Blogworthies XII

Because The Blog from the Core simply can't cover everything.

Noteworthy entries @ The Mighty Barrister; Discriminations; Mere Comments; little green footballs; Oh, That Liberal Media! GetReligion; Dust in the Light; Off the Record; Hoystory.com; Oh, That Liberal Media! (again), Envoy Encore, and Thrown Back.

Up For Discussion @ The Mighty Barrister (emphasis in original):

.... I can't speak for the numbers; I don't practice family law, and I have no personal knowledge as to the numbers. However, my impression is that women do initiate the bulk of marital separation and divorce.

Why?

I don't know. I suppose that many do so for marital infidelities (on both sides), fear, violence, and so on. I only know that it seems that women are more likely to initiate the legal proceedings — I don't know which side most often initiates the underlying problems that (eventually) lead to the legal proceedings.

The point of the article (to me, at least) is that government policies provide not just a safety net for failed marriages; in fact, they provide an alternative to marriage. In other words, these policies provide an incentive for failure....

The Emperor's New Clothes @ Discriminations:

In an article in today’s Washington Post, Jim VandeHei describes how the top management of Kerry’s campaign, all current or former Kennedy operatives, is planning to assist Kerry “to sell himself anew to voters as a 21st-century centrist Democrat, a muscular hawk on national defense and deficits.”

As an exercise in power political gymnastics (not to say contortions), this will be fun to watch....

Looking for Friends in the Universe @ Mere Comments:

.... I was thinking this morning about the people who seem very much to want to find life on other planets and indeed to have an essentially religious faith in their existence. I wonder if the secularists among them, having removed God from the cosmos, simply don’t like the idea of man being alone in the universe.

Aliens seem to me a very poor substitute for God, but if they won’t have God, what other possible friend from outside this world could they have, but creatures from other planets? The Christian would say that we are made to look for a Friend outside — St. Augustine’s “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee” is one of the ways this has been said — and if we won’t look for a Friend we will look for friends to take his place....

Peaceful Religion Watch @ little green footballs:

The ranting was slightly more apocalyptic and xenophobically paranoid than usual last Friday in the spiritual centers of Islam, all broadcast live over Arab television to millions of viewers....

WaPo Admits Bias @ Oh, That Liberal Media (emphasis in original):

The Washington Post's ombudsman, Michael Getler, admits the paper engaged in a little subjective phrasing in Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus' story about the now-famous Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) from August 6, 2001: ....

Air America: Burning churches in the village of Middle America @ GetReligion:

Veteran media critic David Shaw of the Los Angeles Times forced himself to listen to a full cycle of Air America the other day and he decided that the big news is how the liberal talk-radio franchise handles — religion. Well, that and sex. You may have noticed, however, that issues of sexual morality often play a major role in religion news reports these days.

Shaw said that he expected "my fellow liberals" to offer up huge doses of "paranoia and conspiratorial idiocy to match the conservative paranoia and conspiratorial idiocy that Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and their ilk have used to turn talk radio into a powerful forum that liberals now blame for every social and political malady this side of tooth decay."

But what caught Shaw off guard was that Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, Randi Rhodes (shown with Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla.) and the other Air America stars seem so anxious to run away all listeners who do not already agree with them....

Actual Goodness and Inactual Bigotry @ Dust in the Light:

Michael Williams put something so well that it demands quotation. The boldface is his:

Many of the problems with our government arise from well-meaning people who reject the quaint notion of morality. They just can't encourage people to behave morally, so they chip, chip, chip away at the tiny freedoms that make immorality dangerous. They want to prove that the benefits of goodness can be separated from actual goodness. But they're wrong, and the result of their belief is the ridiculous, contradictory mess we've got now.

It's a bit like treating the symptoms; the disease will eventually manifest in a more dangerous form that is untreatable. Having not thought it through, I have to put this vaguely, but it may be that Michael's diagnosis points to the central difference between libertarians and small-government conservatives....

The Catholic Candidate from Massachusetts @ Off the Record:

The ironic comment from Amy Welborn.

She's referring, of course, to the other day's confab between John Kerry and Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, in light of the news that Senator Kerry, this year's Catholic presidential candidate, has just unleashed ads ATTACKING President Bush's pro-life stand, and pledging himself to guard the sacred "Freedom of Choice."

