Doubled and Re-doubled

Yesterday, the New York Times charged new CIA Director Porter Goss with forcing his employees to back President Bush. The Times article was based on a leaked internal memo.

Quite a bombshell, huh? Well, not exactly, as Times editors admit today on page 2:

A front-page article yesterday reported on an internal memorandum at the Central Intelligence Agency in which Porter J. Goss, the new chief, told employees their job was to “support the administration and its policies in our work.” In some copies, the editors’ headline referred to the instruction imprecisely, saying, “Chief of C.I.A. Tells His Staff to Back Bush.”

In the New York region, the headline format allowed space in late editions for a more accurate summary of the article: “New C.I.A. Chief Tells Workers to Back Administration Policies.” All editions should have made it clear that Mr. Goss was referring to policies and not to President Bush personally, or to his politics.

Normally this would be just another in a series of outrageous NY Times smears whose entire thrust was later "corrected." The difference here is that, in addition to printing the "correction," today's Times also runs a nasty editorial on Goss: "[I]t's inappropriate for him to suggest that it's the job of the C.I.A. "to support" a particular administration and its political decisions." So much for the correction!

What's it all mean?

1. NY Times fact-checkers don't read their own paper. Given the Gray Lady's lies and distortions, who can blame them?



2. NY Times editorial writers don't read their own paper. Ditto.



3. John Henke suggests a "Time Saving Tip: Run N.Y. Times Editorials on Corrections page."

Remember the one about the advantage of being "slow" is you get to laugh at a joke twice--once when you hear it, then again when you understand it? The same's true for the Times editorials: they're news twice--once when printed and again when retracted.

(via Instapundit)

More:

Jack Shafer explains the gulf between new CIA Director Peter Goss and the Bush-hating CIA "old guard," where the weapons of choice make the battle "leak vs. leak."