Mouthpieces. Completing this weekend's Halbfinger Trifecta, let's note how Times reporters assert one of their privileges of office, namely the proffering of strategic campaign advice. Halbfinger, writing with Richard Stevenson ("Bush Defends 9/11 Ads as Kerry Hits Texas"), ends an otherwise unremarkable he-said-he-said attack-and-response piece by rounding up a pair of man-on-the-street cutouts to make some points John Kerry apparently needs to hear:

The most interesting voices [at a Kerry rally] were those of the smattering of people who said they voted for Mr. Bush in 2000. Jose Silva, 26, a Houston special education teacher and an independent, said he had been turned off by the president's conservatism in office.

"I felt like he ran on a centrist platform, and I thought we needed more integrity in the White House," he said, explaining why he voted for Mr. Bush. "But I don't feel like Bush has represented my interests. He's gone from center to pretty far right on most issues."

Mr. Silva was skeptical that Mr. Kerry could win Texas, but said he had "a chance for a good showing," particularly if he ran with a Southerner and did away with his Northeastern liberal image.

Michael Hatley, 28, a project manager for a local Web design company, said he had voted for Mr. Bush shortly after leaving the Army because he seemed "stronger on national defense, and steadier, and he made Gore out to be a vacillator."

He said he was voting for Mr. Kerry this time because of Mr. Bush's handling of foreign policy. And he described a simple formula for Mr. Kerry to appeal to Texans.

"He's going to have to look real strong, not vacillate on issues," Mr. Hatley said. "He's going to have to run the line between looking like a complainer and looking like a fighter. Texans are going to like strength."

There you go, Senator Kerry, David Halbfinger's given you your marching orders!

Notice also another instance of the inflexible attach-the-meme rule: even though in this case it's Bush's ox that gets gored (so to speak). Last Sunday Elisabeth Rosenthal, whose political reporting seems so far to specialize in the shabby "I've talked to twelve people so I know the state of mind of the masses" piece (sorry—in Rosenthal's psuedo-scientific lingo, that's "dozens of random interviews"), offered up a bunch of Ohioans claiming to be Bush-no-more voters (i.e., voted Dubya in 2000, never again). Is that a meaningful category in this year's electorate? Who knows? It seems like a nice script point, and if it helps Halbfinger make the case for holding Kerry in the center, why not run with it?

posted by michael  6:46:56 PM  
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Journalistic ADD. You might think that an hour-long, wide-ranging interview on foreign affairs given by the presumptive Democratic nominee for the Presidency—his first since becoming the presumptive nominee—might have enough news value to stand on its own. You might think that, if you were writing the interview, you'd do well if you quoted generously, gave readers enough context to allow them to understand the logic of the nominee's positions, and noted as necessary where he veered from fact or avoided issues, where he made dubious criticisms of his opponent, and what his opponent had to say in response. You, however, are not a Professional Political Reporter; David Sanger and David Halbfinger ("Kerry Condemns Bush for Failing to Back Aristide") know better.

First rule of political reporting: everything is always about campaign tactics. Second rule: if there's an unflattering meme currently operative—especially if we're talking about the challenger—always, always give it play. And, while it's not a rule, if you can toss in a sniggering, back-of-the-classroom sort of pun along the way, by all means go for it:

In his first in-depth interview on foreign affairs since effectively winning the Democratic nomination, Mr. Kerry hop-scotched around the world in the course of an hour. He took issue with Mr. Bush's judgment beyond their well-aired differences on Iraq, ... arguing that he would rewrite the Bush strategy that makes pre-emption a declared, central tenet of American policy.

Mr. Kerry is trying a bit of election-season pre-emption of his own, attempting to short-circuit the White House argument that he is too much of a straddler, too indecisive and too captivated by the nuances of foreign policy to defend American interests.

There's no information content in that second quoted graf—but it's not intended to provide information, it's meant to orient your attitude toward Kerry and to illuminate the superiority of the journalistic insider to all this grubby campaign posturing.

