....Times Watch has put together, in our ruthless and
unfair opinion, the ten lowest lowlights provided by the
paper in 2003. Enjoy.
Clay Waters
Executive Director, Times Watch
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1) Hootie and the Blowhards: The Times' Assault on the Masters
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During the run-up to golf's most prestigious tournament, the Masters, hosted in April by Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia, the Times tried to pump up controversy over the club's all-male membership. In article upon article, the Times lambasted club chairman Hootie Johnson while praising his opposite number, feminist and lead protestor Martha Burk.
The Times put the Augusta story on its front page three times (this during the run-up to the Iraq war) and went so far as to suggest Tiger Woods boycott the tournament in protest. In all, the Times ran over 80 stories on Augusta over a period of several months. Yet the actual Masters' protest came up dry, attracting a piddling crowd of 40, a turnout suggesting the whole controversy was nothing but a Times-created phenomenon. As columnist Mark Steyn noted, "Every time the Times mentioned this allegedly raging furor, it attracted approximately another 0.4 of a supporter to [Burk's] cause."
For more on the Times' comprehensive coverage of Augusta National, click here.
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2) The Jayson Blair Affair
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“Times Reporter Who Resigned Leaves Long Trail of Deception” blared the front page of the May 11 New York Times, introducing a 14,000-word mea maxima culpa of the paper’s chain of failures in the well-known case of fabricator Jayson Blair. Unearthed remarks by then-Executive Editor Howell Raines didn't exactly inspire confidence in his leadership: “This campaign has made our staff better and, more importantly, more diverse,” Raines told the National Association of Black Journalists in 2001 about the hiring of the young black reporter Blair.
For more on Jayson Blair, click here.
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3) Paul Krugman's Great Unraveling
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Economics columnist turned Bush-bashing hack Paul Krugman gets a lifetime (or at least 2003) achievement award for partisanship above and beyond the call of duty, in a year when he morphed from a mild-mannered left-of-center economist into a hero for Bush-haters. Among Krugman's many lowlights:
Accusing Republicans, sans evidence, of labeling anti-war critics "unpatriotic."
Accusing Dick Cheney's old company Halliburton of "profiteering" in Iraq (a charge refuted in a Times front page story that very day).
Labeling tax cut advocates "relentless, even fanatical."
Accusing Bush of "deceiving us into war."
Reciting left-wing conspiracy theories suggesting "the toppling of the Saddam statue, the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch--seem to have been improved by editing."
Comparing a pro-war rally to a Nazi rally.
For more on the year of Krugman, click here.
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4) Maureen Dowd's Dishonest Deletion
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Columnist Maureen Dowd purposely mangled a quote from President Bush to make him look naive about the dangers posed by Al Qaeda. In her May 14 “Osama’s Offspring,” Dowd writes: “Busy chasing off Saddam, the president and vice president had told us that Al Qaeda was spent. ‘Al Qaeda is on the run,’ President Bush said last week. ‘That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly but surely being decimated…They're not a problem anymore.’”
Dowd used ellipses…to hide the truth. Here's what Bush actually said in Arkansas May 5: “Al Qaeda is on the run. That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly, but surely being decimated. Right now, about half of all the top Al Qaeda operatives are either jailed or dead. In either case, they're not a problem anymore. And we'll stay on the hunt. To make sure America is a secure country, the Al Qaeda terrorists have got to understand it doesn't matter how long it's going to take, they will be brought to justice.”
Notice the third sentence of Bush’s speech: It’s clear Bush was only talking about the top Al Qaeda operatives that “are either jailed or dead” as being “not a problem anymore”--not the group itself. Dowd dishonestly deleted that sentence and the first three words of the next in order to make Bush “say” Al Qaeda was no longer a threat.
For more on Maureen, click here.
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5) Chris Hedges: Pompous Pacifism, Condescending Contempt
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Times anti-war reporter Chris Hedges thought a graduation ceremony at “progressive” Rockford College would be a safe place to indulge his pompous pacifism, telling the assembled graduates on May 17: “I want to speak to you today about war and empire….We are embarking on an occupation that if history is any guide will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security.” The graduates thought differently: Hedges had his microphone unplugged and was booed off the stage. Days later Hedges whined about his hostile reception on far-left Pacifica Radio: "The tragedy is that--and I've seen it in conflict after conflict or society after society that plunges into war--with that kind of rabid nationalism comes racism and intolerance and a dehumanization of the other.”
For more on Hedges anti-war rants, click here.
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6) Frank Rich Praises Peter Arnett
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Frank Rich’s March 30 advocacy for war correspondent Peter Arnett abruptly turned embarrassing. The drama critic turned columnist rolled out his usual shtick--the Iraq war as show business--but didn’t yell “CUT!” on his praise for then-NBC correspondent Arnett: “One person on the scene who didn’t buy the initial story line....[Arnett] recognized a mindless TV rerun when he saw it....Unlike many of his peers, he had been there to see the early burst of optimism in Persian Gulf War I, which he covered for CNN. 'This is going to be tough,' he said just before it became tough."
The same day Rich praised the notoriously anti-war Arnett for not sticking to the Bush administration’s script, Arnett played a starring role as pro-Saddam propagandist in an interview for state-controlled Iraqi television--an interview given by an Iraqi anchor in green military uniform.
For more of Frank Rich's exquisite timing, click here.
