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Times Watch for
April 5, 2004
The
Times Still an Anti-Condi Conduit
Douglas Jehl and David Sanger hold National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice up to a level of scrutiny that the anti-Bush Richard Clarke managed to avoid.
Jehl and Sanger write for Monday's front page: "Condoleezza Rice was, perhaps, in the best position to galvanize the government to prevent terrorist attacks before Sept. 11, 2001. As national security adviser she sat at the nexus of the intelligence, foreign policy, defense and law enforcement agencies who shared responsibility for counterterrorism. That is why, as the White House scrambles to defend against charges that President Bush and his advisers paid too little heed before Sept. 11 to potential for terror attacks on American soil, Ms. Rice finds herself at the center of the storm….Her task seemed to become even more difficult on Sunday, when the leaders of the commission said that it was likely to conclude that the Sept. 11 attacks were preventable."
But Times hero Richard Clarke had this to say about whether the WTC attacks were preventable, in a revealing (and mostly ignored) excerpt from his testimony before the 9-11 commission:
Commissioner Slade Gorton: "Now, since my yellow light is on, at this point my final question will be this: Assuming that the recommendations that you made on January 25th of 2001, based on Delenda, based on Blue Sky, including aid to the Northern Alliance, which had been an agenda item at this point for two and a half years without any action, assuming that there had been more Predator reconnaissance missions, assuming that that had all been adopted say on January 26th, year 2001, is there the remotest chance that it would have prevented 9/11?"
Clarke: "No."
The effort by Jehl and Sanger to pin the blame on Rice also fails to put in context what the leaders of the commission actually said Sunday. Below are excerpts via Nexis from Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton's appearance on the April 4 "Meet the Press," hosted by Tim Russert:
Russert: "Governor, you also said this in December: 'I do not believe it had to happen.' Why? Why do you believe that?"
Former New Jersey Governor Tom Kean: "Well, I got some criticism for that at the time, but what we've found now in the commission has not changed our belief. Because there were so many threads and so many things, individual things that happened, and if some of those things hadn't happened the way they happened--for instance, if we had been a little earlier in what we found out about Moussaoui….If we had been able to put those people on the watch list for the airlines, the two who were in this country; again, if we'd stopped some of these people at the borders, if we had acted earlier on al-Qaeda when al-Qaeda was smaller and just getting started even before bin Laden went to Afghanistan, there were times we could have gotten him, there's no question. Had we gotten him and his leadership at that point, the whole story might have been different."
Russert: "Congressman, you think September 11th could have been prevented?"
Lee Hamilton: "Well, there's a lot of ifs. You can string together a whole bunch of ifs. And if things had broken right in all kinds of different ways, as the governor has identified, and many more, and, frankly, if you'd had a little luck, it probably could have been prevented. But we'll make a final judgment on that, I believe, when the commission reports."
Note that, despite the inference in Jehl and Sanger's story, Kean doesn't actually pin specific blame on Rice or the Bush administration. In fact Kean's regrets go back much further, back to "when al-Qaeda was smaller and just getting started even before bin Laden went to Afghanistan." That happened in May 1996--when Bill Clinton was president.
For the full story from Jehl and Sanger on Rice, click here.
• Richard Clarke | Douglas Jehl | Condoleezza Rice | David Sanger | Terrorism
"Passion" Corrected With Help From
"Tolerant" Calvin Butts
"Dispassionate Documentaries Seek Truth of Jesus" is TV critic Alessandra Stanley's review tonight's ABC documentary "Jesus and Paul," hosted by Peter Jennings. She sees it as a welcome corrective to the alleged unfair portrayal of Jews in "The Passion of Christ." (Even the headline can be read as a play on words against Gibson's movie.)
"Jesus and Paul" is one of several upcoming network documentaries on the life of Jesus, all of which, Stanley notes approvingly, "set the record straight" against "The Passion": "Mostly, the programs consult rabbis, Catholic priests, Protestant ministers, historians, archaeologists, even geologists, to refute, elliptically, conclusions that could be drawn from Mr. Gibson's graphic depiction of Jewish responsibility for the Crucifixion."
Later on, Stanley writes: "But for the most part 'Jesus and Paul' is sober-minded and thorough, a full-court effort to rebut the harshest, narrowest interpretations of the Bible with the more tolerant views of mainstream scholars and religious leaders like the Rev. Calvin O. Butts III, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York."
