Hypocrisy on Parade: Times Runs Photo of Dung-Clotted “Virgin Mary”

     Just yesterday the Times wrote in an editorial on the Danish cartoons of Mohammad that “The New York Times and much of the rest of the nation's news media have reported on the cartoons but refrained from showing them. That seems a reasonable choice for news organizations that usually refrain from gratuitous assaults on religious symbols, especially since the cartoons are so easy to describe in words.”

     Apparently the Arts pages didn’t get the memo, because it runs a photo of Chris Ofili’s dung-clotted “Holy Virgin Mary” in Wednesday’s Arts section story by Michael Kimmelman, who calls the Danish cartoons “callous and feeble.”

     This is the most striking example yet of the double standard by the Times when it comes to art that offends religious sensibilities.

For Kimmelman’s full story, click here

News Flash: Democrats Have Their Problems, Too

     After penning several stories on Republican troubles and Democratic hopes entering the 2006 elections, political reporter Adam Nagourney finally checks in on the other side and sees that they have problems, too.

     His front-page story, coauthored with congressional reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg, is headlined “Some Democrats Are Sensing Missed Opportunities -- Concerns Over Message Dim the Optimism About November.”

     The story provides some balance to the paper’s overall coverage, though the tone is more of concern that the Democrats are blowing their chances than glee over their inability to take advantage of Republican troubles. 

     “But Democrats described a growing sense that they had failed to take full advantage of the troubles that have plagued Mr. Bush and his party since the middle of last year, driving down the president's approval ratings, opening divisions among Republicans in Congress over policy and potentially putting control of the House and Senate into play in November.”

     The Times glances over the fact that Democrats are being pressured from the left by angry activists: “Since Mr. Bush's re-election, Democrats have been divided over whether to take on the Republicans in a more confrontational manner, ideologically and politically, or to move more forcefully to stake out the center on social and national security issues. They are being pushed, from the left wing of the party, to stand for what they say are the party's historical liberal values.

     “But among more establishment Democrats, there is concern that many of the party's most visible leaders -- among them, Howard Dean, the Democratic chairman; Senator John Kerry, the party's 2004 presidential candidate; Mr. Kennedy; Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader; and Al Gore, who has assumed a higher profile as the party heads toward the 2008 presidential primaries -- may be flawed messengers. In this view, the most visible Democrats are vulnerable to Republican attacks portraying them as out of the mainstream on issues including security and budget-cutting.”

     The adjective the Times is tiptoeing around is “liberal,” but it won’t use it, not even to describe politicians like Dean, Kennedy, Pelosi, and Gore.

For more of Nagourney and Stolberg on Democratic concerns, click here

At King Funeral, Another Appearance of “Dignitary” Al Sharpton

     Bush spoke at the funeral of Coretta Scott King, only to be lambasted from the podium by his political enemies, notes Wednesday’s front-page story by Sheila Dewan and Elisabeth Bumiller, “At Mrs. King’s Funeral, a Mix of Elegy and Politics.”

     The Times at least doesn’t ignore the cynical use of the funeral, reminiscent of Democrats’ abuse of Sen. Paul Wellstone’s memorial service: “The six-hour service, held in the vast two-tiered sanctuary of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church just outside Atlanta, was marked by elegiac moments, standing ovations, and, with the Clintons and Bushes sharing a podium, some overt political gibes about the war in Iraq and the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina.”

     After citing Bush’s remarks, they write: “But others did not confine their remarks to Mrs. King, nor did they temper them just because Mr. Bush was seated just a few feet behind. The Rev. Joseph Lowery, who spoke at times in rhyme, said, ‘We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there.’ Former President Jimmy Carter, in an apparent allusion to the current President Bush's eavesdropping program, mentioned the difficulties that Mrs. King and her husband, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., endured as they became the target of secret government wiretapping.”

     But then the Times uses the word “dignitaries” to describe the attendees, as if the group of mostly liberal activists listed were somehow above the political fray: “Inside the circular sanctuary, the inner circle near the podium became quite literally that, as dignitaries including the Rev. Jesse Jackson; the Rev. Al Sharpton; Howard Dean, the chairman of the Democratic Party; Myrlie Evers, the wife of the slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers; and Marion Wright Edelman, the founder of the Children's Defense Fund, mingled and reminisced before the service began.”

     That’s the second time that the inflammatory, race-baiting Al Sharpton has been called a “dignitary” in the Times -- it also occurred in the November 3 edition when describing his attendance of the funeral of another civil rights icon, Rosa Parks.

For more from Dewan and Bumiller, click here

How Nice: Rosenbergs’ Granddaughter Embraces Radical Heritage

     Sam Roberts profiles Rachel Meeropol, granddaughter of the infamous Rosenberg spies, for Sunday’s “A Rosenberg Takes On the Government, This Time Using the Law as a Means of Protest.” The text box reads: “A relative says the story of spies taught her ‘a sense of strength, resistance.” And a flippant attitude toward anti-U.S. espionage.

     Roberts, who has written a book about the Rosenbergs, begins: “A profile of Rachel Meeropol, the lead lawyer for a group of Muslim immigrants suing the United States government, explains why she went to work for the Center for Constitutional Rights.” 

     The Times again fails to explain CCR is a far- left group. Back on January 20 the Times insisted it was a “civil rights group,” despite its affiliation with Communist causes.

     “More than 50 years later, it is widely accepted that in the 1940's Julius Rosenberg was, in fact, a Soviet spy. His network passed along military and industrial secrets, most notably details about the atomic bomb, most of which the Russians had obtained from other sources. Legally, Ethel Rosenberg is considered much less culpable: Within the last few years, her brother, David Greenglass, who was also charged in the conspiracy, acknowledged that he had lied when he delivered the most incriminating evidence against her.”

     Meeropol embraces her dubious heritage. “Ms. Meeropol is herself a plaintiff in a suit filed last month by the Center for Constitutional Rights, contending that her communications with clients at the detention center may have been monitored illegally by the National Security Agency. The granddaughter of the Rosenbergs accusing the government of spying? It is an irony that has not been lost on conservative Web logs. ‘It's incredibly simplistic to look at what I'm complaining about and find it ironic,’ she said. ‘What I'm complaining about is a new version of that same type of misconduct: when a threat from the outside causes the government to curtail civil liberties. You can draw parallels to what happened to my grandparents.

     ‘It's a different population being affected -- they're vulnerable,’ she added of the immigrants, contrasting the climate now and then. ‘In terms of the human toll, it's just as bad if not worse than under McCarthy. If anything, it's worse because of the secrecy with which this administration operates.’

     Roberts does later draw Meeropol out, revealing her radical nature: “Ms. Meeropol is a registered Democrat but a self-described radical, and her family background leads to questions one might not ordinarily pose to an ordinary lawyer.  For example, can she envision any circumstances under which she could justify passing secrets to a foreign power?

     “‘Can I imagine any situation where I would feel the balance of power is so dangerous to humanity that it would be O.K. to do something like that?’ she replied. ‘Sure.’

     In June 2003 the Times editorialized on the Rosenbergs with a sniff: “The Rosenberg case still haunts American history, reminding us of the injustice that can be done when a nation gets caught up in hysteria.”

For more of Roberts on the Rosenbergs, click here