Too bad we can't get "Vanity Fair" online
ANDREW SULLIVAN
RAINES OF TERROR: I was long criticized for using this blog to expose the extraordinary attempt by Howell Raines to turn the New York Times into his personal vehicle for quixotic left-liberal causes - or simply to throw his weight around. He was an insufferable, arrogant tyrant. As more details come out, the most paranoid anti-Raines arguments gain more traction. Now here comes David Margolick's piece in the new Vanity Fair. I offer a single example:
Worse, Raines would not let facts get in the way of a story he had ordered up or a point he decided to make. "Howell wanted a thought inserted high in one of my stories," says a metro reporter. "The only problem was, it wasn't true. Mind you, this was on my beat, a beat he didn't really know about. I said to the editor who was the message-bearer that it wasn't true, and it didn't belong in the story, period. A while later he came back to me and said, 'Well, you're right, but Howell wants it anyway.' It became clear that the editor had not fully conveyed my arguments to Howell, because he was afraid to. I said, 'F--- that -- I'll tell him myself.' And he literally seized my arm and said, 'You don't want to do that.' And ultimately the editor-intermediary and I compromised on a version of what Howell wanted that was just vague enough not to mean much, but still close enough to a falsehood to make my very uncomfortable." |