Butts is an odd choice to single out for "tolerance," given what the left-wing minister said about Republicans in the Contract With America days of 1995: "Yes Bob Dole, Phil Gramm, you are the enemy. Yes Clarence Thomas, you poor confused fellow, you are the enemy, and we are determined to turn you around, and if we don't, you are leading our country to a racial confrontation that we will all be the poorer for."
For the rest of Stanley's review, click here.
• Mel Gibson | "The Passion" | Religion | Alessandra Stanley
Conservatives and the Conservative Conservatives
Who Support Them
Democrat
optimist James Dao's Saturday story, "Conservative Takes on Moderate G.O.P. Senator in Pennsylvania," is notable for containing 17 occurrences of the word "conservative" as a descriptive term in a 1,250-word story (not including two in the headline and photo caption).
Dao also insists moderate Republicans (a group in which he includes Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter) are a dying breed: "…while a Specter defeat would be a momentous event in Pennsylvania politics, the race is capturing national attention for another reason. Mr. Specter, 74, is the elder statesman of a dwindling band of centrist Republicans in Congress. In taking him on, [Patrick] Toomey, 42, and his conservative backers are hoping to send a message to all Republican moderates: turn right or face costly challenges."
For the rest of Dao on the Republican primary pitting Specter and Toomey, click here.
• Campaign 2004 | Labeling Bias | Pennsylvania | Sen. Arlen Specter | Rep. Patrick Toomey
Liberal Spin on "Spin Sisters"
A review of Myrna Blyth's "Spin Sisters" by Arts & Leisure contributor Emily Nussbaum for the Sunday Book Review is dismissively titled: "Biting the Hand--A women's magazine editor discovers the evil of women in media." The review itself advances Blyth's point about the liberalism of the mainstream media.
Nussbaum comes armed for bear against Blyth, the former editor of Ladies’ Home Journal whose book is about liberal bias in women’s magazines: "Note to expectant mothers: don't invite Myrna Blyth to your baby shower. That's the mistake Hillary Clinton made when she welcomed her to her former press secretary's happy event--little suspecting that her guest, a venerable women's magazine editor, was scribbling notes, preparing to portray the party as a vast left-wing conspiracy with onesies….Indeed, instead of mounting a meaningful argument, Blyth seems more interested in slams and stereotypes, precisely what she denounces among the magazines she criticizes."
Then Nussbaum levels on Blyth the gravest insult in the liberal lexicon: She's just like Linda Tripp! "If her intent was a distaff variation on Bernard Goldberg's 'Bias,' the result reads more like an analogue to 'The Devil Wears Prada,' delivered not by a disgruntled underling but by a Linda Trippian fake friend--a whopping chomp on the manicured hand that fed her, and not nearly as much fun as that sounds….There's plenty to be said about the various forces that have shaped these changes. But rather than wrestle with the complexities, Blyth prefers to blame her favorite ideological boogeyman: liberalism. Or rather, liberal feminism, as embodied in the shiny form of Katie Couric and company. According to Blyth, liberalism can be blamed for everything from celebrity puff pieces to Atkins overload."
Notice how Nussbaum doesn't wrestle with any of Blyth's actual arguments but simply mocks Blyth for making them.
She continues: "These ad feminam attacks finally blunt Blyth's ability to make any kind of analysis beyond a phony populism, a cloying 'just us gals' talk-radio rhetoric. This should at least guarantee sales: as Blyth knows all too well, nothing gets more attention than a good catfight. These evil spin sisters are not like you, Blyth writes again and again: they've got nannies and Pilates and pricey haircuts. One might call it class warfare, if it weren't coming from the right."
For the rest of Nussbaum's review of "Spin Sisters," click here.
• Myrna Blyth | Books | Media Bias | Emily Nussbaum | "Spin Sisters"
"Fears Remain" Despite Job Numbers
At the Times, behind every silver lining lies a dark cloud for Republican election prospects. Saturday's Business section carries this headline to a story by Robin Toner and Edmund Andrews, acknowledging extremely strong job growth of over 300,000 last month, "Numbers a Relief To Republicans, But Fears Remain."
For the rest of the jobs story, click here.
• George W. Bush | Campaign 2004 | Economy | Headlines
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org