Apparently, even the bishops are increasingly feeling embarrassed over this situation — and we all know how bad a Situation has to get before they feel moved to begin to consider that they might have to start thinking about begining to do something about it. Presently, there's a Committee of Bishops working on this. Shortly — five or six years from now — I expect to see, on the USCCB website, a link to a site where I can order copies of "Always Our Candidates," a document/group study guide package on Pro-Choice Catholic politicians addressed to Faithful Catholics, exhorting them to adopt an understanding posture, affirming that these pro-choice Catholic pols do indeed belong to us, that nothing we've done has caused them to be pro-choice, and that the Catholic Tradition provides oodles of wisdom to help us through our disappointment... page after page of the anesthetizing prose of the consecrated bureaucracy.

Maybe it was the anchovies in last night's pizza, but I had a dream. An angel directed me to the website of the Diocese of Ostergothenburg, MN, where a link was provided to a pastoral letter of the Ordinary, Bishop Klaus Blitzkrieg, titled, 'PERSONALLY OPPOSED, BUT: A Monstrous Position.' Here's what the Bishop had to say: ....

Gorelick "testifies" @ Hoystory.com:

Instead of sitting before the 9/11 commission to be grilled on what she knows of how the Justice Department dealt with counterterrorism operations in the wake of the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing, commissioner Jamie Gorelick pens an op-ed piece in Sunday's Washington Post....

The unexamined life: worth living? @ Oh, That Liberal Media!

Julia Black, a 34-year-old British filmmaker, has created a controversial documentary which explores differences in perspective towards her recent pregnancy, which she chose to continue, and the one she had chosen to terminate when she was 21.

The author of the article, Peter Ross, exposes a rather telling insouciance midway through the piece....

Insist on the Genuine Article: Accept No Substitutes @ Envoy Encore:

I've encountered it many times. It usually comes from cradle Catholics who are absolutely blown away to find out that there are actually people out there that claim that Catholics are not Christians. They figure that as long as you believe in Jesus, it just doesn't matter what Christian sect you are part of. I have a friend who was trying to come into the Church against his families wishes, and when he visited a Priest he was told that as long as his family was attending a Christian church he shouldn't complain. I guess he figured one was as good as another.

More often than not, what we call ecumenism is really just compromise and concession. We take down our crucifixes and statues so that our Protestant brethren will feel more comfortable in our Parishes. We hide our rosaries and tuck that Miraculous Medal under our shirts so that they are not offended. We teach an entire year of RCIA without discussing Mary or the Real Presence or the Saints. Eeek, no. We might frighten them away. If any of the controversial stuff comes up in class we assure them they don't have to believe that stuff. (oh yeah, I've heard it!) We try to make our Catholic faith look like everyone else's so that we can be accepted into the post-Reformation "Christian Community."

Meanwhile, when Patrick, Carl or I go somewhere to speak, we are bombarded with questions during and afterward about how to bring sons and daughters and old friends back into the Church that have left for some other sect. They ask us how this could happen? How could they just up and leave the faith they were raised in? Many of these people are brokenhearted and represent a family torn apart by religious bigotry. They are in serious need of information and support....

Why We Have The Kerry Problem @ Thrown Back:

Is demonstrated neatly in this FoxNews.com article from Monday.

It is not enough for Senator Kerry to flaunt Church teaching on abortion by swearing everlasting fealty to Moloch, defending Partial-Birth Abortion, and voting against the "Born-Alive Infants" act. It is not enough for Kerry to have a 100% pro-abort rating with NARAL and NOW.

No, Senator Kerry goes beyond that to distort Catholic teaching, asserting a non-existent "freedom of conscience" which supposedly allows him to be a "good Catholic" while thumbing his nose at Church teaching.

Last week I suggested that one could charitably consider Kerry "befuddled and confused" in his understanding of Church teaching on abortion and his reponsibility as a legislator. But the fact is, Kerry and other Catholic politicians have been challenged on this account, and have been publicly corrected, and he persists in holding on to his erroneous and destructive position. It is becoming increasingly and rapidly impossible to avoid the conclusion that Kerry is obstinately and manifestly persisting in grave error, is challenging the teaching authority of the bishops, and is attempting to align himself and those in agreement with him as obedient to some sort of alternative magisterium....

