Be Kind to Illegal Immigrants Weekend at the Times

     In anticipation of mass rallies in support of illegal immigrants, pro-immigrant reporter Nina Bernstein made Sunday’s front page with “Making It Ashore, but Still Chasing U.S. Dream,” following up on the stories of the 286 Chinese immigrants on Golden Venture freighter that ran aground off Queens in 1993.

     Inside Sunday’s paper is Abby Goodnough and Jennifer Steinhauer’s “Senate’s Failure to Agree on Immigration Plan Angers Workers and Employers Alike,” which looks at the impasse solely from those who would benefit from an amnesty program, and gives new respect to business owners in favor of illegal immigration, not previously a favored interest group in the Times.

     “Until it collapsed on Friday, a compromise immigration plan in the Senate offered Rigoberto Morales a chance to reach his dream of becoming an American citizen….But as tantalizing as the possibility was, Mr. Morales said he never really believed Congress would solve his plight. ‘It's a very bad thing because we're working very hard here and there's no support from the government,’ he said, standing outside a dreary shack where he lives with his wife and three other tomato pickers, all illegal immigrants from Mexico. ‘We're only working. We're not committing a sin.’”

     The Times takes the “jobs Americans won’t do” line to heart: “According to the Department of Labor, the United States economy will add about five million jobs in businesses like retail, food service and landscaping over the next decade, with not enough American workers to meet the need.

     “Many employers -- especially in industries that rely on large numbers of unskilled laborers -- had embraced the idea of a guest-worker program. They said it would stabilize the workforce, reduce the high cost of turnover and perhaps increase the number of workers available.”

     In an interesting wrinkle, Times liberal columnists Paul Krugman and Nicholas Kristof (both behind the Times Select $ firewall) have gently suggested illegal immigration is hurting American workers by driving wages down.

     Robert McFadden on Monday reports that “Across the U.S., Protests for Immigrants Draw Thousands.”

     He provides a starry-eyed lead: “Demonstrators flying banners of immigration reform marched in cities across the nation yesterday to demand citizenship and a share of the American dream for millions of illegal immigrants who have run a gantlet of closed borders, broken families, snake-eyed smugglers and economic exploitation. Singing, chanting and waving placards and American flags, a sea of demonstrators -- police estimates ran as high as 500,000 -- marched in downtown Dallas in the largest of the protests. Some 20,000 rallied in San Diego, 7,000 in Miami, and 4,000 each in Birmingham, Ala., and Boise, Idaho.”

     (As McFadden mentions much later, marchers were given American flags by protest organizers.)

     “Most wore white shirts to symbolize peace. Many carried American flags or the flags of Mexico and other countries of Central and South America and Asia. At the rally in Dallas, ‘God Bless America’ and ‘This Land Is Your Land’ blared on loudspeakers, as well as the music of Mexico, as marchers chanted ‘Sí, se puede’ (‘Yes, we can’) and ‘U.S.A., all the way.’”

     McFadden gets the “just-folks” clichés just right, mainstreaming the protestors, many of whom are illegal immigrants themselves, in a description that could have come out of any media report on the anti-war movement: “The Dallas protesters were young and old. Some were families pushing baby strollers. Some walked with canes, others rolled along in wheelchairs. There were members of unions, churches, civil rights organizations and business groups, but many were strangers to one another. Some spoke passionately about their desire to be Americans, to vote and to hold a job without fear.”

     For comparison, here’s what Lizette Alvarez wrote in the Times about an anti-war march in London on November 21, 2003: “Grandmothers with canes, parents with children in strollers, high school students, women in business suits, as well as button-bedecked antiwar demonstrators gathered elbow to elbow in Trafalgar Square to voice their disapproval of Mr. Bush and his administration's foreign policies."

     Back to McFadden on Monday morning: “The crowds at many of the protests also cheered speakers who denounced a system that has driven more than 11 million illegal immigrants into shadowy lives of subterfuge, and who called for a new deal that would extend basic rights to them and a chance of eventual citizenship. Organizers said the protests would not stop until Congress passed laws to improve their lives.”

     “Much of the anger yesterday and at the protests in recent weeks was directed at a bill passed by the House of Representatives last December. It would have authorized a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border; raised the crime of illegal immigration to a felony; and criminalized giving assistance, including food and water, to illegal immigrants.”

     McFadden doesn’t provide any counterpoint, quoting no one opposed to giving illegals more rights or putting them on a path to American citizenship.

     Finally, on Saturday’s front page comes congressional reporter Carl Hulse, along with cowriter Rachel Swarns (who announced in a lead story last Thursday that the illegal immigration amnesty bill was a done deal).

     In typical unbalanced fashion, “Blame and Uncertainty as Immigration Deal Fails.”pits “conservative” opponents of illegal immigration not against “liberals,” but against more flatteringly labeled foes.

