Nazi-Style Suppression: “Could It Happen Here?”

“In a climate of national debate in the United States about the overriding of certain civil liberties to fight terrorism, the movie looks back on a worst possible scenario in which such liberties were taken away. It raises an unspoken question: could it happen here?”
-- Movie critic Stephen Holden in a review of the movie “Sophie Scholl,” February 17.

The Connection Revealed

“Iraqi insurgents, hurricanes and low-income Medicare recipients have three things in common. Each has been at the center of a policy disaster.”
 – Columnist Paul Krugman, March 3.

So, What Will Sink Republican Chances This Month?

“The port deal has exploded out of nowhere to become a major bone of contention in an election year that had not lacked driving issues. It is not clear what kind of staying power the deal has as an issue, but for now Republicans have little choice but to acknowledge the objections they are hearing from voters, distancing themselves from Mr. Bush on national security heading toward the midterm elections.”
 – Carl Hulse and Scott Shane, March 2.

Hamas Terrorist, Family Man

“On Sunday, Mahmoud Youssef Barghouti came home to a different kind of reception. His family and friends traveled to a rainy checkpoint to greet him, pale and bearded in new black jeans and silvery running shoes, which he tried to protect from the mud. His daughter, Hanin, 12, was in tears, burying her face in his waist; he lifted his son Basel, 5, a serious boy in a crew cut who stared around him. He hugged his wife, Fadia, brushing his lips along the embroidered brown scarf that covered her hair. Mr. Barghouti, 39, an active member of Hamas, was released at 5:30 a.m. from Ketziot prison, a collection of tents in the Negev, after 14 months of administrative detention by Israel, held without charges.”
 – Steven Erlanger’s story on the release of a Hamas member from Israeli custody, March 1.

We Can’t Have Political Bias in the Paper, Can We?

“But he shed that [shallow] image as publisher as he set about remaking what was then a provincial, lightly regarded daily. Almost immediately he angered family members and local Republicans by shifting the paper from its right-wing bias to a more centrist outlook.”
 – Obituary on the death of L.A. Times publisher Otis Chandler, February 28.

Socialism Failed, but At Least It Pretended to Care

“‘Splurge. Because you can now,’ ran a headline in The Hindustan Times, an English-language daily that sponsored a show of Indian and global luxury brands earlier this year That headline hinted at another conspicuous change in attitude from the days of socialism: an impatience among the Indian haves with being reminded of the have-nots in their midst. ‘There's an indifference now,’ was the verdict of Yogendra Yadav, an analyst with the Center for the Study of Developing Societies in Delhi.”
 – Somini Sengupta reporting from New Delhi, February 26.

Taking Republican “Corruption” for Granted

“With Republicans on the defensive over corruption, the A.F.L.-C.I.O's leaders said on Monday that there was a strong chance in this fall's elections to oust what they said were antiworker majorities in the House and Senate.”
 – Lead sentence to Stephen Greenhouse’s article on union electoral strategy in 2006, February 28.

Fred Barnes’ “Ridiculous” Pro-Bush Book

 “Not only does [conservative author Fred] Barnes fail to make a persuasive case for the virtues of Mr. Bush's go-it-alone management style, but his narrative is also so replete with blinkered predictions, ridiculous generalizations and absurdly rosy pronouncements as to undermine any trust whatsoever in the author.”
 – Book critic Michiko Kakutani on Barnes’ new biography of President Bush, February 21.

Still Missing Chinese Communism

“Most of the people in this job, which was created by Shanghai three years ago, are in their late 40's or into their 50's, the country's so-called lost generation -- casualties of China's sharp change of course from a Communist economy composed of state enterprises that provided lifetime employment to freewheeling capitalism, where layoffs and corporate restructuring are the rule, and people without higher degrees in sought-after fields are the first to go.”
 – Howard French in Shanghai, February 20.

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