Mugger: Why Won't the Times Come Clean

It would be entirely unorthodox, but imagine if the New York Times had the guts to back up its daily sniping at President Bush by prematurely endorsing one of his Democratic challengers for the 2004 election. Such a decision would gain an enormous amount of respect among readers of every ideological persuasion. Honesty–which executive editor Howell Raines does not exude–counts. Say next week the Times tapped Sen. John Kerry (a matter of the head winning over the heart’s choice of Howard Dean) as its choice for the next president. No longer could critics complain of an agenda that’s in lockstep with the Democratic Party, because the paper’s beliefs would be out in the open and not shrouded by the myth of objectivity.

This thought came to mind last Saturday while reading the Times’ lead editorial, "Assessing the Weapons Search," in which the writer offered a tortured and long-winded opinion of why Bush’s decision to destroy Saddam Hussein’s regime will be largely discredited if the "smoking gun" of weapons of mass destruction are not found. As in immediately.

The editorial begins: "One continuing divide between those who supported the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq and those who opposed it seems to be weapons of mass destruction. Many opponents, while stunned by the swiftness with which the Iraqi government and military crumbled, harp on the failure by American troops to produce any definitive proof so far that Iraq had chemical or biological, let alone nuclear, weapons. Those who supported the war are for the most part muting whatever concern they may feel. President Bush, in an interview with Tom Brokaw on NBC News this week, expressed confidence that the weapons would be found but warned that it might take some time."

The paper concludes that it’ll take the verification of "international inspectors" to make any discoveries believable. Perhaps Raines and Co. think that the CIA will plant WMD in some underground bunker outside of Baghdad and offer that as proof to the world.

It would save a lot of time and gnashing of teeth if the Times simply admitted it believes Bush is an irresponsible, trigger-happy moron, a spoiled cowboy/frat brat, and then slog on with its bashing of the president unencumbered by even a shred of ambiguity.

While it’s true that the U.S. equivalent of Britain’s unapologetic left-wing Guardian is more genteel than blowhards like Robert Fisk, Helen Thomas, Nancy Pelosi and 75 percent of academia, the paper is no less determined to defeat Bush in 2004, primarily because of the Florida recount an eon ago.

Certainly it will take time to discover the WMD and biological weapons, but why would the Times trust inspectors–like lifetime bureaucrat Hans Blix–more than the small coalition that actually liberated Iraq? Oh, I forgot: Iraq wasn’t "liberated," it was conquered, which led to looting, shortages of food, water and electricity and most damaging of all, the pillaging of the country’s national museum. (That the thieves were professionals, anticipating the chaos, is apparently a minor detail.)

Never mind that the Times’ own John Burns wrote detailed articles about the extent of Saddam’s torture chambers, routine executions and the stealing of money that was meant for his subjects. Or that the dictator paid off the families of Palestinian suicide bombers who murdered innocent Israelis. A Mesopotamian vase is still at large: Therefore the invasion was a colossal and vicious blunder, a crime against civilization.

Obviously, the Times’ skewed coverage isn’t limited to Bush and his administration (with the exception of Colin Powell, who’d probably be treated differently if he were white), but to most of the Republican Party as well. Sens. Lincoln Chafee, Olympia Snowe and George Voinovich, the courageous "moderates," are temporarily off the hook. The paper wasn’t alone in its criticism of Sen. Rick Santorum’s impolitic comments about the Supreme Court’s deliberation over the absurd sodomy laws in Texas, but once again was selective in rebuking a member of Congress who gave offense to many citizens across the country.

I don’t agree with Santorum’s warped view of homosexuality or, for that matter, threesomes, prostitution, pornography or anything else that’s conducted in the privacy of one’s home and doesn’t harm anyone. Should the Pennsylvania senator resign? No: That’s up to his constituents. And the Times didn’t suggest, in a slightly facetious April 22 editorial, that he should. But it does isolate the GOP for offensive comments.

An excerpt: "Hear ye, hear ye: Senator Rick Santorum feels obliged to offer gratuitous guidance to the Supreme Court in the form of an ad hoc, highly unlearned ruling that equates homosexuality with bigamy, polygamy, incest and adultery... The G.O.P. has not lived down the ‘Barney Fag’ slur against Barney Frank by Dick Armey, the former House majority leader, who was more swaggering than apologetic about it. Senator Santorum insists that he was talking about privacy more than about homosexuality, but his message was tailored for retrograde loyalists."

I’d guess that a sizable number of Times staffers probably think adultery is more acceptable than homosexuality, even if they won’t admit it, but ponder the phrase "retrograde loyalists." What exactly does that mean? Santorum’s not up for reelection in 2004, so it’s not likely he was making a pitch for that famous bloc of Pennsylvania "retrograde loyalists," whomever they are.

The point here is the Times’ case-by-case outrage. The paper published no rebuke of Rep. James Moran (unlike the Washington Post) when he claimed those nasty Jews were behind Bush’s decision to invade Iraq. That’s called anti-Semitism, Mr. Raines, and your decision to let Moran slide is morally reprehensible.

As was the lack of editorial comment about Democratic Sen. Patty Murray’s comments in December that Osama bin Laden was doing more for the underprivileged in the world than the United States, such as building hospitals and day care centers in the Third World. Or when Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur told the Toledo Blade last March: "One could say that Osama bin Laden and these non-nation-state fighters with religious purposes are very similar to those kind of atypical revolutionaries that cast off the British crown."

Apparently, it’s just dandy that an idiot like Kaptur might compare bin Laden to Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, to mention just a few American heroes.

By the way, there was no mention in the Times’ pages about Sen. Kerry’s acceptance of an endorsement by Alex Sanders who last year tossed off a gay slur against Rudy Giuliani in his losing South Carolina senate race. Sanders said: "[Giuliani’s] wife kicked him out and he moved in with two gay men... Is that South Carolina values? I don’t think so." As the Boston Herald reported on April 27, Kerry didn’t grasp the contradiction when he attacked Santorum and Bush, saying, "The White House speaks the rhetoric of compassionate conservatism, but they’re silent while their chief lieutenants make divisive and hurtful comments that have no place in our politics."

The Future Is Grounded

Remember all the headlines in the early 90s that in a decade a plane would be able to fly from New York to Tokyo in two hours? Now that British Airways and Air France are ending their Concorde flights this year, all that aviation exuberance seems like a cruel joke. In fact, with today’s airlines in dire financial straits, it seems as if the horse and buggy is bound to make a revival.

I’ve been on about a dozen Concorde flights–none after the Air France crash in July 2000–and feel melancholy about this once-wondrous mode of transportation’s demise. Just as Americans lost interest in the space program after JFK’s promise of a rocket reaching the moon by the end of the 60s was realized, the failed economics of Concorde, apparent almost immediately after the inaugural flights 27 years ago, have relegated those splendid planes to museum relics.

There have been dozens of eulogies written about the plane in the past several weeks, and most have missed the point, concentrating on the "luxury" of the three-hour flight rather than the magnificent convenience of saving time. In fact, the ride was often bumpy, the seats cramped and the ambience not nearly as elegant as that of the now-defunct MGM Grand flights from New York to Los Angeles.

An Air France station manager at JFK, Jacques Malot, was quoted recently in the Times as saying, "People used to dress up to take the Concorde–jewels, dress, nice coats. Those days are gone. Now, people come in jeans." That’s a fallacy: I first flew from New York to London on a Concorde 16 years ago and, as is the case on most planes, the attire of customers varied. There were businessmen in suits, who’d be dressed that way in any case; athletes in sweatpants and tank-tops; celebrities in jeans and no make-up and elderly ladies in furs. Just like the first-class section of any airline.

In addition, there were almost always discounts to be found when flying at twice the speed of sound. On every occasion I flew Concorde–save one, when a sudden business trip to London beckoned–I never paid the full fare, combining either "specials" by the two airlines or combinations of traveling by Concorde one way, returning home in business class, sometimes for as low a fare as $2500. And still, the cabin would be 75 percent vacant.

Who would’ve predicted back in 1964, while roaming through the futuristic exhibits at the World’s Fair in Flushing, that in 2003 transportation would be essentially unchanged. Unless Amtrak is privatized, the railroads, including the terrific Acela, will soon take a step backward. Which leaves the automobile, which is still, amazingly, the cause of so many needless deaths each year. Once, as a kid, my family was going home to Long Island from New Hampshire in our station wagon. On a Connecticut turnpike we saw a gruesome accident. I’ll never forget a plump lady, her polka-dot dress stained with blood, sitting outside her demolished Volkswagen, with the glaze of "Why me?" on her face.

I imagined then–and as recently as five years ago–that in the 21st century, Americans would look back at road travel and wince at the "barbarism" and "primitive" state of the automobile, that so many people could be killed on the highways. No vision came to me as a replacement for the common car, except maybe a vehicle that was made of rubber, but I was convinced that those fatalities would be nearly eradicated by "progress."

Those illusions are now gone: I’d rather walk.

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