See also Blogworthies XI and Blogworthies XIII.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 04/24/04 08:55:33 PM
Categorized as Blogworthies.

Two Years Ago Today: Lest We Forget

The U.S. cardinals issued a statement, April 24, 2002.

The pastors of the Church need clearly to promote the correct moral teaching of the Church and publicly to reprimand individuals who spread dissent and groups which advance ambiguous approaches to pastoral care.

• Lest We Forget: Eighteen months ago today, the U.S. Cardinals issued a statement.
• One Year Ago Today, the U.S. Cardinals Issued a Statement
• Six Months Ago Today, the U.S. Cardinals Issued a Statement

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 04/24/04 12:41:45 PM
Categorized as Religious.

"Culture Wars Bring Bitter Fruit"

Herb Ely blogs, yesterday, his latest column for the Charlottesville Observer:

.... Journalists are using the phrase “culture wars” as an all-purpose descriptor for the bitter controversies inflaming local and national media. Talk show hosts quickly make use of incidents such as Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl or Bush’s latest press conference as ammunition for their side of the “war”. Bill O’Reilly includes it as a topic on his television show. Al Franken, and others, have launched Air America, a liberal response to conservative talk radio, as another front in this war.

A look at the origin and history of the phrase will help explain much of the bitterness that characterizes the current Presidential campaign....

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 04/24/04 12:26:07 PM
Categorized as Political.

George W. Bush the War Criminal

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCLXXII

Ain't this precious? (Ellipses in original.)

The new revelations in Bob Woodward’s book, Plan of Attack, provide further evidence to convict President George W. Bush of war crimes. As one of the 49 original signers of the UN Charter, the United States committed itself to the ideals and practices of the norms of international law. Only two U.S. senators voted against the treaty, which includes Article 2(4) that specifically prohibits “... the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independent of any state....” In a September 23, 2003 speech to the United Nations, President Bush noted that both the UN Charter and American founding documents “recognize a moral law that stands above men and nations, which must be defended and enforced by men and nations.” Following World War II, just such action was taken at the Nuremberg trials and American, British, French and Soviet jurists established Article VI of the Nuremberg Charter, which legally defines “Crimes Against Peace.”

To commit a crime against peace, one must engage in “planning, preparation, initiation or waging of war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties... or participation in a common plan or conspiracy... to wage an aggressive war.” Bush is guilty on all these counts. The most damning evidence coming not from the liberal left, but in a series of well-documented books providing revelations by people in his own administration or party. Now, with Woodward’s work, the President is condemned with his own words.

Author Ron Susskind’s book about former Bush Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, The Price of Loyalty, reveals that from the very beginning of the Bush administration, the President was plotting and conspiring to wage aggressive war against Iraq. In Against All Enemies, Bush’s counter-terrorism expert, Richard Clarke, not only confirmed O’Neill’s account of the Bush administration’s obsession with attacking Iraq, yet also shows us an insider’s view on the illegal planning, preparation and initiation of the war through the deliberate manipulation of intelligence. President Nixon’s strategist, Kevin Phillips, documents four generations of war profiteering and deception by the Bush/Walker clan in American Dynasty.

Finally, in the latest blockbuster, Pulitzer Prize-winning Watergate reporter Bob Woodward outlines Bush’s illegal attack plan. Woodward establishes that five days after 9/11, the President was secretly scheming to go after, not bin Laden — the man responsible for the 9/11 attack — but rather bin Laden’s arch enemy Saddam Hussein. Specifically, 72 days after 9/11, Bush gave Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld the orders to draw up the secret war plans. Once enacted, these plans made George W. Bush a war criminal, just like the Nazi generals at Nuremberg.

Bush, supported by the mainstream corporate media, has hidden behind the semantics of “pre-emption.” Under international law, a pre-emptive strike is allowed when a nation is preparing for an imminent attack. Bush would be hard pressed before any tribunal, short of a Texas kangaroo court, to establish that the Iraqi military was an imminent threat to the U.S. Iraq was a defeated, heavily impoverished nation, under economic sanctions and restricted by U.S.-enforced no-fly zones in both its north and south.

