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Times Watch for August 25, 2004

Rummy Trouble on "Eve" of Republican Convention?

     Wednesday's front-page story by Douglas Jehl, "A Trail Leads To Rumsfeld--On Eve of Convention, Office Becomes Target," makes a strained attempt to make the just-released Abu Ghraib report a political problem for Bush on the "eve of the convention." (It's actually still five days away.)

     Jehl brings up the R-word within the first half-sentence: "For Donald H. Rumsfeld to resign over the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib would be a mistake, the four-member panel headed by James M. Schlesinger asserted Tuesday. But in tracing responsibility for what went wrong at Abu Ghraib, it drew a line that extended to the defense secretary's office. The panel cited what it called major failures on the part of Mr. Rumsfeld and his aides in not anticipating and responding swiftly to the post-invasion insurgency in Iraq. On the eve of the Republican convention, that verdict could not have been welcome at the White House, where postwar problems in Iraq represent perhaps President Bush's greatest political liability. The report rarely mentions Mr. Rumsfeld by name, referring most often instead to the 'office of the secretary of defense.' But as a sharp criticism of postwar planning for Iraq, it represents the most explicit official indictment to date of an operation that was very much the province of Mr. Rumsfeld and his top deputies."

For the rest of Jehl on Rumsfeld and Abu Ghraib, click here.

• Abu Ghraib | Campaign 2004 | Iraq War | Douglas Jehl | Republican Convention | Donald Rumsfeld

Only "Republican Efforts" to Put Gay Marriage on the Map?

     Robin Toner stakes a claim to Wednesday's front page with "Cheney Stakes Out His Own Position On Gay Marriages," characterizing the vice president's frank remarks from a campaign stop in Iowa: "In a political season marked by Republican efforts to outlaw gay marriage, Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday offered a defense of the rights of gay Americans, declaring that 'freedom means freedom for everyone' to enter 'into any kind of relationship they want to.' Mr. Cheney said the issue was what kind of government recognition to give those relationships, and indicated that he preferred to let the states define what constitutes a marriage. In contrast, President Bush has argued that a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage is essential. Mr. Cheney noted that Mr. Bush sets policy for the administration."

     Of course, the phrase "outlaw gay marriage" implies the Bush administration is trying to change current law, when in fact it's just defending the status quo. In addition, it wasn't the Republicans who injected the gay marriage into the political debate in the first place but gay activists (and activist judges) in Massachusetts.

For the rest of Toner on Cheney's comments, click here.

• Campaign 2004 | Dick Cheney | Gay Rights | Robin Toner

More Guilt by Association for Swifties

     An A1 story Wednesday carries a breathless headline to a story revealing that a top outside lawyer to the Bush campaign previously gave some legal advice to the Swift Boat Vets: "Veterans' Group Had G.O.P. Lawyer--Bush Camp Adviser Aided Anti-Kerry Effort."

     The story by Jim Rutenberg and Kate Zernike makes the usual attempt of guilt by association against the Swift Boat Veterans: "Mr. Bush's campaign aides have repeatedly said they have no connection to the group, almost all of whose challenges to Mr. Kerry and his war record have been contradicted by official war records and even some of its members' own past statements….Yesterday, the chairman of the Federal Election Commission defended the group's right to advertise. But it has gradually acknowledged ties to people close to the Republican Party and Mr. Bush's campaign."

     Rutenberg and Zernike do let the lawyer, Benjamin Ginsberg, point out the Democrats have their own ties: "The campaign of Senator John Kerry shares a lawyer, Robert Bauer, with America Coming Together, a liberal group that is organizing a huge multimillion-dollar get-out-the-vote drive that is far more ambitious than the Swift boat group's activities. Mr. Ginsberg said his role was no different from Mr. Bauer's."

     In the 13th paragraph the Times finally points out: "Mr. Ginsberg had been at the forefront of pressing the legal case against Democratic 527's, which have spent more than $60 million on advertisements against Mr. Bush."

     That dwarves the approximately $1.5 million spent by the Swift Boat Veterans.

For the rest of Rutenberg and Zernike on the Swift Boat story, click here.

