Spreading Left-Wing Cynicism About Ukraine's "Orange Revolution"
 

     Given the Times' constant fretting over the fairness of elections (particularly ones that return George W. Bush to office), one would think the paper would laud a victory for free and fair elections in Ukraine in the face of government repression in that country. But reporter Joel Brinkley on Tuesday gives publicity to skeptics of Ukraine's ongoing "Orange Revolution," a popular uprising which has already resulted in a presidential vote being invalidated on account of government fraud.

     Brinkley's story, "Dollars for Democracy?: U.S. Aid to Ukraine Challenged," recounts arguments reminiscent of recent stories in the left-wing Nation magazine and the U.K Guardian newspaper. The story's cut-out line emphasizes Brinkley's cynicism: "Critics of political training programs fear they are partisan."

     He begins: "Russian leaders, many Ukrainians and even some members of Congress are asking whether the $58 million the United States spent to promote democracy in Ukraine over the past two years was actually intended to oust the government there. The Bush administration insists that its effort to influence the conduct of the Ukrainian election is nonpartisan. Government officials say the political training programs Washington has sponsored in Ukraine are no different from those in a dozen other countries in recent years. But teaching the principles of democracy to citizens in a semi-authoritarian system may, on its face, work to empower the government's opponents."

     How many "members of Congress" is Brinkley talking about? Well, two: one extremely liberal Democrat pushing an anti-U.S. conspiracy theory, and one ultra-libertarian Republican with a purely non-interventionist view of foreign policy: "Representative Ron Paul, Republican of Texas, complained in a statement to the House International Relations Committee this month that the administration had 'sent U.S. taxpayer dollars into Ukraine to influence the outcome.'….Mr. Paul called for an investigation, as did Rep. Edolphus Towns, Democrat of New York, who said he believed that government contractors had helped instigate the popular uprising that began on election day."

     As Michael McFaul of the Hoover Institution notes in Tuesday's Washington Post: "Those who revere the sovereignty of the state above all else often do so to preserve autocracy, while those who champion the sovereignty of the people are the new progressives. In Ukraine, external actors who helped the people be heard were not violating the sovereignty of the Ukrainian people; they were defending it."

For the rest of Brinkley's story, click here:

Some Anti-Christmas Stories "More Legend Than Truth"
 

     "Does Christmas Need to Be Saved?", Kate Zernike's story on the ongoing Christmas controversies, soft-pedals the concerns of Christian conservatives while accusing one such group of "demonizing" the unlabeled ACLU.

     Zernike notes in her story for Sunday's Week in Review that "even many liberals say there is silliness in the way schools in particular try to avoid offending anyone. One school chorus in Chicago, for example, sang 'We Wish You a Swinging Holiday' instead of a 'Merry Christmas.'"

     But much of the article is devoted not to journalistically ferreting out examples of anti-Christmas animus, but to knocking down anti-Christmas "legends" allegedly fostered by conservatives.

     Zernike continues: "The Alliance Defense Fund's 'Christmas Project' radio ads demonize the American Civil Liberties Union, insisting 'It's O.K. to Say Merry Christmas.' (The A.C.L.U. says it never said it wasn't.) Rightmarch.com is urging those angry about what it calls the attack on Christmas to send money to 'help us spread the word of conservative activism from sea to shining sea.' Conservative leaders everywhere trade tales of outrage: Candy canes banned! A school won't allow red and green napkins! Many of these stories are more legend than truth. The A.C.L.U. defended the child in Massachusetts who wanted to distribute candy canes with a religious message. And what about that school in Kirkland, Wash., where a performance of 'A Christmas Carol' was canceled because of Tiny Tim's line, 'God Bless Us, Everyone'? Well, the superintendent said the performance was canceled because the group wanted to charge admission, against school policy. But no matter."

     While Zernike is comfortable slotting the Rutherford Institute, Bill O'Reilly, and the Alliance Defense Fund as on the "conservative" side, she never labels the liberal ACLU.

For the rest of Zernike, click here:

Mel Gibson's "Prurient…Wallow in the Crucifixion"
 

     Arts editor Frank Rich celebrates the season with another attack on "The Passion," writing in his Sunday column: "As we close the books on 2004, and not a moment too soon, it's clear that, as far as the culture goes, this year belonged to Mel Gibson's mammoth hit. Its prurient and interminable wallow in the Crucifixion, to the point where Jesus' actual teachings become mere passing footnotes to the sumptuously depicted mutilation of his flesh, is as representative of our time as 'Godspell' was of terminal-stage hippiedom 30 years ago."

     (Rich conveniently ignores his August 3, 2003 prediction that the movie would flop: "It's hard to imagine the movie being anything other than a flop in America, given that it has no major Hollywood stars and that its dialogue is in Aramaic and Latin.")

     He writes: "Yet if you watch the news and listen to certain politicians, especially since Election Day, you'll hear an ever-growing drumbeat that Christianity is under siege in America. Like Mr. Gibson, the international movie star who portrayed himself as a powerless martyr to a shadowy anti-Christian conspiracy in the run-up to the release of 'The Passion,' his fellow travelers on the right detect a sinister plot -- of secularists, 'secular Jews' and 'elites' -- out to destroy the religion followed by more than four out of every five Americans. In the latest and most bizarre twist on this theme, even Christmas is now said to be a target of the anti-Christian mob….The only evidence of what Pat Buchanan has called Christmas-season 'hate crimes against Christianity' consists of a few ridiculous and isolated incidents, like the banishment of a religious float from a parade in Denver and of religious songs from a high school band concert in New Jersey. (In scale, this is nothing compared with the refusal of the world's largest retailer, Wal- Mart, to stock George Carlin's new best seller, 'When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?,' whose cover depicts its author at the Last Supper.) Yet the hysteria is being pumped up daily by Fox News, newspapers like The New York Post and The Washington Times, and Web sites like savemerrychristmas.org."

     The situations aren't really parallel in the first place, and Rich fails to note that Wal-Mart is a private business, while the counterexamples are the results of government action -- not a trivial difference. And Rich is no slouch himself when it comes to trumping up "isolated incidents" into big scandals (i.e., squeezing a 1,500-word column out of NBC News' declaration that new anchor Brian Williams likes NASCAR).

For the rest of Rich's column, click here:

Bush Strategy "Failing" in Iraq?
 

     Bush's Monday morning press conference leads Tuesday's Times. The story from the White House team of David Sanger and Richard Stevenson opens: "President Bush acknowledged Monday that the United States had achieved only 'mixed' success in training Iraqi troops to secure the country, and said that it was 'unacceptable' that some Iraqi units had fled as soon as they faced hostile fire. With the first elections in Iraq six weeks away, Mr. Bush's public criticism of how the Iraqis had performed reflected mounting concern, voiced from the White House, the Pentagon and Capitol Hill, that the strategy for training 125,000 Iraqi forces to secure the country is failing."

     Sanger and Stevenson give Bush half-credit for admitting trouble in Iraq: "Taken together, Mr. Bush's comments amounted to his broadest acknowledgement yet that rebuilding Iraq's security forces, a central task in remaking Iraq, had run into severe difficulties -- problems he resisted discussing during his re-election campaign….Administration officials acknowledged that it was a measure of how bad things had become that an assassin photographed while killing three election workers on Sunday on a street in Baghdad did not even feel the need to cover his face."

For the full report from Sanger and Stevenson, click here: