Edmund Andrews | Richard Oppel Jr. | Taxes | Jodi Wilgoren
Clarke's Book a Must-Read, Say D.C. Lefties
It's still all Clarke, all the Times, with two front-pagers, one on anecdotal evidence of hot sales of Richard Clarke's book in D.C. Rachel Swarns' front-page story, "Ex-Aide's Book Corners Market In Capital Buzz," opens with enthusiasm: "On the first day, the hottest new book in town sold out in an hour at Politics and Prose and sales clerks turned away dozens of disappointed buyers. On the second day, the store called three national book wholesalers, which announced they did not have a single copy left. That was when Barbara Meade knew that Richard A. Clarke, the author of 'Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror,' was the genuine article, an unexpected literary phenomenon whose account of counterterrorism failures within the Bush administration has been flying off the shelves this week."
Swarns could have noted that Politics and Prose is a left-wing book store (check out the blurb for the "Wellstone Action" meeting). Notice how Swarns assumes the accuracy of Clarke's premise of the Bush administration's "failures." And since when are anecdotal claims of brisk book sales considered front-page news?
Swarns finds more unlabeled leftists to chatter about how hot Clarke's book is: "In this city, those incendiary charges are dominating political chatter at breakfast tables, dinner tables and even on the basketball court, where David Sirota, spokesman for the Center for American Progress, discussed it last night after shooting hoops with Congressional workers and former presidential campaign advisers at the Sidwell Friends School. 'It's all that people are talking about,' said Jim Jordan, the Democratic strategist, who said he was planning to buy his own copy on Thursday."
Left unmentioned: The Center for American Progress is a left-wing group which has already editorialized on Clarke's behalf in "White House Attacks Terrorism Whistleblower," and which circulated a dubious list claiming the Bush administration justified the war in Iraq by claiming it posed an "imminent threat."
The front-page story by Adam Nagourney and Richard Stevenson, "Rice Is Agreeable To More Queries From 9/11 Panel," is actually more about Clarke. The headline includes the defensive subhead: "As White House Seeks to Deflect Criticism, Bush Defends His Policies."
They write: "'Clarke's own words contributed to the end of his credibility with people,' said Terry Holt, Mr. Bush's campaign spokesman. But Democrats and some Republicans not associated with the campaign questioned that assessment. They described Mr. Clarke's appearance before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States as compelling and said that Mr. Bush's campaign, which had already been criticized by some families of victims for using footage of World Trade Center destruction in its campaign advertisements, would have to deal with the emotional show of support by victims of Mr. Clarke after he said, 'I failed you.'"
The response of victims to Mr. Clarke was of course based on his sympathy, not by any deeds by Clarke himself. As for the "some families of victims" critical of George Bush, Nagourney and Stevenson fail to mention how most are partisan liberal critics of Bush.
Nagourney and Stevenson conclude on this dire negative note for Bush: "With the economy faltering and Democrats so united, Mr. Bush's terrorism credentials are portrayed by his supporters as the strongest assets he has going against Mr. Kerry. The revelations--in particular, the account offered by Mr. Clarke--could give Mr. Kerry ammunition to attack Mr. Bush on foreign policy."
And the Times is pitching in.
For the rest of Swarns on the Clarke book, click here.
For more of Nagourney and Stevenson on Clarke, click here.
• Richard Clarke | Adam Nagourney | Condoleezza Rice | Richard Stevenson | Terrorism
Elisabeth Bumiller and Philip Shenon apparently have a Condoleezza Rice scoop--she's retiring! They write for Friday's edition: "As she prepares to leave her job at the end of the year, Ms. Rice, the president's national security adviser, now finds herself at the center of a political storm, furiously defending both the White House and her own reputation. But her effort to blunt the criticism by spending the week on television and in news briefings may have had the opposite effect. She has infuriated some members of the panel, who wonder why she has time for CNN but not for them. On Thursday they questioned again whether she should be subpoenaed to testify if she does not appear in public to answer questions about the Bush administration's handling of Al Qaeda before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001."
We'll see what Rice has to say about her apparently imminent retirement.
For the rest of Bumiller and Shenon on Rice and Clarke, click here.
• Elisabeth Bumiller | Richard Clarke | Condoleezza Rice | Philip Shenon | Terrorism
Giving the Losers the First Word
The Unborn Victims of Violence Act passed the Senate by a wide margin, but Carl Hulse's Friday piece lets the liberal pro-abortion minority have the first word: "The Senate approved legislation on Thursday making it a separate offense to harm the fetus in a federal crime committed against a pregnant woman, sending the measure to President Bush for his signature. Opponents denounced the bill, adopted on a vote of 61 to 38, as an effort to undermine the constitutional right to abortion by recognizing the fetus as a person."
The headline also takes a negative tone: "Senate Outlaws Injury To Fetus During A Crime--Measure Is Sent To Bush--Opponents Say Legislation Is a Precursor to Efforts to Curtail Abortion."
For the rest of Hulse's abortion story, click here.
• Abortion | Crime | Carl Hulse | Senate
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org