     “The politics of the issue are in flux, reflecting the crosscurrents created by conservatives who want to see the border sealed off to illegal immigration, employers who say they need workers, and the growing assertiveness of Hispanic immigrants and their supporters. Both parties seem uncertain as to whether they are better off agreeing to a compromise or blocking one, and they seem still to be gauging public opinion.

     “Immigrants are planning marches and rallies around the country on Monday in favor of granting legal status to illegal workers already in the United States. Business groups will be lobbying lawmakers in coming weeks to keep seeking an agreement, while conservatives will be sending letters, faxes and e-mail to urge Congress not to agree to anything that smacks of amnesty.”

For more from Goodnough and Steinhauer, click here.

For more from Hulse and Swarns on the immigration marches, click here.

For more of McFadden on the pro-illegal immigrant marches, click here.

“Young Officers Leaving Army,” But…

     Pentagon reporter Thom Shanker’s attempt at a scoop (Monday’s “Young Officers Leaving Army at a High Rate”) melts on contact with actual statistics.

     “Young Army officers, including growing numbers of captains who leave as soon as their initial commitment is fulfilled, are bailing out of active-duty service at rates that have alarmed senior officers. Last year, more than a third of the West Point class of 2000 left active duty at the earliest possible moment, after completing their five-year obligation.”

     “It was the second year in a row of worsening retention numbers, apparently marking the end of a burst of patriotic fervor during which junior officers chose continued military service at unusually high rates.

     But the liberal-leaning Eric Umansky of Slate’s “Today’s Papers” column checked out the numbers and found that Shanker’s conclusions didn’t compute.

     “Except that a chart accompanying the article shows that while young officers are leaving the Army at a higher rate than a few years ago, it's still lower than before 9/11. And while the number grew in the past few years, most recently it's now on a downturn again, a result, says the Times, of the military's increased incentives program. All which makes the thesis and the headline…trés 2005.”

     Indeed, the chart shows the rate peaking at above 10% in 1999 (when a certain Democrat was in office) and declining to just above 6% in 2003, before again rising to 8.6% in 2005 – still below the Clinton-era peak. But for some reason, the Clinton-era rate is left out of Shanker’s story.

For more Shanker, click here.

Leak Comes at “Bad Time for Bush”

     A Saturday front-page “news analysis” by Scott Shane is headlined “First, a Leak; Now, a Jam -- Libby Allegation Comes At a Bad Time for Bush.” Shane’s analysis isn’t quite as biased as that headline, but he plays up the hypocrisy and political angles.

     “That President Bush authorized an aide to disclose classified intelligence on Iraqi weapons, as asserted in court papers, comes as no shock to official Washington. The leaking of secrets has long been a favored tool of policy debate, political combat and diplomatic one-upmanship.

     "We've had leaking of this kind since the administration of George Washington," said Rick Shenkman, a presidential historian at George Mason University.

     “But the accusation that Mr. Bush, through Vice President Dick Cheney, authorized the aide, I. Lewis Libby Jr., to fight back against critics of the war by discussing a classified prewar intelligence estimate comes at a particularly awkward time for the administration.”

     Shane suggests hypocrisy: “For months, Mr. Bush and his top aides have campaigned against leaks of classified information as a danger to the nation and as criminal acts. A Washington Post report on secret overseas jails run by the C.I.A. and a New York Times report on domestic eavesdropping by the National Security Agency have led to criminal investigations, and scores of intelligence officers have been ordered to take polygraph tests.

     “In that context, the report that the president was himself approving a leak may do serious political damage, said Mr. Shenkman, who has a blog on presidential politics. ‘It does give the public such a powerful example of hypocrisy that I think it might linger for a while,’ he said.”

     Shane finally gives some historical context: “There have also been cases in which presidents, in the heat of the moment, have spontaneously revealed secrets. During the 1964 presidential campaign, under attack by Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee, as soft on defense, President Lyndon B. Johnson chose to reveal the existence of a highly classified, experimental reconnaissance aircraft, the SR-71 Blackbird.

     “In the Pentagon Papers case of 1971, the Nixon administration went to court to halt publication of a secret government history of the Vietnam War, which had been leaked by Daniel Ellsberg. Max Frankel, then the Washington bureau chief of The New York Times, filed an 18-page affidavit that gave a colorful insider's account of the role of leaked secrets as the lifeblood of Washington.”

For more of Shane on leaks, click here.

Not Even the Correction Page Is Safe

     Not even the Times’ correction pages are bias-free.

     “An article yesterday about a clash between the United Church of Christ and its conservative critics misspelled the surname of the director of the Faith as a Way of Life Project at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, who said the church had taken its response ‘to a new level of battle or conflict.’ He is the Rev. Christian Scharen, not Sharen.

     It would have apparently killed the Times to identify the UCC as liberal, in the same manner it did with the group’s “conservative critics.”

For the full correction page, click here.