Kakutani Dismisses Idea of Liberal Media Bias
 

     Chief book critic Michiko Kakutani takes on "Taking Heat," Ari Fleischer's memoirs of his days as White House press secretary Tuesday in a review titled "After Years of Taking Heat, Spokesman Takes Potshots."

     That headline neatly sums up the dismissive tone of Kakutani's piece, which ignores the debate that Fleischer's "tedious and tendentious" book raises about liberal bias in the press corps: "'Taking Heat' takes a lot of potshots at the press (including The New York Times), and it reads like the very embodiment of the administration's disciplined, corporate-style message control."

     She eventually returns to Fleischer's bias accusations, only to sidestep the issue: "Mr. Fleischer also stays on message when it comes to griping about the media, echoing other administration members' frequently repeated accusations that the press is guilty of negativity, liberal bias and an obsession with conflict. In presenting his complaints about the media, Mr. Fleischer is highly selective in his citation of examples, often ignoring facts that might undermine his thesis or underscore the flip side of his assertions. He cites a 1999 poll by the Pew Research Center showing that more than two-thirds of the national press corps thought the distinction between reporting and commentary had seriously eroded, and suggests that there is 'an ideological bias in the media' that reflects the opinions of the Democrats 'far more than the Republicans.'"

     Kakutani's follows with this rather lame rejoinder, which totally ignores the three major networks: "It's an argument that sidesteps the fact that cable news channels usually feature conservative and liberal guests in perfectly matched pairs à la 'Crossfire.' It's also an argument that shrugs off the very loud voices of conservatives on Fox News and talk radio -- voices that no less a conservative than William Kristol has noted have provided 'much more balance' in a media environment once criticized by those on the right as being too liberal."

     Later Kakutani misleads by saying the Bush administration "has tried to circumvent what it calls the 'filter' of the national press by courting regional media and having soldiers send form letters to local newspapers asserting that American troops had been welcomed 'with open arms' by Iraqis."

     But as USA Today reported back in October 2003, the administration had nothing to do with the campaign: "An Army battalion commander has taken responsibility for a public-relations campaign that sent hundreds of identical letters to hometown newspapers promoting his soldiers' rebuilding efforts in Iraq. Lt. Col. Dominic Caraccilo said he wanted to highlight his unit's work and 'share that pride with people back home.'"

For the rest of Kakutani, click here:

Lauding Trial Lawyers
 

     A trial lawyer gets some flattering coverage in a Sunday Business section story by Steve Lohr, "Bush's Next Target: Malpractice Lawyers -- A Focus on Capping Awards May Ignore Other Problems."

     Lohr lauds Smith, president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America: "Todd A. Smith is one of the nation's leading medical malpractice lawyers, renowned and feared in the courtroom, having extracted a lengthy string of multimillion-dollar settlements and verdicts from doctors, hospitals and insurers over the years. Though wealthy even by the standards of his profession, Mr. Smith, 55, seems to have lost none of the intensity and passion that fuel his 12- to 14-hour workdays and make him a persuasive trial lawyer."

     Lohr lets Smith give flattering details of his rise: "Seated in his law firm's conference room, with an Olympian view high above Lake Michigan, Mr. Smith recited the details of his first courtroom victory in the summer of 1977, when he was a $12,000-a-year assistant public defender in the Cook County criminal courts. The defendant, he recalled, was an American Indian who was accused of armed robbery in a case that was based mainly on his race. The man was identified as the robber, for example, in a lineup that included him and a collection of off-duty, white police officers. 'It was terribly unfair,' Mr. Smith said."

     And nothing's changed, from Smith's perspective: "What drives Mr. Smith now, he says, is what drove him then: a desire to seek justice for people who need it, whether criminal defendants too poor to hire lawyers or victims of medical lapses whose lives have been ruined and face huge bills for care. 'You can make a significant contribution to someone's life, someone who might be in desperate straits,' he explained. 'That's as rewarding as it gets for me. It's not really, or mostly, about money.' The Bush administration wants to make Mr. Smith's profession far less financially rewarding. Medical malpractice lawyers are cast as the marquee villains in the administration's war against what it regards as a litigious culture run amok. If there were a face in the bull's-eye in this political battle, it would be Mr. Smith's."

