A Marine's Real Story: Not in the NYT
 

     Michelle Malkin hits Times reporter James Dao for leaving off a vital part of a quote from a Marine killed in Iraq -- a portion that showed how committed the Marine was to the cause of freedom there.

     As Malkin describes in a column in the New York Post:

     "Last Wednesday, the Times published a 4,624-word opus on American casualties of war in Iraq. '2,000 Dead: As Iraq Tours Stretch On, a Grim Mark,' read the headline. The macabre, Vietnam-evoking piece appeared prominently on page A2. Among those profiled were Marines from the First Battalion of the Fifth Marine Regiment, including Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr."

     Malkin quotes the Times story: "Another member of the 1/5, Cpl. Jeffrey B. Starr, rejected a $24,000 bonus to re-enlist. Cpl. Starr believed strongly in the war, his father said, but was tired of the harsh life and nearness of death in Iraq. So he enrolled at Everett Community College near his parents' home in Snohomish, Wash., planning to study psychology after his enlistment ended in August.

     "But he died in a firefight in Ramadi on April 30 during his third tour in Iraq. He was 22.

     "Sifting through Cpl. Starr's laptop computer after his death, his father found a letter to be delivered to the Marine's girlfriend. 'I kind of predicted this,' Cpl. Starr wrote of his own death. 'A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances.'"

     But Malkin soon got some information that changed the atmosphere of that quote: "The paper's excerpt of Cpl. Starr's letter leaves the reader with the distinct impression that this young Marine was darkly resigned to a senseless death. The truth is exactly the opposite. Late last week, I received a letter from Cpl. Starr's uncle, Timothy Lickness. He wanted you to know the rest of the story -- and the parts of Cpl. Starr's letter that the Times failed to include:

     "Obviously if you are reading this then I have died in Iraq. I kind of predicted this, that is why I'm writing this in November. A third time just seemed like I'm pushing my chances. I don't regret going, everybody dies but few get to do it for something as important as freedom. It may seem confusing why we are in Iraq, it's not to me. I'm here helping these people, so that they can live the way we live. Not have to worry about tyrants or vicious dictators. To do what they want with their lives. To me that is why I died. Others have died for my freedom, now this is my mark.'"

     Malkin explains that when a reader questioned Dao on his reporting, the Times reporter lashed back: "Even the portion of his e-mail that I used, the one that you seem so offended by, does not express anti-war sentiment. It does express the fatalism that many soldiers and Marines seem to feel about multiple tours. Have you been to Iraq, Michael? Or to any other war, for that matter? If you have, you should know the anxiety and fear parents, spouses, and troops themselves feel when they deploy to war. And if you haven't, what right do you have to object when papers like The New York Times try to describe that anxiety and fear?"

     The military blogger GreyHawk has some more examples of what he finds reprehensible about the paper's quoting (and misquoting, and selective quoting) of soldiers.

     In one case from early July noted by TimesWatch, the paper changed an op-ed written by Army reserve office Phil Carter. As the paper corrected itself, Carter "did not say, 'Imagine my surprise the other day when I received orders to report to Fort Campbell, Ky., next Sunday,' nor did he characterize his recent call-up to active duty as the precursor to a 'surprise tour of Iraq.' That language was added by an editor and was to have been removed before the article was published. Because of a production error, it was not. The Times regrets the error."

     Now it seems the paper has another one to regret.

Bushie McClellan "Downright False," But Clintonite McCurry "Charming"
 

     Richard Stevenson gives White House press secretary Scott McClellan a rough time in Thursday's "Press Secretary on Trial in the Briefing Room." But do all White House mouthpieces take the blame for alleged or real misdeeds in the administrations they serve?

     Stevenson claims that McClellan's "credibility is already on trial amid the rough justice of the briefing room. More than two years ago, Mr. McClellan did what press secretaries are paid to do: He vigorously defended the president's men -- specifically, Mr. Libby, Mr. Rove and Elliott Abrams, a national security aide who was never implicated in the case -- against speculation that they had a hand in the disclosure of the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency officer."