The so-called “Bush doctrine” is in reality an echo of the illegal Nazi doctrine of “preventive” war, which asserted that any country that may pose a future non-specific threat can be attacked and occupied. This is not “higher moral law,” rather it is a repugnant Nazi doctrine last heard when Germany attacked Poland prior to World War II. Add to the mounting evidence against Bush’s criminality the fact that his key advisors are the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, who have been publicly waging a campaign to attack Iraq since the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. A quick visit to the Project for a New American Century website (www.newamericancentury.org) establishes their blatant disregard for both the UN Charter and Nuremberg principles. Their neocon or vulcan ideology draws in part from renegade Trotskyist Max Shachtman’s belief that authoritarian regimes are incapable of reform. Thus, they adopt the rhetoric of human rights hawks — painting any conflict as a clash between “freedom and tyranny” — to resurrect discredited Nazi war doctrines. Even the ever-cautious Columbus Dispatch recently editorialized that Bush is a “militant unilateralist” and attributes the President’s rhetoric and worldview to the “Vulcans.” Woodward’s book reads, as do Clarke’s and Susskind’s, as another lengthy prosecutory indictment against the Bush administration. Bush’s only defense against such blatant illegality is to find the real or imagined, or more likely recently planted, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. For the last two months, the Mehr News Agency from Tehran, Iran has reported allegations that the U.S. and British governments have been unloading weapons of mass destruction into southern Iraq. The news service claims that these weapons are dismantled Soviet-era nuclear material and weapons. Reuters reported these allegations as well. The President’s recent comments that he hasn’t given up on finding weapons of mass destruction, sound eerily familiar to his refrain in Florida on Election Eve, when he was asked if he was going to concede the election when exit polls showed him losing. He told the media that his brother Jeb’s political forces on the ground were indicating different results. What are Bush's forces on the ground in Iraq doing now, particularly his private contractor friends?

For a President who took us into war under an illegal Nazi doctrine and sold it to the American people based on cooked intelligence information, would it not be the next step to simply plant the evidence he needs amidst the chaos of a disintegrating Iraq? With the illusion of Iraqi sovereignty fading and potential disaster looming with a premature turnover, Bush's re-election bid may be based on his hitting another "trifecta": "capturing" Osama bin Laden, "trying" Saddam Hussein, and "finding" weapons of mass destruction. The recent alarmist talk about another terrorist attack prior to the election should be cause for great concern for an administration that conveniently ignored the overwhelming evidence of the Al Qaeda attack.

News services worldwide must stop the madness of George the Lesser, who was as ill-prepared to accept dynastic succession as the infamous Ethelred the Unready. Historians of the British monarchy suggest that the term “Unready” should be read as the archaic British term “redeless” meaning “without counsel.” Thus, Ethelred, like George the Lesser, made mistakes by impulsively pursuing action without wise counsel. Thankfully, the wisest of Bush's former counsels are warning the people this election year. The people of the United States need to hear their warnings and constitute an international People’s Tribunal to try President Bush for the war crimes he is committing.

Bob Fitrakis is a Political Science Professor in the Social and Behavioral Sciences department at Columbus State Community College, and author of The Idea of Democratic Socialism in America and the Decline of the Socialist Party (Garland Publishers 1993).

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 04/24/04 07:30:43 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.

"Bush Is Strengthened in the Crucible of Sept. 11 Panel, Many Experts Say"

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCLXXI

Oopsie.

Two years ago, President Bush resisted creating an independent commission to investigate the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Many Republicans feared a political witch hunt.

Bush relented soon after the first Sept. 11 anniversary, and today, after days of televised hearings by the bipartisan panel, it is hard to find evidence that Americans hold him personally responsible for not preventing the kamikaze hijackings that took down the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.

Recent polls show no measurable damage to Bush's re-election campaign, and the public seems more focused on Iraq than on the horrors of Sept. 11. While Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have yet to be questioned, many political experts say the commission's proceedings so far have strengthened Bush in unexpected ways.

The panel's work "has been a plus for the American people and hasn't damaged him in ways he was concerned about," said Michael Traugott, a University of Michigan professor of political science and communication studies.

Traugott said competing events "like Iraq and the need for additional troops" may have distracted public attention, while the evident partisanship of some commission members would have reinforced existing divisions in the electorate.