• Campaign 2004 | Benjamin Ginsberg | Jim Rutenberg | Swift Boat Veterans | Kate Zernike

Harping on Overseas Unpopularity of Guantanamo

     Here's an excerpt from Wednesday's story by Neil Lewis on the war crimes cases now opening at Guantanamo in Cuba: "The facility at Guantánamo, which now houses about 585 prisoners, has been widely viewed by foreign governments and human rights organizations as a symbol of Washington's willingness to flout international law. While many inmates have been released, most of those here have been held for more than two years without any charges being filed."

     And here's one from Sunday's story by Lewis on the same topic: "United States officials are keenly aware that Guantánamo, which has served as a prison for as many as 800 detainees captured at the end of the Afghanistan war, has become in many parts of the world a symbol of American high-handedness and unwillingness to acknowledge international law."

• Al Qaeda | Guantanamo Bay | Neil Lewis | Terrorism

Gunning for the Swift Vets

     Jodi Wilgoren follows Kerry to Manhattan on Wednesday for "In New York Before His Rival, Kerry Rouses Friends and Rips Into Foes."

     Wilgoren again unleashes loaded terms ("unsubstantiated," "Republican-financed") to characterize the Swifties: "Coming as Republicans prepare to renominate President Bush two miles away at Madison Square Garden, and after a week in which the presidential campaign has been consumed by unsubstantiated charges about Mr. Kerry's military record in Vietnam, the 31-minute speech tried to reframe the race as backward-looking, negative partisanship versus optimistic visions of the nation's future….Though Mr. Kerry's long-planned speech was billed as an issue-based blueprint for the campaign's remaining 10 weeks, it was laced with language invoking the controversy spurred by a Republican-financed group of Vietnam veterans vilifying Mr. Kerry in television advertisements and a book."

     Wilgoren later argues that Kerry might be able to spin the charges into a winning issue: "Initially, some Democrats expressed concern that Mr. Kerry was too slow to respond to the charges of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, allowing them to eat away at his Vietnam history, which he has used as a cornerstone of his case for becoming commander in chief. But he and his aides now seem to be embracing the contretemps, with advisers arguing that any mention of his Vietnam record is helpful and that they will be able to use the Swift boat group to tar the Bush campaign with a dirty-politics label. The group has extensive ties to Texas Republicans. The White House has denied any connections."

     "Unsubstantiated" is a term of art used by Times reporters to cast doubt on the Swift Boat Veterans. While a Nexis search indicates the term was never used to characterize assertions by liberals attacking Bush's National Guard service, the Times has already used it in three stories to characterize the charges made by the Swift Boat Veterans.

For the rest of Wilgoren on the Kerry trail, click here.

• Campaign 2004 | Sen. John Kerry | Swift Boat Veterans | Jodi Wilgoren

A Sportswriter's Stretching Exercises In Support of Title IX

     Selena Roberts' Tuesday sports column on the Olympic triumphs of the U.S. women's soccer team, "U.S. Team's '91ers Get One More Kickaround," get more kicks in about Title IX, furthering the idea that the federal law had something to do with the women's soccer team's World Cup championship in 1991.

     Roberts writes: "The group of Chastain, Foudy, Mia Hamm, Joy Fawcett and Kristine Lilly--a k a the '91ers, to mark their starting date as World Cup pioneers for the United States national team--will have one more final for old time's sake….Squeezed together in the stands, the children were among the 90,189 fans who had traveled by minivan and limo, by plane and motorcade to see the offspring of Title IX play for the women's World Cup championship."

     It's only Roberts' latest hosanna to Title IX, the 1972 federal law that mandated parity in funding for school-based male and female sports, but which has since been loosely interpreted to essentially mandate equal rates of athletic participation for male and female students, regardless of actual interest levels. Now Roberts is using the U.S. soccer team as props for the cause.

     But it's a bit of a stretch to call the 1991 women's soccer champs "the offspring of Title IX." Title IX, which was passed in 1972, wasn't federally enforced until 1979. And as Fred Barnes pointed out in the Weekly Standard in 1999, girls' soccer made gains in the 1970s and early '80s through private associations, not public school teams.

For the full column on women's soccer, click here.

• Olympics | Selena Roberts | Soccer | Title IX

E-mail TimesWatch Director, Clay Waters, with TimesWatch feedback at cwaters@mediaresearch.org