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Times Watch for October 5, 2004

Taking the High (Tax) Road to Energy Efficiency

     A front-page Business Day story by Jad Mouawad shakes its head at America for being (according to the headline) a "Slow Learner on Energy-Efficiency Front."

     Mouawad's Tuesday story begins with liberal-sounding snark: "The United States, land of gas-guzzling S.U.V.'s and air-conditioned McMansions, might do well to turn to the country some Americans love to hate for lessons on how to curb its reliance on imported oil: France."
Later Mouawad insists that federal speed limits are an example of America "taking the high road": "The contrast between French resolve and American abandon in recent years is sharp. The United States, too, took the high road in the 1970's and early 80's, when the combined impact of the 1973 oil embargo, the growing power of OPEC and the Iranian revolution of 1979 created long gas lines and raised the prospect of an oil producers' stranglehold over the American economy. The price of Arabian light crude rose from $1.85 a barrel in 1972 to $40 in 1981, or $80 in today's dollars. Americans responded with a nationwide speed limit of 55 miles an hour, a home-insulating boom and a blossoming of energy-technology start-ups to help businesses cut their energy bills."

     Mouawad's "high road" seems to mean high taxes as well. Mouawad talks to unlabeled liberal "experts" who advocate them: "But with oil now at $50 a barrel, double what it was two years ago, and with many analysts expecting substantially higher energy prices in the next decade than during the 1990's, some experts are saying that both government and industry are going to need to do some fundamental rethinking of some basic policies. 'The lack of emphasis on demand in the past 20 years in the United States has a lot to do with the predicament we're in now,' said Ashok Gupta, an economist with the National Resources Defense Council. 'We need to look at what it will take to get manufacturers to offer technologies that people want.' One obvious step, which politicians are loath to even mention, would be to increase taxes on gasoline. Here again, the divergence between the United States and Europe is instructive. To encourage the use of mass-transit systems, and finance their development, European governments impose generally high taxes on gasoline. French drivers pay over $5 a gallon for gasoline, $3.75 of that in taxes, compared with $1.90 a gallon on average in the United States, with only 41 cents of that going to taxes."

For the rest of Mouawad on "wasteful" U.S. energy practices, click here.

• Energy | France | Gas Prices | Jad Mouawad | Taxes

"Standing Ovations" for Kerry on Stem Cells

     The Times again hypes the promise of stem-cell research in Tuesday's campaign story from Jodi Wilgoren, "Kerry Takes on Bush Over Stance on Stem-Cell Research."

     With Kerry in Philadelphia, Wilgoren writes: "Scientists say that embryonic stem cells hold great hope for medical treatments. But many conservatives and opponents of abortion criticize such research because it involves the destruction of human embryos. To balance the two views, in August 2001 Mr. Bush allowed federal financing for such research but only on colonies of stem cells already in existence when the policy was announced. Polls show that strong majorities of the public favor an expansion of stem-cell research, and Mr. Kerry is routinely asked about it -- and wins standing ovations for his answers. He has promised to lift the restrictions and more than triple the federal financing for the studies to more than $100 million annually. His campaign also began running a television advertisement on the same theme."

     Wilgoren helpfully points out how Democrats are trying to exploit anti-Republican stereotypes: "Democrats say the issue is powerful because it has the potential to touch so many people directly. Mr. Kerry cited estimates from research advocacy groups that 100 million Americans have diseases, including heart ailments and cancer, that could someday be helped by stem-cell research. Democrats are also using the issue as a symbol of what they call Mr. Bush's rigidity and right-wing roots."

For the rest of Wilgoren on Kerry, click here.

• George W. Bush | Campaign 2004 | Health | Sen. John Kerry | Stem Cells | Jodi Wilgoren

"Valuable Historical Perspective" From a Far-Left Paranoid

     A Sunday Book Review by staff editor and writer Neil Genzlinger (in the Times' new-look Sunday Book Review) chronicles some recent humor books and praises cartoonist/far-left conspiracy fan Ted Rall, who once penned an op-ed on the possibility that Sen. Paul Wellstone, who died in a plane crash, was in fact assassinated by the Bush administration.

     Genzlinger's brief review of Rall's ''Generalissimo el Busho: Essays & Cartoons on the Bush Years" claims that the book achieves "some valuable historical perspective."

     Genzlinger describes the book: "There's nothing really humorous here; the satire mixed into Rall's screeds is far too bitter for that. In a piece from October 2002, he calls the military mission in Afghanistan 'Operation Enduring Failure.' In another 2002 piece, he refers to the Bush administration as a 'circus of hypocrites.' The best part of the volume, though, is its earliest material, centered on the 2000 election. Rall, unlike practically everyone else, allowed the president no honeymoon. He labeled the election stolen early and often. The resolution of the whole mess was far too casual for his taste; there was, he felt, too much at stake. Given all that has happened since, it appears he was right."

For Neil Genzlinger's full humor rundown, click here.