Overall, he said, "the public understands that there was a breakdown in functions of government. But this was somewhere in the bureaucracy and shouldn't be attributed to either incumbent president, Clinton or Bush, but that now something needs to be done about it."

The commission also provided a forum for Bush administration officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, to respond to critical accounts such as former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror."

Bush "absolutely had to have the commission," said James Thurber, director of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies. "It was like lancing something, or inoculating himself to a certain extent from damage."

Without the panel, Thurber said, "Clarke and others would have defined reality."

Fighting terrorism is still Bush's political strong suit, noted Alan Abramowitz, professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta.

"The more salient that issue is, the better it might be for Bush. The commission is keeping the issue in the public eye," Abramowitz said. "Maybe pushing other issues off the front page and out of the headlines works to Bush's advantage."

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, has been unable to exploit the panel's disclosures even when they have raised questions about Bush's performance, several experts said.

"Democrats completely failed to capitalize on it — they've done a poor job of making political hay here," said R. Bruce Anderson, visiting assistant professor of political science at Tennessee's Sewanee: The University of the South.

The commission has "sucked the oxygen out of the Kerry campaign," agreed Shaun Bowler, professor of political science at the University of California, Riverside. "So the decision to have the commission turned out to be a smart one. Cover-up is worse than the crime itself, and blocking the commission would have looked like a cover-up."

Unsurprisingly, Democratic analysts have a different view, despite polls showing Bush ahead of Kerry. A Washington Post-ABC News poll conducted April 15-18 showed Bush with 48 percent to Kerry's 43 percent, while in a CNN-USA Today poll done at the same time, Bush led 50-44.

"I think Bush is in trouble," said Stan Greenberg, a Democratic pollster. The president's continued strength in polls is a reflexive and temporary response to escalating violence in Iraq, Greenberg said — a "rally to support the troops and the commander in chief while we are facing this kind of threat."

Celinda Lake, another Democratic pollster, said her surveys show some decline in confidence in Bush on homeland security and terrorism. "People have major reservations," she said.

And at least one Republican is cautious in his assessment.

Any benefit to Bush from the commission's work is "inadvertent," said Roger Stone, a GOP consultant who has worked for Thomas Kean, the former New Jersey governor whose chairmanship of the Sept. 11 commission has drawn praise for even-handedness.

"Bush not only resisted the formation but the scope and the reach of commission, and you can see why now," Stone said. "There have been embarrassing moments and there are a lot of loose ends."

The commission's final report is due July 26.

"I think you'll get a document which both supporters and critics will claim proves their point," Stone said. "There will be criticism (of the president), but not so devastating as to produce a shift. In the end, I think it will not be very helpful or detrimental to Bush — it'll be a wash."

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 04/24/04 07:14:58 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode.

New York Times Needs Dale Carnegie

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CCLXX

Much pleasure may be had from this column by J.D. Mullane, from the wild hinterlands of eastern Pennsylvania (brackets in original).

I always imagined the newsroom of The New York Times as a frenetic place with dour men and women earnestly cobbling together the important news of the day, with editors occasionally interrupted by clerks who say, "The president is returning your call."

Busy, busy, busy.

So it was a treat to hear from a couple of Times journalists who graciously took time from their busy, important day to tell me I'm dumb and a hack.

Reporter Richard Perez-Pena and editor Peter Putrimas were miffed at last week's column criticizing The Times' top editor, Howell Raines, who resigned after star reporter Jayson Blair was nabbed last year plagiarizing, fabricating and inventing quotes for Page 1 stories at the nation's most powerful paper.

To me, it's important for readers to know that it's not reporters like Blair who make a newspaper good or bad — it's editors.

Editors control everything — hiring, news content, slant, headlines, who gets to cover the war and who gets to cover the local crossword puzzle competition.

Pecking through my words like an Upper West Side pigeon, Perez-Pena called me a distorter of truth and dismissed the editor versus reporter idea.

"What a dumb thing to say!" he huffed in an e-mail. "A great cook with lousy ingredients makes a bad meal, period."

Dazzling, this logic.

Editor Putrimas was angrier than a metrosexual out of hair gel — especially when I called Times editors "largely unseen boobs."