By my count, at least nine of the report's thirty-one grafs—almost a third of the piece, most of it a six-graf chunk smack in the middle of the article—are devoted to tactical speculation, all gravitating toward the complex meme: Kerry's suspect braininess, the ripeness of his voting record to Republican oppo.

Mr. Kerry clearly has not yet mastered the Clintonian knack of engagingly breaking down complex problems into simple, accessible terms, no matter his audience. On the campaign trail he regularly indicts the administration's "arrogant, inept, reckless, ideological" foreign policy and warns that "even the United States of America needs a few friends on this planet." ... But when pressed for details, Mr. Kerry can veer into the dry, Latin-heavy jargon of policy journals.

"Latin-heavy"! Jesus, Marge, this guy sounds like one a them intellectuals! What's the matter, Davids, couldn't keep your minds on the subject for that whole hour you had to listen to John Kerry talk?

posted by michael  5:41:34 PM  
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Shame. This is not what Americans do. Goddamn it, it's not what we do. We're supposed to be better than this.

In Abu Sifa, a sunbaked village north of Baghdad, entire swaths of farmland have been cleared of males — fathers, sons, brothers, cousins.

There are no men to do men's work. Women till the fields, guard the houses and hoist sacks of grapefruit on their backs. ...

Iraq has a new generation of missing men. But instead of ending up in mass graves or at the bottom of the Tigris River, as they often did during the rule of Saddam Hussein, they are detained somewhere in American jails.

Although the insurgency has cooled, with suicide attacks against civilians now eclipsing armed clashes with American troops, American forces are still conducting daily raids, bursting into homes and sweeping up families. More than 10,000 men and boys are in custody. According to a detainee database maintained by the military, the oldest prisoner is 75, the youngest 11. ...

Adil Allami, a lawyer with the Human Rights Organization of Iraq, said security detainees had essentially no rights. None have lawyers, and most are denied visits.

"Iraq has turned into one big Guantánamo," Mr. Allami said, referring to the United States military prison in Cuba where hundreds of terrorism suspects are being held, mostly without charges.

The Presidency of George W. Bush is a blight on our national conscience.

posted by michael  4:47:02 PM  
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Quick follow-on to Thursday's post about the coordinated, and foul-smelling, CPA/Centcom effort to score PR points off last week's Ashura bombings by pinning the violence on the newly ubiquitous Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Nice to find my take on the situation seconded by the left-coast Times (Sebastian Rotella, "U.S. Casts Fugitive as a Super-Villain"):

Although Zarqawi has been identified as a central figure in a multiethnic network whose tentacles reach across Europe and the Middle East, his anointment as an all-powerful kingpin troubles some investigators and experts, who say it distorts the nature of the insurgency in Iraq.

An Iraqi anti-terrorist police commander dismissed the claim in the purported Zarqawi letter that he has carried out 25 "martyrdom operations," which would encompass most major attacks here since the fall. "They are always exaggerating about Al Qaeda," said Col. Dhia Hussein of the Baghdad anti-terrorism unit. "No witnesses have come and talked to me about Zarqawi. The only thing is that he is mentioned in the newspapers. And a $10-million reward. Who is this man? … Maybe he exists — such characters exist. But to complete these operations and we don't know, it's impossible." ...

The focus on Zarqawi is part of a political strategy to portray the terrorism threat as essentially foreign and rooted in the Al Qaeda network, thereby downplaying the significance of Iraqi insurgents, critics say. But outsiders could not operate in Iraq's "hostile tribal environment" without local allies, said Mustafa Alani, an Iraq-born expert on terrorism.

And our own, beloved NY Times? Having sold out for a phony "exclusive" on the original, still much-disputed Zarqawi "sectarian war" letter, don't expect the paper of record to indulge any critical impulses. The NYT is a player—evidence and critique are for suckers.

posted by michael  2:09:40 PM  
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