• Books | George W. Bush | Campaign 2000 | Neil Genzlinger | Ted Rall

Poor Palestinians on Anniversary of Intifada

     Steven Erlanger marks the fourth anniversary of the Palestinian terror campaign against Israel with "Intifada's Legacy at Year 4: A Morass of Faded Hopes," fretting that the hopes of the Palestinians have been shattered.

     Erlanger takes his time bringing up terror: "In the four years since this intifada, or uprising, began, after the collapse of peace talks led by President Bill Clinton, Palestinian hopes for statehood, democracy and prosperity have deteriorated. The lives of ordinary Palestinians have suffered. The Palestinian Authority has fragmented, losing much of its ability to provide law and order and allowing more extreme groups to increase their autonomy and popular support. What began as a popular uprising quickly became a low-intensity war, one that many Palestinians say they cannot win and that has caused most Israelis, according to opinion polls, to lose faith in the Palestinians as partners for peace. One result was the election of the hawk Ariel Sharon as the Israeli prime minister, and Israelis have put security before any other virtue, building walls to cut Israel off from suicide bombers and ordinary Palestinians, dividing up the West Bank, into supposedly temporary zones of security and more permanent zones of settlement, and acting unilaterally, judging that a peace settlement was impossible with the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat."

     Erlanger finally gets to the death toll in the tenth paragraph, but even then it's painted in shades of Timesian moral equivalence: "Among the more than 3,000 dead, more than three Palestinians die for every Israeli, and among the Palestinian dead, though figures are hard to come by, easily more than half are civilians."

     (If the figures are hard to come by, how can Erlanger know that "easily more than half are civilians"?)

     He notes: "About a fifth of the Palestinian dead, including combatants, are under 18 years of age. At least two-thirds of the Israeli dead are civilians, singled out by suicide bombers."

     Erlanger claims Israel's standing as the region's only democracy is under siege and concludes with a viewpoint from a "respected" analyst who puts the blame on Israel: "But there has been a significant cost for Israel, too, in lives and dollars, in international criticism and to its standing as the Middle East's only real democracy, as it occupies land and operates checkpoints that often prevent Palestinian cancer sufferers, for example, from traveling to Israel for treatment. This is 'a war without winners,' wrote the respected military analyst Zeev Schiff in Haaretz. 'In the diplomatic realm, Israel has suffered severe defeats.' Even worse, Mr. Schiff said, Israel has failed to stop 'the motivation that spurs so many Palestinians to enlist for violent actions,' including an increasing number of Israeli Arabs. 'Israel has failed to convince the general Palestinian public that it is better not to be involved in violence.'"
An accompanying sidebar chart breaks out the killings of Israelis into "civilians" and "security forces" without justification, as if sectoring them off into separate levels of victimhood.

For the rest of Erlanger on the intifada, click here.

• Steven Erlanger | Intifada | Israel | Palestinians | Terrorism

2nd Amendment Right to "Nail Bambi with an AK-47"

     More snotty Times commentary on guns in the Week in Review section, courtesy of a signed editorial by board member Dorothy Samuels regarding a liberal defeat on trigger locks: "In between reinstating every hunter's sacred Second Amendment right to nail Bambi with an AK-47, and mischievously meddling in local affairs to pass a one-chamber bill to weaken public safety in the nation's capital, the National Rifle Association and its busy-beaver allies quietly scored another legislative coup -- this one without even trying."

For the rest of Samuels on the "gun lobby," click here.

• Editorials | Gun Control | Dorothy Samuels

Sharpton's "Party for the People"

     There's a gushing profile of a fundraiser by race-baiter Al Sharpton in Monday's Metro section by Jennifer Medina, "Fund-Raising Ices the Cake For Sharpton."

     The story reads like a jaunty press release: "There was no cover, minimum donation or official status necessary for a ticket to the fund-raiser at the Apollo Theater yesterday. Sure, there were a few dignitaries, celebrities and high-powered corporate types, but this was the Rev. Al Sharpton's 50th birthday party. In his words, this was for the people….As the faithful followers waited in line outside the theater yesterday, they were just effusive as those who would appear onstage. 'Al Sharpton is fighting for us, and no one else is,' said Frank Rodriguez of Bushwick, Brooklyn, who says he is part of 'Al's Army.' 'When this man needs backup, we have to be there for him.'"

     She then calls Sharpton, who has a history of racially inflammatory statements, the leader of a civil rights group (a label the paper is distressingly eager to use employ): "At least 1,300 people packed the Apollo for the party, which was free to the public. Mr. Rodriguez was among dozens of people who gathered before the party outside the headquarters of the National Action Network, the civil rights group Mr. Sharpton created. The headquarters, called the House of Justice, was gutted in a fire last January. Yesterday, Mr. Sharpton also celebrated the re-opening of the building, at 125th Street and Madison Avenue. Just as he does many weeks during his Saturday morning speeches, Mr. Sharpton yesterday played the parts of preacher, politician and comedian, sometimes all at once."

For the rest of the Sharpton profile, click here.

• Labeling Bias | Jennifer Medina | Al Sharpton

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