"A Jayson Blair slipped through our net and now we must pay the price, even to the point of putting up with hacks in the hinterlands like you who think they know a lot but who use their journalistic forum to foment half-truths and unfounded opinion," he sneered in an e-mail.

He unloaded rote bravado: that Times editors are a dedicated bunch who take to the ramparts to protect high standards of journalism.

"We go to great lengths to insure [sic] that facts are accurate, that interpretations are sound and that people can trust what they read in our pages."

Really? Let's test that.

In 2003, Times columnist Maureen Dowd misquoted words in a speech by George Bush, making it seem like the president naively announced that al-Qaida was no longer a threat. Through the use of ellipses, key words were erased from Bush's speech, and Dowd's misleading quote was widely reprinted and quoted in newspapers, on TV and in the foreign press.

A few columns later, Dowd used the entire Bush quote, in context, but neither she nor those hardworking, trusty Times editors have ever explained or forthrightly corrected the original quote.

However, at least six newspapers were forced to correct the Bush quote for readers, and one paper even dropped Dowd's column altogether.

Then there's The Times' Rick Bragg, a gifted and lyrical writer.

In 2002, The Times published his beautiful piece profiling oystermen on Florida's Gulf coast.

He describes "white egrets that slip like paper airplanes just overhead, and the jumping mullet that belly-flop with a sharp clap into steel-gray water."

Sweet.

The story appeared with Bragg's byline and a dateline from Apalachicola, Fla. Just one problem: Bragg didn't do any on-scene reporting, as readers were led to believe.

An uncredited freelancer, J. Wes Yoder, spent several days on the oyster boats collecting the details and doing the story's heavy lifting, while Bragg was an hour away in Fort Walton Beach.

Bragg merely supplied the pretty phrasing.

Worse, Bragg only briefly visited Apalachicola to snag the dateline, a deceptive journalistic practice that Slate.com has called the "dateline toe-touch."

Bragg resigned in 2003 and The Times published an "editor's note" that gave the freelancer credit.

But Dowd, who would have been instantly fired here in the hinterlands, still works for the "newspaper of record."

These writers aren't the newspaper's backbenchers or foolish interns willing to perpetrate journalistic fraud to grab 1A. Dowd and Bragg have Pulitzers.

These are people who were anointed the best by Times editors, the — ahem — smartest editors in the business.

So, boys, spare me the lectures about distortions of truth, half-truths, unfounded opinion, and your sad, gray newspaper's dedication to accuracy and regard for reader trust.

The strange thing is that, after all this self-inflicted scandal, no one in the business will say what's obvious:

The New York Times no longer represents the gold standard of journalism.

Tinfoil, maybe, but not gold.

Here's Mullane's column, Apr. 15, that startled the NYT journalists (journalists?) out of their cozy, insulated existence:

.... Even after Jayson Blair, many of us in the journalism business still reflexively consider it the best paper in the country, though the Blair scandal and the airing of the newsroom's dirty laundry prove it isn't.

As a newspaper reader and as a consumer of news, you are probably unaware of The Times' influence on journalism. You should, since what you read in daily papers or see on network or cable news or hear on radio or read on the Internet is usually traceable to The Times' front page.

This is why The Times reporters enjoy a highfalutin status within the journalism business.

Still, reporters don't make a newspaper good or bad. A newspaper's reputation rests with those who push the levers and make decisions regarding content — the editors.

Editors hire and fire. They control the budget. They decide what news to play up or down or bury or ignore. Editors decide whether to fill their pages with touchy-feely stuff or the hard stuff that causes the political bosses to have sleepless nights.

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein at The Washington Post were great reporters, but they couldn't have written about President Nixon's corrupt administration if it hadn't been for Ben Bradlee, the paper's editor, ordering them to expose the scandal that Watergate became.

Howell Raines might be gone, but many of the editors remain who kept silent and collected a paycheck while Jayson Blair typed his way into infamy.

As long as these largely unseen boobs control the nation's most powerful newspaper, The New York Times will be easy to mock.

Starry-eyed kids sitting in journalism schools around the country should keep dreaming but should also consider working for a more credible outfit.

The Blog from the Core asserts Fair Use for non-commercial, non-profit educational purposes.

P.S. Dale Carnegie? Vide.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sat. 04/24/04 06:40:12 AM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & Media.