Thursday, June 17, 2004
The Sorry State of the New York Times
Due to a demand that I fufill my promise to use this space for "random political speculations" I have decided to bring both of our readers' :) attention to the sorry plight of the New York Times. This post is not for those with little interest in politics, since I can get long winded...
Those who know me might ask why I read the New York Times so religiously only to be consistently disappointed in its ability to produce quality reporting or commentary. I think the aswer lies partly in that it is free, and partly in that it is enough of a leader in the media that ignoring what they say would be like ignoring all research coming out of Harvard just because we all know that they are a bunch of liberals.
To begin I must admit that one of the three shining lights of the NYtimes (Brooks, Safire, and Friedman) was in good form today, and while I am not as ardent a follower of Thomas Freidman as some Bethel Poly Sci grads, and I only agree with him half of the time, he always is astute and makes a good case for his views, and today is no different.
Nevertheless, today the paper is in particularily bad form, it has reached a low that can only be caused by one person: Maureen Dowd. She often surprises me with her ability to take a real world topic, sometimes even a substantive topic, and create 700 words of pure drivel. Today she did not even start out with a substantive topic, but that does not really limit her in any way. There is nothing newsworthy, nothing astute, nothing valuable in her columns that I have yet read.
I can forgive the times for publishing her, however, since it is possible that they actually sell more newspapers if they allow her to spill ink onto their pages, so that sensible people like me can not help but read her columns a few times a month just to make sure she is still in top form.
Today however, they outdid themselves by picking up on one of her anecdotes in their lead editorial, saying the following:
Since this has been an argument from the left from the beginnning, there should be no surprise that one of their lead stories and their editorial are proclaiming the news as loud as possible, for that is their ideological duty.
I only point out this focus in order to go off into my speculations: First, they are ignoring the fact that the Bush administration and the folks at number 10 Downing Street gave many reasons for going to war, and at the time the claim was not just that Saddam was linked to Al Qaeda, but that his regieme was supporting terrorism. And this is not in question. Saddam was giving pensions to palestinian suicide bombers' families (while his own people were at times starving), and supporting terrorist training camps (not Al Qaeda) within his country for years. As such, the claims made about his regieme being in support of terrorists in not a matter of debate.
To stretch this entry out to a real painful length, longer than Tim ever let me go in my Clarion columns, I wonder at the strategy of the left in this election. It seems that Kerry and his support staff (also known as the NYT editorial board) are trying to win this election by rehashing the debate over going to war in Iraq. This confuses me greatly, since support for the war has been so high, they seem to be valiently fighting an uphill battle on this one. This greatly appeals to their anti-Bush, anti-war base, and maybe it will work, but somehow I doubt it. I am still waiting to hear what Kerry is going to do for America that is offensive, not defensive. Stated differently, I have yet to hear much of anything out of him other than: Bush did this, Bush is bad, I will undo what he did. Or even more common: Bush did this, Bush is bad, I won't change a thing, but vote for me because I disagree. Good luck to you Mr Kerry, but for my vote you need to stand for something more.
Due to a demand that I fufill my promise to use this space for "random political speculations" I have decided to bring both of our readers' :) attention to the sorry plight of the New York Times. This post is not for those with little interest in politics, since I can get long winded...
Those who know me might ask why I read the New York Times so religiously only to be consistently disappointed in its ability to produce quality reporting or commentary. I think the aswer lies partly in that it is free, and partly in that it is enough of a leader in the media that ignoring what they say would be like ignoring all research coming out of Harvard just because we all know that they are a bunch of liberals.
To begin I must admit that one of the three shining lights of the NYtimes (Brooks, Safire, and Friedman) was in good form today, and while I am not as ardent a follower of Thomas Freidman as some Bethel Poly Sci grads, and I only agree with him half of the time, he always is astute and makes a good case for his views, and today is no different.
Nevertheless, today the paper is in particularily bad form, it has reached a low that can only be caused by one person: Maureen Dowd. She often surprises me with her ability to take a real world topic, sometimes even a substantive topic, and create 700 words of pure drivel. Today she did not even start out with a substantive topic, but that does not really limit her in any way. There is nothing newsworthy, nothing astute, nothing valuable in her columns that I have yet read.
I can forgive the times for publishing her, however, since it is possible that they actually sell more newspapers if they allow her to spill ink onto their pages, so that sensible people like me can not help but read her columns a few times a month just to make sure she is still in top form.
Today however, they outdid themselves by picking up on one of her anecdotes in their lead editorial, saying the following:
It's hard to imagine how the commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks could have put it more clearly yesterday: there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, between Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11.
Now President Bush should apologize to the American people, who were led to believe something different.
Since this has been an argument from the left from the beginnning, there should be no surprise that one of their lead stories and their editorial are proclaiming the news as loud as possible, for that is their ideological duty.
I only point out this focus in order to go off into my speculations: First, they are ignoring the fact that the Bush administration and the folks at number 10 Downing Street gave many reasons for going to war, and at the time the claim was not just that Saddam was linked to Al Qaeda, but that his regieme was supporting terrorism. And this is not in question. Saddam was giving pensions to palestinian suicide bombers' families (while his own people were at times starving), and supporting terrorist training camps (not Al Qaeda) within his country for years. As such, the claims made about his regieme being in support of terrorists in not a matter of debate.
To stretch this entry out to a real painful length, longer than Tim ever let me go in my Clarion columns, I wonder at the strategy of the left in this election. It seems that Kerry and his support staff (also known as the NYT editorial board) are trying to win this election by rehashing the debate over going to war in Iraq. This confuses me greatly, since support for the war has been so high, they seem to be valiently fighting an uphill battle on this one. This greatly appeals to their anti-Bush, anti-war base, and maybe it will work, but somehow I doubt it. I am still waiting to hear what Kerry is going to do for America that is offensive, not defensive. Stated differently, I have yet to hear much of anything out of him other than: Bush did this, Bush is bad, I will undo what he did. Or even more common: Bush did this, Bush is bad, I won't change a thing, but vote for me because I disagree. Good luck to you Mr Kerry, but for my vote you need to stand for something more.
Comments:
This Dowd lady reminds me of that Rita Sk... okay, so I can't remember her last name, but that one journalist in Harry Potter that was so gifted at twisting the facts to make a story sensational and fit her political agenda. I was glad when Hermione stuck Rita in a glass jar! With some journalists, sometimes I wish we could do the same... (on both sides of the political spectrum, but this Dowd lady just rubbed me wrong.)
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