Sunday NY Times Bias Round-Up

Another NY Times Trifecta:

1. Jeffery Rosen's lead Week in Review article focuses on the filibuster. Headlined "The Senate Nears the Point of No Return," Rosen doesn't insist the filibuster is a traditional tool crafted to protect the unsuspecting public from Republican extremists. Instead, he says the filibuster is a traditional tool crafted to protect the unsuspecting public from Whig extremists like John Tyler (President April 6, 1841 - March 3, 1845). Rosen doesn't reveal the divisive issue in those days--perhaps the Democrats were un-compromising on preserving the right of teenagers to access cotton gins without parental notification.
   
   Better yet, when Rosen turns to the 21st Century, the predicable chicken-littlisms include this howler:

   In any case, the Republicans are correct that the use of the filibuster to block an up-or-down vote on judicial nominations has substantially increased in the past few years. As the Senate became increasingly polarized after 2000, Republicans eliminated traditional protections for the minority, like the ability of any senator to block a judicial nominee in his home state.

   Got that? The Dems were forced into the filibuster by Republican rule changes. Translation: "the Devil made me do it!"



2. Nick Kristoff talked the Times into a boondoggle to China and returns with a sermon for America:

   One lesson is the importance of sustaining a technological edge and sound economic policies. Ancient China flourished partly because of pro-growth, pro-trade policies and technological innovations like curved iron plows, printing and paper money. But then China came to scorn trade and commerce, and per capita income stagnated for 600 years.
   
   I worry about the U.S.. . . Our economic management is so lax that we can't confront farm subsidies or long-term budget deficits. Our technology is strong, but American public schools are second-rate in math and science. And Americans' lack of interest in the world contrasts with the restlessness, drive and determination that are again pushing China to the forefront.

   Stop worrying, Nick. Like many others, Kristoff overestimates China's strength. The data on China's competitiveness are both inaccurate and opaque, but its GDP/capita -- even measured at purchasing power parity! -- probably is under $ 6000/yr (compared to over $40,000/yr in America). Kristoff (properly) denounces American farm subsidies, but ignores China's legacy state owned enterprises (SOE) and the more than 100 million workers without jobs after China closed some SOEs. China's a potential, but not present, threat.



3. Frank Rich's column is more vacuous than usual, accusing the administration of making Newsweek "the scapegoat for lethal anti-American riots in Afghanistan." Funny, Frank, I thought scapegoats were "made to bear the blame of others." Without settling on a single "real killer," Rich proposes shared responsibility among Donald Rumsfeld, Ari Fleischer, Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman, Armstrong Williams, Jeff Gannon and Pat Tillman. Sounds like a liberal enemies list!
   
   Fortunately, Daniel at Bloggledygook fisks Rich to within an inch of his life:

   Those complaining about Koran abuse see the latest yawning episode as either a shameful display of America's arrogance and disrespect for the world's second largest religion or one more foul-up by a government and its military that only serves to make the fight harder.
   
   Nonsense. The other two Abrahamic religions have come to terms with the fact that modern life has ample accommodation for religious practice but will not tolerate discrimination based on one's spiritual proclivities. Of course, both Christianity and Judaism have their radicals; it would be virtually impossible for that not to be so. But only Islam has institutionalized hate and slaughter to the point that massacres and bombings by radicalized Muslims hardly surprise anymore. What is so sensational and troubling about abuses in American-run military prisons is that Americans thought that we all were past the era when deviants were given the keys to jail cells. . .
   
   These incidents, and others including Abu Ghraib, came about not because of intrepid Rather Peabody winning reporting, but of internal military probes.

   James Lileks has Rich's number: "It's not right to ask whose side the media are on. They're on the side of America, of course. But it's a rather perfect version they love -- at least more than the real messy manifestation."



4. On the other hand, Times Ombudsman Dan Okrent's final column is loaded with pent-up tounge-lashings previously suppressed:

   Op-Ed columnist Paul Krugman has the disturbing habit of shaping, slicing and selectively citing numbers in a fashion that pleases his acolytes but leaves him open to substantive assaults. Maureen Dowd was still writing that Alberto R. Gonzales "called the Geneva Conventions 'quaint' " nearly two months after a correction in the news pages noted that Gonzales had specifically applied the term to Geneva provisions about commissary privileges, athletic uniforms and scientific instruments. Before his retirement in January, William Safire vexed me with his chronic assertion of clear links between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, based on evidence only he seemed to possess.
   
   No one deserves the personal vituperation that regularly comes Dowd's way, and some of Krugman's enemies are every bit as ideological (and consequently unfair) as he is. But that doesn't mean that their boss, publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., shouldn't hold his columnists to higher standards.
   
   I didn't give Krugman, Dowd or Safire the chance to respond before writing the last two paragraphs. I decided to impersonate an opinion columnist.

   Too little, too late, but still sweet.

Conclusion: When the Times ends free Internet access, I won't miss it a bit.