Some Israelis "Extreme," but Hamas Not
 

     Israel-based Steven Erlanger's "news analysis" from Jerusalem is purportedly about the Israel-Palestinian "road map" toward peace ("Mideast Knot: One Map, Many Paths"), but Erlanger devotes most of his space to sympathy for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

     Erlanger (who once referred to terrorist Yassir Arafat's "heroic history") does open his Friday story by noting that Israelis have made complaints to Abbas about continuing Palestinian terrorism.

      But then he gratuitously suggests Israel is being "self-serving" in making them:  "….in June, the Israelis say, [suspected suicide bombing organizer Hasan] Madhoun recruited a Gazan woman receiving burn treatment at Soroka hospital to blow it up as a suicide bomber. The woman was caught trying to leave Gaza, with a permit to visit the hospital and explosives attached to her underclothes. The story, confirmed by Palestinian officials, may seem self-serving for the Israelis to tell. But it is a serious factor in the loss of confidence that both Israel and the United States have in the ability of Mr. Abbas to show strong leadership in the face of threats to his own rule."

     Erlanger gives this glowing report of Abbas: "Mr. Abbas -- intelligent, proud, committed to nonviolence -- is admired by Israel and the United States, and neither wants him to fail."

     (Abbas also has doubts about the Holocaust and once posited a link between Nazism and Zionism -- but such details about the "intelligent" Abbas tend not to make the Times.)

     Instead, the Times reserves its harsh adjectives for Israelis: "Mr. Sharon has been handcuffed, too, by a struggle with the more extreme elements of his own party, the right-wing Likud." Erlanger's story doesn't refer to the anti-Israeli terrorist group Hamas as extreme, only as "militants" and an "Islamist movement."

     Erlanger also gives Abbas a break on adhering to the Palestinian Authority's promise to abandon terrorism (Erlanger calls it a "demand" from the U.S. and Israel), although it was part of the "road map." "It is also hard for Mr. Abbas to exercise the crackdown on Hamas that Israel and Washington demand. And it is impossible for him to be lectured to on Hamas once again, as he was at the last summit meeting in June, before being dismissed by Mr. Sharon with no significant concessions."

     MediaCrity has more on Erlanger's analysis: "Note the use of the weasel words 'rough outline,' which Erlanger uses to excuse Palestinian refusal to implement the Road Map. Here is the Palestinian obligation in the first phase of the road map, long before final status negotiations:

     'Palestinians declare an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism and undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt, and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere.'

     "What's so 'rough' about that? The Road Map is very explicit as to what is required of the parties, and when."

     To talk about this story, go to the MRC's NewsBusters blog:

To read the rest of Erlanger, click here.

Pounding on Clinton-Opposing Pirro: "Another Embarrassing Setback"
 

     A Page One Metro section story by pro-Hillary reporter Raymond Hernandez focuses on another dubious controversy about Jeanine Pirro, the leading Republican challenging Clinton for her Senate seat in 2006 ("What Endorsement? Two Reject Claim on Pirro Site").

     "Two Republican leaders in upstate New York on Thursday disputed the claim by Jeanine F. Pirro's campaign that they had endorsed her candidacy for the United States Senate, dealing another embarrassing setback to a campaign struggling to build momentum as she seeks to unseat Hillary Rodham Clinton. On her campaign Web site, Ms. Pirro has been mentioning endorsements she said she had received from Republican leaders in the politically important upstate region, including Gordon Brown, the chairman of the Wyoming County Republican Party, and Tom Hayden, the chairman of the Allegany County Republican Party. But in separate interviews on Thursday, Mr. Brown and Mr. Hayden took issue with that claim, saying that neither they nor the county parties they lead had endorsed Ms. Pirro, who is in a primary battle for her party's nomination."

     Hernandez doesn't hesitate from fanning the flames: "While Mr. Brown and Mr. Hayden preside over relatively small county organizations, their statements may feed a growing impression in political circles that the Pirro campaign is in disarray, roughly two months after she entered the race as the party's standard-bearer."

To read the rest of Hernandez on Pirro, click here.

He'll Be Back
 

     Dean Murphy's Friday story, "Schwarzenegger Says Yes in California Election, and Another Star Leads Opposition," implies that the California governor's agenda is struggling. As example, he quotes extensively two (un-elected) titans of the Hollywood left, Rob Reiner and Warren Beatty, who are going on media offensives against the Gubernator.

     Murphy opens the story with this insight: "Public opinion polls indicate that most Californians oppose spending the $45 million needed to hold a special election next month. But as big productions go, this one is low budget for a celebrity cast that includes the Terminator, Bulworth and Meathead."

     Murphy claims: "…the electorate seems mostly uninterested, according to public opinion polls, and a majority of likely voters say they would rather wait until a regularly scheduled election next June to weigh in on the proposals. 'Voters see little on the ballot that connects to their current concerns,' said Mark Baldassare, research director at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, which released its latest survey on Sept. 29. The poll showed that Mr. Schwarzenegger's most important initiatives, including those on redistricting and the budget, lacked enough support to win, though a subsequent television poll distributed by the Schwarzenegger campaign indicated the opposite."

     But in emphasizing those poll numbers Murphy buries the more recent good news for Schwarzenegger's initiatives -- the poll by the television consortium that he mentions in passing found Schwarzenegger's conservative proposals were quite popular (although his personal popularity continues to lag): "Proposition 74, on teacher tenure, passes today by 11 points, 55% to 44%. Propositions 73, 75, 76, and 77 all pass by at least 20 points."

For more Murphy on Schwarzenegger's ballot initiatives, click here.