Karl Rove’s “Searing…Lacerating…Blistering” Speech
 

     Chief political reporter Adam Nagourney was ultra-sensitive to any sign of harsh Republican rhetoric during the 2004 campaign, and he’s no less raw about it a year later, using strong terms to describe Karl Rove’s speech to the Republican National Committee in a front-page story Monday. But what about Howard Dean calling Rove “unpatriotic”?

     “With a campaign of high-profile national security events set for the next three days, following Karl Rove's blistering speech to Republicans on Friday, the White House has effectively declared that it views its controversial secret surveillance program not as a political liability but as an asset, a way to attack Democrats and re-establish President Bush's standing after a difficult year.”

     Never mind that Bush is the one being “attacked” by Democrats over the NSA spying program.

     Nagourney paints the NSA spy program as “extraordinary” and “perhaps extralegal”: “Americans may be willing to support extraordinary measures -- perhaps extralegal ones -- if they are posed in the starkest terms of protecting the nation from another calamitous attack. They are less likely to be supportive, members of both parties say, if the question is presented as a president breaking the law to spy on the nation's own citizens.”

     As far as TimesWatch knows, the communications being monitored within the United States aren’t necessarily all from U.S. citizens, which would make Nagourney’s phrasing “the nation’s own citizens” rather slanted.

     Nagourney paints the Bushies as simplistic panderers to people’s fears: "Viewed from the perspective of the battles over the Homeland Security Act or the USA Patriot Act, this White House holds a tactical edge; it has repeatedly proved highly effective in defining complicated debates against the Democratic Party. Applying the campaign lessons of simplicity and repetition, Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove, his chief political adviser, have systematically presented arguments in accessible if sometimes exaggerated terms, and they have regularly returned to the theme of terrorism since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Mr. Rove's speech on Friday to the Republican National Committee was a classic example.”

     Nagourney had his first take on Rove’s speech in Saturday’s edition, with the ever-sensitive Nagourney terming it a “searing attack” and “lacerating attack.”

     “Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, gave nervous Republicans here a preview on Friday of the party's strategy to maintain its dominance in the fall elections, offering a searing attack on Democrats for their positions on terrorism, the administration's eavesdropping program and President Bush's effort to shape the federal judiciary. Mr. Rove called for civility in politics in his speech to the Republican National Committee, and then for 26 minutes offered a lacerating attack on Democrats that other Republicans said was a road map for how the party would deal with a tough electoral environment as it battled to retain control of both houses of Congress.”

     But notice that Nagourney doesn’t find Howard Dean either searing or lacerating, even though Dean actually calls Rove “unpatriotic.”

     “Howard Dean, the national Democratic leader, responded to Mr. Rove's attacks by noting the investigation into his activities and challenging Mr. Bush's decision to keep him in the White House, even as the investigation proceeds. ‘Rove's political standing gets him an invitation to address Republicans in Washington, D.C., today,’ Mr. Dean said, ‘but it doesn't give him the credibility to question Democrats' commitment to national security. The truth is, Karl Rove breached our national security for partisan gain, and that is both unpatriotic and wrong.’”

     Nagourney whistles right by that inflammatory remark, underscoring a huge double standard on the part of the paper. While the Times is quite sensitive to false accusations that Republicans go around questioning the patriotism of Democrats, when a Democrat actually calls an influential Republican “unpatriotic,” Nagourney doesn’t even stop for breath.

     Nagourney also ignores that Dean was responding to part of Rove’s speech talking about Democrats. As reported by the Washington Post, Rove explained: “That doesn't make [Democrats] unpatriotic -- not at all. But it does make them wrong -- deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong."

For more Nagourney from Saturday, click here.

For more Nagourney from Monday, click here.

Still No Harm for Hillary Over “Plantation” Remark
 

     The Times again reduces the outcry over Sen. Hillary Clinton’s controversial “plantation” comment in front of a black church on Martin Luther King day to a run-of-the-mill political skirmish --  one that actually puts New York’s junior senator in a favorable light.