     He puts a harsh spotlight on McClellan, unusual in itself, given that White House press secretaries generally don't get much scrutiny: "As events have unfolded and the grand jury has heard testimony that both Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove had conversations with journalists that touched on the identity of the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, Mr. McClellan's reputation has been left dangling in the glare of the television lights. Though Mr. Libby has not been convicted of charges that he lied in the investigation and was not accused of leaking the agent's identity, and Mr. Rove has not been charged with any wrongdoing, Mr. McClellan's broad assurance that they were 'not involved' now seems, based on what is known publicly about the case, to have been misleading if not downright false."

     Nexis says the Times never used the phrase "downright false" to criticize any of the myriad misleading statements made by Clinton press secretaries Dee Dee Myers, Mike McCurry, or Joe Lockhart during the former president's scandal-scarred administration.

     "Mr. McClellan has been criticized by Democrats as a mouthpiece for an administration that fails to level with the American public, and a number of his other statements regarding the leak investigation have come under scrutiny."
The paper's questioning coverage of McClellan marks a vast tonal change from the send-off given to Clinton press secretary McCurry, who served the White House during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

     A story from October 5, 1998 by Melinda Henneberger calls McCurry the person "who defended the Administration through eight months of White House scandal, spent day after day telling reporters that he could not say, did not know and did not want to know much about the President's relationship with a former intern. And that he would not parse -- repeat, would not parse -- that statement. Even in his final days in the post, Mr. McCurry had to explain the difference between covering up a third-rate burglary and concealing a third-rate romance. Still, Mr. McCurry did keep White House reporters laughing, and in his farewell performance last Thursday, most applauded him for so charmingly deflecting their questions."

     On July 24 of that same year, when McCurry announced his imminent retirement, James Bennet reported mildly that "McCurry has been accused at times of misleading reporters on matters as diverse as whether the President's lawyers had hired private investigators to the nature of meetings Mr. Clinton held with an Indonesian billionaire, James T. Riady."

     But then Bennet gave McCurry the benefit of the doubt: "In some cases, Mr. McCurry based his answers on flawed information provided by other aides."

For more of Stevenson on Bush's embattled press secretary, click here

"Dignitaries" Sharpton and Farrakhan Attend Rosa Parks' Funeral
 

     Monica Davey files from Detroit on the funeral of civil rights icon Rosa Parks, and the rather less iconic collection of "dignitaries" who came to pay tribute.
 
     "Outside the Greater Grace Temple, thousands of people who had taken the day off from work waited to see a horse-drawn carriage carry Mrs. Parks's coffin toward a cemetery. In downtown offices, others brought televisions to watch more than six hours of remembrances and a call to action from a long line of dignitaries: the Rev. Jesse Jackson, the Rev. Joseph Lowery, the Rev. Al Sharpton, Louis Farrakhan, former President Bill Clinton and on and on."

     Well, Clinton qualifies -- but just who crowned race-baiting Sharpton and the plain-loony Farrakhan as "dignitaries"?

     Perhaps Farrakhan was awarded his high rank from the same higher beings piloting the Motherplane carrying the apparently-still living Elijah Muhammed, founder of the Nation of Islam.

To comment on this article, visit MRC's blog NewsBusters

To read the full Davey story on the funeral of Rosa Parks, click here

U.S. Offers Just "The Usual Nostrums" of Capitalism
 

     From Rio de Janeiro, Larry Rohter offers this leering look sure to please liberal Bush-bashers regarding the president's visit to South America: "If George W. Bush is expecting some respite from his troubles at home during a four-day visit to Argentina and Brazil that begins Thursday, he is in for a very rude awakening."

     In describing the summit Bush will attend, Rohter dismisses core free market principals as "the usual nostrums" that have only made things worse: "The theme of what is formally known as the Fourth Summit of the Americas is 'Creating Jobs to Fight Poverty and Strengthen Democratic Governance.' But the feeling among many Latin Americans is that the United States is coming with little to offer other than the usual nostrums about free trade, open markets, privatization and fiscal austerity, the same recipe that has vastly increased social inequality throughout Latin America during the past decade."

     Meanwhile, left-wing dictator and Bush-hater Hugo Chavez (who called for a ban on Halloween that's gone unreported in the Times) is merely "a populist."

To read the rest of Rohter's piece, click here