| About | |
| Contact Us | |
| Articles | |
| Topic Index | |
| Reports | |
| Quotes | |
| On the Web | |
| Links | |
| TW Tracker | |
| Support | |
Times Watch for
March 31, 2004
NYT Pits Clarke vs.
Rice...
But What About Clarke vs. Clarke?
A Times article lists "discrepancies" between what Condoleezza Rice has said about 9-11 compared to the recent claims made by Richard Clarke and others on the 9-11 commission. But what does the Times have to say about Clarke vs. Clarke?
In the sidebar article, "Rice's Statements and Counterclaims" (not online), the Times tries to put Rice on the defensive by comparing "Ms. Rice's statements" to "Counterclaims" made by Clarke and others on the commission. The article explains that Rice "is likely to be asked about public assertions she had made and discrepancies between her comments and those of Richard A. Clarke, former counterterrorism adviser" during her upcoming testimony before the 9-11 commission.
One "discrepancy" the Times uses is an excerpt of a March 22 opinion piece by Rice in the Washington Post: "No Al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration."
The "counterclaim," according to the Times: "The commission reported last week that on Jan. 25, 2001, Mr. Clarke forwarded to Ms. Rice a strategy paper of his from 2000 and a political-military plan from 1998. But other Clinton administration officials agree with Ms. Rice that his agenda fell short of a full plan."
While the Times is willing to contrast "Clarke vs. Rice," the Times could just as easily have run a "Clarke vs. Clarke" article on the question of an Al Qaeda plan simply by comparing Clarke's 2002 statements ("There was no plan on al Qaida that was passed from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration.") to what he's saying today.
Yet a Nexis search indicates the Times has yet to quote from Clarke's 2002 press briefing, in which Clarke also boasted how Bush had changed the Clinton administration terror tactics "from one of rollback of al-Qaeda over the course of five years, which it had been, to a new strategy that called for the rapid elimination of al-Qaeda.”
Those Clarke's statements of two years ago are 180 degrees off from his pro-Clinton assertions today, yet the Times hasn't used them to challenge Clarke's current allegations. (The Times did run a transcript from Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist that included Clarke's 2002 comments.)
• Richard Clarke | Condoleezza Rice | Terrorism
An "Embarrassing" Win for Bush Tax Cuts
Poor Bush. Even when he wins, he loses. Yesterday Bush notched another "embarrassing" win, according to Wednesday's story by Richard Oppel, "Bush Plans For Tax Cuts Barely Avert House Setback."
Oppel opens: "House Republican leaders avoided an embarrassing setback on Tuesday, barely defeating a nonbinding resolution favoring new restrictions on future tax cuts that are the centerpiece of President Bush's economic program."
Oppel isn't overly fond of Bush's tax cuts anyway, given his story from last Friday, which opens: "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."
Later in the Wednesday story, Oppel implicitly links Bush's tax cuts to the budget deficit: "In a vote reflecting the apprehension of many lawmakers that the $478 billion budget deficit is becoming a major election-year concern for voters, the House split 209 to 209 on Tuesday on a measure urging members negotiating a budget deal with the Senate to accept Senate tax-cut restrictions." A Bush-led $500 billion increase in Medicare spending will also affect future deficits, but Oppel's story doesn't mention that.
For the rest of Oppel's story, click here.
• George W. Bush | Deficit | Richard Oppel | Tax Cuts
U.S. "Puritan Streak" Made Monica "A Big Deal"
Elaine Sciolino celebrates the social liberalism of Spain's prime minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in "A New Future for Spain: Call It Social Socialism." She writes for Wednesday's Times: "Spain's gay community is vibrant, flamboyant and politically active. Drug use by individuals in the privacy of their homes is tolerated. Spaniards of all political colorations scoff at the puritan streak in American politics that made the Monica Lewinsky affair such a big deal."
Of course, Bill Clinton wasn't impeached for having an affair, but for lying under oath. America's "puritan streak" notwithstanding, a president committing perjury is actually a pretty "big deal."
For the rest of Sciolino from Spain, click here.
• Bill Clinton | Monica Lewinsky | Elaine Sciolino | Spain | Zapatero
The Times Magazine Style & Entertaining runs a 1920's-themed photo spread featuring shots of Russian-born model Natalia Vodianova and words by the editor of the special issue, William Norwich.
Though Norwich's prose is somewhat less lovely, his politics are definitely in Manhattan vogue (or do we mean Vogue?): "In the 1920's, conservatives were worried about everything from Bolsheviks to bobbed hair to barelegged rebels destroying the polite social order. In the year 2004, conservatives are still getting their knickers in a twist over rebels and body parts. Only yesterday they were prohibiting alcohol. Today's Prohibition would censor whom you can love, honor and obey--and don't even think of smoking a cigarette afterward. Having fun is starting to look a lot like civil disobedience. And the smoking ban in New York restaurants and clubs has provided a boon for private entertaining. So it seems only logical--well, at least from a fashion point of view--that parties with a 20's theme have become the rage."
For the rest of Norwich's words (without compensating photos), click here.
• Fashion | Gay Marriage | William Norwich
Bumiller Hits Press Part in "Spectacular Selling" of Iraq War
Back on Dec. 3, White House reporter Elisabeth Bumiller was a guest of the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale and gave a talk, "Shock, Awe and Battle Fatigue: Covering the Bush White House," in which she lamented press compliance in Bush's "spectacular selling" of the war in Iraq.
Bumiller said the Bush administration has "unparalleled" political skills and that "it was these skills that helped them sell the American public on the war in Iraq...a spectacular selling job, of which I'm sorry to say the press played a part."
Bumiller also claimed: "I do think that this White House has been alarmingly successful at keeping the press at arm's length, and has set a troubling new standard for secrecy. I worry that there will be no going back, and that future White Houses, both Democratic and Republican, will look to this White House as a model for how to control the press."
• Elisabeth Bumiller | Iraq War
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org