     Lohr lets Smith put his earnings in overweening context, to the extent Times Watch might start feeling sorry for the guy ourselves: "So how much does he earn? 'Far less than you might expect,' Mr. Smith replied. His firm employs 11 lawyers -- six working on medical malpractice cases, the remainder focusing on other personal-injury claims. It also employs four nurses as full-time researchers. Complex cases can require reams of expert testimony, years of investigation and hundreds of thousands of dollars to prepare. Medical malpractice lawsuits are custom work, focusing on one victim at a time, as opposed to large class actions against an entire industry, like the $246 billion tobacco settlement that trial lawyers helped 46 states win in 1998. There are no hourly fees and no well-heeled corporate clients paying for expenses. Trial lawyers are the venture capitalists of the legal system, putting their money on the line and taking upfront risk. The occasional big paydays cover the daily expenses."

     Lohr does finally note that Smith isn't exactly a charity case: "For all the costs, there is still plenty left over for Mr. Smith. He won't say precisely, but he concedes that his yearly income is routinely in the high six figures, and seven figures in good years, which appear to have been plentiful recently. That would put him on a par with partners at leading corporate law firms."

     The story doesn't feature any discouraging quotes on trial lawyers, though there are surely many potential sources for them, beyond stating that "within conservative circles and inside the White House, the term 'trial lawyer' is an epithet."

For the rest of Lohr on malpractice lawyer Todd Smith, click here:

Middle East "Instability" Could Backfire on Bush

     In his Tuesday "News Analysis," "Mideast Mix: New Promise of Democracy and Threat of Instability," reporter Steven Weisman discusses the recent elections and calls for elections in Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, as well as Lebanon demanding removal of Syrian forces, but spins these seemingly encouraging events as unpredictable forces that could backfire on the Bush administration: "Less than six weeks after President Bush's Inaugural Address appealing for democratic reforms in the Middle East, the United States is coping with an unaccustomed problem: a region churning with fresh demands for democracy, fresh opportunities and fresh potential for instability."

     Of course, cherishing "stability" over all things can be an excuse for not challenging authoritarian Middle East regimes.

     Weisman hammers home the possibilities of "turbulence" and "volatility": "By almost any measure, there is an unusual amount of turbulence throughout the Middle East right now, and administration experts are not sure whether all of it will work in the United States' favor….A measure of the volatility in the region occurred Monday when David F. Satterfield, a deputy assistant secretary of state for the Middle East, arrived in Beirut, Lebanon, only to find that the entire pro-Syrian government had resigned and thousands of people were out in the streets protesting Syrian influence. Arab officials have attributed the changes in Egypt and Lebanon to internal forces rather than pressure from abroad, despite Washington's sense that it can claim credit for much of the change."

     But in the context of authoritarian regimes, are things like turbulence and volatility necessarily bad?

     He warns darkly: "But many experts fear that overdoing the pressure on Syria could backfire, with violent consequences like an assassination comparable to the one two weeks ago of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri."

     An editorial in the same edition is strikingly more  optimistic about Middle East prospects, looking at the same events in a considerably more heartened light and even giving (gasp!) Bush a little credit: "Still, this has so far been a year of heartening surprises -- each one remarkable in itself, and taken together truly astonishing. The Bush administration is entitled to claim a healthy share of the credit for many of these advances. It boldly proclaimed the cause of Middle East democracy at a time when few in the West thought it had any realistic chance. And for all the negative consequences that flowed from the American invasion of Iraq, there could have been no democratic elections there this January if Saddam Hussein had still been in power."

For Weisman's full piece, click here: