Guest blogged by Winter Patriot
Regular readers of this space will recall that The BRAD BLOG is not a big fan of way the New York Times “covers” the news. But regular readers also know that we do our best to be fair, and to give credit where it’s due. Therefore it behooves me to point out three excellent columns in recent editions of the NYT, and to report that two of them are at the top of the NYT‘s list of “most e-mailed stories”.
Let’s start with Maureen Dowd’s column of Wednesday, August 17, Biking Toward Nowhere.
She writes:
Wasn’t he worried that his vacation activities might send a frivolous signal at a time when he had put so many young Americans in harm’s way?
…
At long last, a senior Bush official admits that administration officials can no longer cling to their own version of reality. “We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we’re in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning,” the official told The Washington Post.
They had better start absorbing and shedding a lot faster, before many more American kids die to create a pawn of Iran. And they had better tell the Boy in the Bubble, who continues to dwell in delusion, hailing the fights and delays on the Iraqi constitution as “a tribute to democracy.”
The president’s pedaling as fast as he can, but he’s going nowhere.
NYT readers say: #2 on the most e-mailed list.
Thursday it was Bob Herbert’s turn to strike, and strike he did.
His column, Blood Runs Red, Not Blue contains another morsel of honest truth:
This is eerie. Scary. Surreal.
The war is going badly and lives have been lost by the thousands, but there is no real sense, either at the highest levels of government or in the nation at large, that anything momentous is at stake. The announcement on Sunday that five more American soldiers had been blown to eternity by roadside bombs was treated by the press as a yawner. It got very little attention.
You can turn on the television any evening and tune in to the bizarre extended coverage of the search for Natalee Holloway, the Alabama teenager who disappeared in Aruba in May. But we hear very little about the men and women who have given up their lives in Iraq, or are living with horrific injuries suffered in that conflict.
If only the war were more entertaining. Less of a downer. Perhaps then we could meet the people who are suffering and dying in it.
For all the talk of supporting the troops, they are a low priority for most Americans. If the nation really cared, the president would not be frolicking at his ranch for the entire month of August. He’d be back in Washington burning the midnight oil, trying to figure out how to get the troops out of the terrible fix he put them in.
There’s more, of course. I think it’s wonderful. NYT readers say: #1!!
But that may change when they see Paul Krugman’s column this morning.
It’s called What They Did Last Fall and — guess what?? — it’s about the “election”. And it’s good!
…
There have been two Democratic reports on Ohio in 2004, one commissioned by Representative John Conyers Jr., the other by the Democratic National Committee.
The D.N.C. report is very cautious: “The purpose of this investigation,” it declares, “was not to challenge or question the results of the election in any way.” […] Although the Conyers report is less cautious, it stops far short of claiming that the wrong candidate got Ohio’s electoral votes.
…
And then there are the election night stories. Warren County locked down its administration building and barred public observers from the vote-counting, citing an F.B.I. warning of a terrorist threat. But the F.B.I. later denied issuing any such warning. Miami County reported that voter turnout was an improbable 98.55 percent of registered voters. And so on.
We aren’t going to rerun the last three elections. But what about the future?
Our current political leaders would suffer greatly if either house of Congress changed hands in 2006, or if the presidency changed hands in 2008. The lids would come off all the simmering scandals, from the selling of the Iraq war to profiteering by politically connected companies. The Republicans will be strongly tempted to make sure that they win those elections by any means necessary. And everything we’ve seen suggests that they will give in to that temptation.
Three cheers for [three exceptional truth-tellers who are still published by] the New York Times! Hooray for Maureen Dowd! Hooray for Bob Herbert! and Hooray for Paul Krugman!!
I keep saying, about the Warren County lockdown: how come nothing ever happened, when it’s a fact that the Warren County officials said the FBI informed them the terror alert was 10, but the FBI said that they didn’t??? Someone’s definitely lying! And since when does the FBI not pursue someone lying about them, especially election officials? Is this what it’s come to, things are just dropped anymore? And the NYTimes: why isn’t there a story about the discrepancy between what the Warren County officials said vs. what the FBI said?
Also, was there a terror alert "10" in Warren County, only??? Again, the MSM fails! Questions, questions, questions…..just dropped by everybody.
Here’s the only conclusion: It’s OK that Warren County officials said the FBI told them there was a terror alert "10", and it’s OK that the FBI said they didn’t. And that’s it…end of story. That’s the way it is today. And it’s OK that Warren County officials shutdown the precinct to do the counting, under these circumstances. Based on the MSM’s reaction to this whole situation, that’s the conclusion one must draw.
And people like me are "crazy" because we want answers to something that reeks, and doesn’t make sense, and was never followed up on!
Heh.. posted this on a different thread, but it’s very appropriate for this one..
The media (read: corperate america and global conglomerates) is complicit in all of this. They want their profits up and Republicans are good for that.. free money from the gov, laxed laws, deregulation.. though, now with the gas crunch on, they might start getting pissy and let Shrubman swing.. that’s our only hope (as a nation).. kida sick and sad, isn’t it?
:crazy:
Today’s column by Paul Krugman in the Times is a classic example of the paper’s ambivalence toward the Bush administration. They’ll criticize Bush, but not to the point of questioning his legitimacy.
Krugman is a bona fide liberal and a Bush hater. Yet today’s column, which for the first time dealt frankly with the 2000 and 2004 elections, was a masterpiece of hedged language (in the vernacular, bullshit). Krugman admitted that "…few Americans have heard the facts (about election fraud)…" He continues (get this, folks) "Perhaps journalists have felt that it would be divisive to cast doubt on the Bush administration’s legitimacy."
Ha, ha, ha. It’s O.K. for the Times to devote two consecutive days’ banner headlines to election fraud in the Ukraine, but it’s "divisive" to expose election fraud at home. Naivete, thy real name is hypocrisy.
Krugman knows better, of course…later in the column he cited the Warren County lockdown, voter disenfranchisement, and warned that the G.O.P., having paid no penalty for stealing two elections (my choice of words), wouldn’t hesitate to do it again in 2006 and 2008.
It’s always the same problem Robert…
People have scratched out the "enlightened" from "enlightened self interest" and will defend the status quo even if it fundamentally unjust.
Most ordinary people like us want a government that is consistent and fair in its application of laws… For working people, a fair set of rules and the ability to understand and abide by these rules is a source of great security and opportunity. Like traffic signs, they give everyone a fair shot at making it to their destination safely, whether they drive, walk, ride their bikes, or take a bus.
I’m normally an independent, but this time I am going to throw in with my local Democratic party and do some precinct work. I was at my county fair and the GOP booth was arrayed with all kinds of slick graphics and crap and staffed by people who look like they work out…
the Democrat booth was pieced together out of handmade stuff and staffed by the kind of people you see at the fair. And the Democrats are going to give the well-oiled GOP machine a run for their money because they are real and everyone is mad. The people believe in it. They have nothing to hide from. They want to live a better life. And they want you to, too.
Take that sensibility and combine it with simple observations about fairness and giving people a shot at living good…. and the GOP will lose. The DNC just has to stop giving so much time to people like Kerry, ditch the corporate lobbies that write their platform, and focus on the ordinary people that desperately need the government to be fair again. People like Rowley, Hackett, Conyers and Wellstone (God Bless his soul) should be who we choose to represent us.
Why don’t you scream to them to make this a habit?
Stop reporting the bullshit soap opera digest crap, and keep reporting the truth…..Over and over again. New York Times has become a huge piece of garbage thanks to Judith Miller and her stenographers….
Who will rise to the challenge to reclaim its deflated reputation?
Who will make it the new Washington Post or real newspaper?
Doug E.
Don’t trash Kerry. He is a good man and would be a good President. He won the vote but not the count. Would you have him cheat like the BCFOL? Nobody could have made Ohio blue in 2004.
That’s incorrect someone could have made Ohio turn out in 2004, Howard Dean. Blackwell could have been stopped by Dean and they could have avoided the election fraud. Dean had their M.O memorized, it would have been possible and there’d be a lawsuit in the supreme court.
Doug
From Paul Krugman’s piece:
Speaking about the DNC report on Ohio he says
"It says there is no evidence that votes were transferred away from John Kerry…’. How was it possible to come to that conclusion when it’s been noted countless times that every irregularity was in bush’s favor, a statistical impossibility? I’m just askin’.
will somebody please tell dim joan what BCFOL is?
"He won the vote but not the count." But let’s not trash him for not fighting back?
Give me a break! If somebody robs a bank, do we say, "Well, he got away this time, but let’s just make sure he doesn’t do it again."????
Or do we say, "Let’s catch the son-of-a-bitch and throw him in jail."?????
Kerry did the first. He should have done the second.
re #10 — Joan: I’m told it means "Bush Crime Family Of Liars"
Thanks, WP. :o)
BCFOL…..that’s a new one for me.
New York Times update: Today’s Times has another column by Paul Krugman about election fraud.
Well…not exactly about fraud, but Krugman at least admits that Al Gore, after all the analysis was said and done, won the 2000 election.
The column is titled, "Don’t Prettify Our History." But it’s another mixed blessing. We should be glad the Times has finally discovered that the wrong guy was inaugurated in 2000. But Krugman never talks about the 2004 election in his column, even though it would have been the most natural segue in the world (once burned, twice shy?. By omission, then, Krugman prettifies the history of the 2004 election.
Paul’s email box couldn’t accept this letter, as the file was "too large." So I sent it by snail mail.
Dear Mr. Krugman:
Well, ah … tepid. At least you tried.
But you call Mr. Gumbel’s dismissal of the exit poll discrepancy “judicious”; and you reiterate, for the record, that the 2004 electoral malfeasance “…didn’t change the outcome.” You do not refute, or even examine (at least, not publicly), the findings of Josh Mittledorf et el vis-a-vis the Mitofsky report (a summary of which is below).
I assume you have read Mark Crispin Miller’s piece “None Dare Call It Stolen” in the current edition of Harpers: http://www.harpers.org/ExcerptNoneDare.html. Much of this same information was published months ago in Vanity Fair by Christopher Hitchens (hardly a left-wing shill), pasted below.
Mr. Krugman: think again. The 2004 election was very probably stolen. Very probably, in large part, electronically. The only reason it wasn’t as obvious as in 2000 was because it was somewhat more adroitly done (practice making for improvement). I was in Ohio working to get out the vote on election week and eve. I saw the long lines, heard from those on the ground about the usual shenanigans, watched Mr. Kenneth Blackwell’s bullshit.
But the real story is electronic vote fraud. Many hardworking, knowledgeable citizens (not politicians) who are very concerned about this have documented how and where this happened (I attach a letter I wrote to President Carter in his position a co-chair of the Voting Reform Commission, listing many of these individuals). They have answered the question, posed by the sneering right and the credulous press, “How could such a vast conspiracy have gone undetected?”
Although I am grateful to you for posing the specter of another stolen election, I am afraid that you have not directed attention to the major culprit: manipulation of the machines.
A hand count of paper ballots cast in every precinct in the U.S. for just the federal races (the House, the Senate, and the Presidential/Vice Presidential) is not a logistical impossibility; it wouldn’t even be especially costly, take much time, or necessitate ditching the electronic machines for other races. If a proposal to take this route were to cause objections from the big voting machine companies, this would throw into sharp relief the political (as opposed to the purely financial) nature of the interest companies such as Diebold have in these races.
Sincerely,
Sheila Leavitt, M.D.
60 Parkway Road
Newton, Massachusetts 02460
Paul K.’s email was not accepting large files, so I snail mailed the below letter:
Dear Mr. Krugman:
Well, ah … tepid. At least you tried.
But you call Mr. Gumbel’s dismissal of the exit poll discrepancy “judicious”; and you reiterate, for the record, that the 2004 electoral malfeasance “…didn’t change the outcome.” You do not refute, or even examine (at least, not publicly), the findings of Josh Mittledorf et el vis-a-vis the Mitofsky report (a summary of which is below).
I assume you have read Mark Crispin Miller’s piece “None Dare Call It Stolen” in the current edition of Harpers: http://www.harpers.org/ExcerptNoneDare.html. Much of this same information was published months ago in Vanity Fair by Christopher Hitchens (hardly a left-wing shill), pasted below.
Mr. Krugman: think again. The 2004 election was very probably stolen. Very probably, in large part, electronically. The only reason it wasn’t as obvious as in 2000 was because it was somewhat more adroitly done (practice making for improvement). I was in Ohio working to get out the vote on election week and eve. I saw the long lines, heard from those on the ground about the usual shenanigans, watched Mr. Kenneth Blackwell’s bullshit.
But the real story is electronic vote fraud. Many hardworking, knowledgeable citizens (not politicians) who are very concerned about this have documented how and where this happened (I attach a letter I wrote to President Carter in his position a co-chair of the
Voting Reform Commission, listing many of these individuals). They have answered the question, posed by the sneering right and the credulous press, “How could such a vast conspiracy have gone undetected?”
Although I am grateful to you for posing the specter of another stolen election, I am afraid that you have not directed attention to the major culprit: manipulation of the machines.
A hand count of paper ballots cast in every precinct in the U.S. for just the federal races (the House, the Senate, and the Presidential/Vice Presidential) is not a logistical impossibility; it wouldn’t even be especially costly, take much time, or necessitate ditching the electronic machines for other races. If a proposal to take this route were to cause objections from the big voting machine companies, this would throw into sharp relief the political (as opposed to the purely financial) nature of the interest companies such as Diebold have in these races.
Sincerely,
Sheila Leavitt, M.D.
60 Parkway Road
Newton, Massachusetts 02460
Well done, Sheila. I can’t prove it, but I have a hunch that Krugman would dearly love to blow the issue of election fraud sky high. He’s devoted his last two columns to it, without ever saying "fraud."
The Times has been hoisted on its own petard. It put the Ukraine election fraud protest into banner headlines (two days in a row). But Krugman says journalists didn’t want to be "divisive" and question the "legitimacy" of Bush’s administration.
Is it divisive toward Italo-Americans to use the word "Mafia"? Do we refrain from mentioning I.R.A. terrorism out of fear of "dividing" Roman Catholics?
What the hell does "divisive" mean? A crook is a crook. A stolen election is a stolen election.
Blame it on the mathematicians if you must, but the odds that George W. Bush really won the 2004 election are about one-in-a-million. That’s one, divided by one with six zeroes after it. As long as we’re talking about divisiveness, look at the arithmetic.