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7) Democrats Are Just Too Nice
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“Temperament Wars,” James Traub's contribution to the July 6 Times Sunday magazine, argued that Democrats--get this--are simply too nice to compete in today’s political world against "ruthless, unfair" Republicans: “Could it be that the Democrats are constitutionally incapable of acting as single-mindedly--as ruthlessly, as unfairly--as the Republicans? If so, is this the kind of Christian virtue that leads to being eaten by lions?”
Traub continued in the poor-Democrats vein: “The difference between the two parties is not simply ideological. It is also temperamental....Why are the Democrats so much more willing than the Republicans to make political sacrifices in the name of procedural fairness or of good government? Maybe Democrats are just nicer, but a more philosophical view is that liberals are committed to, are in fact bedeviled by, ideals about process that do not much preoccupy conservatives, at least contemporary ones. Liberals put their faith in such content-neutral principles as free speech, due process, participatory democracy. Is that too lofty?....Ruthlessness is just not in the party's DNA.”
For more on Traub and those poor Democrats, click here.
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8) Coddling a Cuddly Communist Historian
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Sarah Lyall’s August 23 profile of Communist historian Eric Hobsbawm, “A Communist Life With No Apology,” portrayed the totalitarian supporter as a benign grandfather: “Mr. Hobsbawm, a gangly 86-year-old with thick horn-rimmed glasses and an engagingly lopsided smile, spoke in his living room in Hampstead, long the neighborhood of choice for London's leftist intellectuals, in between sips of coffee….[he’s] that unlikeliest of creatures, a committed Communist who never really left the party (he let his membership lapse just before the collapse of the Soviet Union) but still managed to climb to the upper echelons of English respectability by virtue of his intellectual rigor, engaging curiosity and catholic breadth of interests.”
Lyall tries to explain Hobsbawm: “His youth, particularly as Hitler's fascists began their rise to power, propelled him into Communism and into a lifelong sympathy for revolutions, for contrary thinking, for the ideal of revolutionary utopia." But being a Communist intellectual was hardly contrarian in the early 40s. In some circles, it was virtually required.
In her most galling passage, Lyall gushes: “Over his many years and against considerable odds, Mr. Hobsbawm has somehow maintained his belief in human resilience, in man's ability to live through the most appalling personal and public tragedies and still go on.” This about a man who would have willingly condemned 20 million people to death to fulfill his warped Communist ideology.
For more of the Times on the cuddly Communist Hobsbawm, click here.
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9) The Times' Liberal Cocoon
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Democratic partisans who rely on the Times for political coverage woke up to surprising election results November 5: While two Times articles had hyped the chances of Democratic candidates for governor in Kentucky and Mississippi, both were routed by Republicans on Election Day.
Slate journalist Mickey Kaus had previously developed an explanation: "The point is that reporters and editors at papers like the Times (either one!) are exquisitely sensitive to any sign that Democrats might win, but don't cultivate equivalent sensitivity when it comes to discerning signs Republicans might win. (Who wants to read that?) The result, in recent years, is the Liberal Cocoon, in which Democratic partisans are kept happy and hopeful until they are slaughtered every other November."
The Times fell into line. On August 13, reporter James Dao's story on the Kentucky governor's race included this pro-Democratic rah-rah: "With a tenacity that has surprised his opponent and some supporters, the Democratic candidate for governor, Attorney General Ben Chandler, has attacked Mr. Bush's stewardship of the economy, contending that Republican policies have drained Kentucky of 56,000 jobs, aided the wealthy at the expense of the poor and helped drill a gaping hole in the state budget." Dao continued cheerleading: "If Mr. Chandler, considered the underdog, can ride voters' anxieties about unemployment to victory, it could give the Democrats momentum in their seemingly uphill quest to unseat the president, Democrats and political analysts assert." Republican Ernie Fletcher won decisively (55%-45%) capturing the Kentucky statehouse for the Republican Party for the first time since 1967.
David Rosenbaum's October 15 dispatch on the Mississippi governor's race pitting Republican Haley Barbour versus incumbent governor Ronnie Musgrove similarly positioned the incumbent Democrat as the scrappy underdog: "With his money, national Republican connections, political savvy and personal charm, Haley Barbour looked to many people last winter like a sure bet to be elected governor of Mississippi this year. That was especially true because the Democratic incumbent whom he was challenging had presided over the weakest state economy in years in a region where President Bush is particularly popular and at a time when anti-incumbent sentiment seems to be increasing. But the handicappers underestimated Gov. Ronnie Musgrove. He raised nearly as much money as Mr. Barbour, conserved most of it for the last few weeks before the November election and proved to be a relentless campaigner. Now, although no polls have been published, the candidates and political experts agree that the race is extremely tight." The headline to Rosenbaum's story: "Mississippi Incumbent Surprises His G.O.P. Opponent."
The Times "cocooned" readership was no doubt surprised to find that Republican Haley Barbour won 53%-45%, becoming only the second Republican governor elected in Mississippi in modern times.
For more on the liberal cocoon, click here.
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10) Pulitzer Punts on Duranty's Prize, Satisfying Sulzberger
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The Pulitzer Prize board's November decision not to revoke Stalinist Times reporter Walter Duranty's 1932 prize led relieved Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. to say: "We respect and commend the Pulitzer board for its decision on this complex and sensitive issue." Before the decision, Sulzberger had ludicrously claimed that returning the prize might itself evoke the "Stalinist practice to airbrush purged figures out of official records and histories."
For more on Walter Duranty's Pulitzer, click here.
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