     Sunday’s Metro section story by Raymond Hernandez, “Clinton Fires. Bush Replies. Guess Why,” includes the text box: “All that noise just may be the opening shots of the 2008 campaign.”

     “On the surface, the skirmishing seemed to stem from Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's assertion that Republicans are running Congress like a plantation, and that the Bush administration is one of the ‘worst in history.’ But strategists in both parties say the hostilities were more likely the opening shots of the 2008 presidential campaign season. Frank Luntz, a Republican consultant, said he thought national Republicans felt the need to engage Mrs. Clinton now that she faces no major challenge for her Senate seat and is free to lay the groundwork for a national candidacy.”

     Long-time Hillary-boosting reporter Hernandez positions the White House as piling on Hillary, even though it was Ms. Clinton’s “plantation” remark that instigated the criticism: “And if that were not enough, the White House's chief spokesman criticized Mrs. Clinton, as did Laura Bush. ‘I think it's a ridiculous comment,’ Mrs. Bush told reporters on Wednesday, two days after Mrs. Clinton made the remarks. ‘It's a ridiculous comment -- that's what I think.’”

     Note: The first lady was asked by reporters about Sen. Clinton’s comments – she didn’t volunteer an opinion out of the blue, as Hernandez’s wording might imply.

     Hernandez goes on: “The attacks by the White House and their Republican allies put the Clinton camp in a state of high alert, with the senator's advisers enlisting prominent black Democrats to come to her defense. In the meantime, Mrs. Clinton's advisers did a little research and came up with a similar plantation quote from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich that they, in turn, sent to reporters.”

     (That “research” may have consisted of dropping in on David Brock’s left-wing media watchdog group Media Matters, which had a reference to Gingrich’s decade-old comment last Thursday.)

     Predictably, Hernandez sees no harm for Hillary. He reassures Hillary supporters: “Some of Mrs. Clinton's closest allies do not think that the Republican assault is entirely bad for her. The attacks may help energize her network of financial supporters at a time when she faces no serious opposition in her re-election bid this year in New York. But perhaps more important, the Republican attacks are already leading Democrats to rally around her, at a time when the senator is facing criticism from pockets on the left on several issues, chiefly her support for the war in Iraq. ‘If a person is defined by their friends and their enemies, she has all the right enemies,’ said one Democrat who is close to Mrs. Clinton.”

To read the rest of Hernandez, click here.

A Ho-Hum Headline About an Eco-Terrorist Indictment
 

     A grand jury in Eugene, Ore., indicted 11 domestic eco-terrorists, garnering a medium-sized story in the Times under a don’t-read-this-story kind of headline, “11 Indicted in 18 Cases of Sabotage in West.”

     The text box is only slightly better: “A grand jury shines a spotlight on two shadowy environmental groups.”

     The Washington Post gets more to the point, though it uses quote marks around the entirely accurate term of “eco-terrorism”: “11 Indicted in 'Eco-Terrorism' Case --17 Attacks Claimed by Activist Groups Caused $23 Million in Damage.”

     By contrast, the liberal Portland Oregonian uses stronger language: “11 indicted in eco-crime wave.” The subhead: “Northwest arsons -- Federal officials say a secret ‘family’ of saboteurs left a trail of damage across five states.”

     The lead of Michael Janofsky’s Times story reveals that “sabotage” was perhaps the weakest word the paper could have chosen to describe the activities of the eco-terrorists: “A federal grand jury in Eugene, Ore., has indicted 11 people on charges that they committed acts of domestic terrorism on behalf of two shadowy environmental groups, the Earth Liberation Front and the Animal Liberation Front. Federal officials said Friday that the defendants were responsible for 17 incidents in five Western states from 1996 to late 2001. The indictment, which was returned on Thursday and unsealed on Friday, listed 65 charges, including arson, sabotage and conspiracy in attacks against government facilities, research centers and private businesses.”

     Would the Times have been so sedate in its headline choice if it had been right-wing extremists involved in a racist domestic terror campaign?

For more Janofsky, click here.