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Times Watch for
April 8, 2004
Times Ignores Kerry Strange Comment on al-Sadr
Adam Nagourney and Carl Hulse team up Thursday for "Battles in Iraq Bring Problems for Bush And Kerry as Well." Despite the uncommonly balanced headline, the story itself omits Kerry's recent head-scratching comment about Iraq, concentrating instead on anecdotal signs of slippage in Bush's support among conservatives: "But in an unwelcome development for the White House, even some right-leaning commentators and political leaders appeared uncomfortable with Mr. Bush's Iraq policy." Nagourney and Hulse quote Bill O'Reilly, Newt Gingrich and for some reason Pat Buchanan (who never supported the war in the first place).
They go on to say: "Mr. Kerry urged Mr. Bush to abandon his vow to transfer power to a provisional government on July 1, charging that Mr. Bush was acting more out of concern with the domestic election calendar than in an orderly transition of power in Iraq. 'I think the June 30 deadline is a fiction and they never should have set an arbitrary deadline, which almost clearly has been affected by the election schedule in the United States of America,' he said in a National Public Radio broadcast."
But the Times ignores comments Kerry made in that very same broadcast concerning the shutdown of an anti-U.S. newspaper put out by followers of radical Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a group targeting Allied troops.
The Washington Times quotes Kerry: "It's interesting to hear that when they shut a newspaper that belongs to a legitimate voice in Iraq and, well, let me change the term 'legitimate.' When they shut a newspaper that belongs to a voice, because [al-Sadr] has clearly taken on a far more radical tone in recent days and aligned himself with both Hamas and Hezbollah, which is a sort of terrorist alignment."
Does Kerry really consider al-Sadr a "legitimate voice" in Iraq? That would be an interesting follow-up to pose to Kerry, one would think.
Instead, as Hugh Hewitt notes: "Rather than treat the readers of the world's most influential newspaper to Kerry's strange commentary on al-Sadr, the reporters actually bother to devote two paragraphs to quoting a Pat Buchanan column, as well as take-aways from Bill O'Reilly and Newt Gingrich. Did the editors take a day off? John Kerry is the Democratic nominee and he is mouthing inanities on the most pressing issue of the day, and the New York Times isn't mentioning the key excerpts much less quoting them at length?"
For the rest of Hulse and Nagourney on Kerry, click here.
"John Kerry, Fiscal Conservative"
Katharine Seelye on Thursday sums up a couple of John Kerry's recent speeches on the economy and concludes Kerry's a fiscal conservative: "Together, the two speeches--and Mr. Kerry's long record of voting in favor of deficit-control packages--place him in the mainstream of Democratic Party orthodoxy and align him with conservatives who say Mr. Bush has allowed the deficit to spin out of control."
A Times editorial headline Thursday goes even further: "John Kerry, Fiscal Conservative." April Fools' Day was last week, guys.
For Seelye's story, click here.
For the editorial, click here.
As St. Johnsbury Goes…So Goes St. Johnsbury
With the recent surge of fighting and fatalities in Iraq, it's hardly surprising some Americans are feeling less confident about the war's progress. The Times pounces with a timely compendium of man-on-the-street interviews about how people feel about Bush's handling of the war: "As Violence Escalates, Some Changes of Heart on War."
Pam Belluck's Thursday story notes: "Some people who had supported the war from the outset said they now felt it was a bad decision or they had serious questions about the way it was being conducted."
After a roll-call of former citizen-war supporters having doubts, Belluck then weirdly concludes with the results of an online poll from a small Vermont newspaper to cement the impression that Bush's war conduct is unpopular: "The anxiety of many Americans was captured well this week in an online poll by The Caledonian-Record newspaper of St. Johnsbury, Vt. [Ed. Note: population 7,500): "The newspaper has been asking visitors to its Web site what the United States should be doing in Iraq, in light of the Falluja atrocities. As of Wednesday evening, 369 people had voted 'get tough,' 190 had voted 'get out.' Only 59 people cast a vote for 'stay the course.'"
Online polls are of course notoriously unreliable, making it odd the Times would end a news story by citing one. The next question: Would the paper have done the same if the results had been more favorable to Bush policy?
For the rest of Pam Belluck's story, click here.
• Pam Belluck | George W. Bush | Iraq War | Polls
In a huge March 19 editorial marking the one-year anniversary of the Iraq war, the Times claimed the "administration…seemed to believe its own talk about American soldiers' being greeted with flowers as an army of liberation."
If the administration doesn't believe its own talk, perhaps it can trust the Times' reporting. On Tuesday, the Times itself admits soldiers were greeted with flowers. Reporter Christine Hauser then uses that initial welcome as a contrast to the hostility the soldiers face today: "Almost a year ago, the Shiites of Sadr City were throwing flowers at American tanks that rumbled into Baghdad ending the rule of their longtime oppressor, Saddam Hussein. But on Monday, many Iraqis were filling plain wooden coffins with the bodies of their kin and neighbors, killed in a firefight with American armored forces that now patrol their impoverished neighborhood."
For the rest of Hauser's report on the new violence in Iraq, click here.
• Editorial | Gaffes | Christine Hauser | Iraq War
E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org