Cognitive dissonance. On Monday I suggested that David Sanger, firmly attaching himself to the fraidy-cat interpretation of the Spanish election (in which rejection of the Aznar government equals cowering before Al Qaeda), might want to read the front page of his own paper for some corrective reporting. Based on his latest approach to the story in today's Times, however, I now have to fall back to the suggestion that he might, perhaps, want to read his own goddamn article ("U.S. Official Says Spanish Government 'Mishandled' Reports on Bombing").

The Bush administration said Wednesday for the first time that the Spanish government had mishandled early information about the Madrid bombing when it played down evidence that Islamic extremists were behind the plot.

The strongest public statement came from Richard L. Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, who said in a television interview that the Spanish government initially "didn't get what information did exist out to the public." ..."I think the vote that propelled the Socialists into power in Spain, as I understand it, was a protest by the people against the handling of the terrorist event by the sitting government of Spain," Mr. Armitage told a Philadelphia radio station.

I'm guessing that this portion of the article was the product of Sanger's co-author, David Johnston—otherwise Sanger would seem to be suffering from some form of multiple personality disorder. Not even Armitage's example is able to dislodge Sanger from his (apparently) religious conviction that Spain has taken a dive:

Mr. Armitage's criticism was the first of how the government of Prime Minister José María Aznar dealt with the bombings. So far, no one high in the Bush administration has said how much was known about who was behind the attacks and when it became known. Nor, until Wednesday, had officials publicly criticized Mr. Aznar.

At the same time, the White House and its allies tried to halt any notion that other nations might be tempted to follow Spain's example of bending to terrorists.

But perhaps I'm being ungenerous to Mr. Sanger. What's a poor, hardworking Times political-desk hack supposed to do when the Republicans are reading from two different scripts at once?

posted by michael  6:08:37 PM  
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Dick Cheney and the wormhole. Those CO fumes continue to cause problems in the Times' offices. Yesterday they got Stevenson and Nagourney; today it's Nick Madigan and Katharine Seelye ("Cheney Attacks Kerry's Record on the Military") who've succumbed.

In a blistering critique of Senator John Kerry's record on military issues, Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday portrayed the Democratic presidential candidate as weak, inconsistent and a threat to the security of the nation. ...

Almost simultaneously, Mr. Kerry, speaking in Washington, denounced President Bush's foreign policy, which he said had left the United States "bogged down in Iraq" and its troops overextended and "with the target squarely on their backs."

Except ... wait for it ... Four grafs later:

Mr. Cheney's speech was scathing and was the White House's most detailed and pointed criticism to date of Mr. Kerry. ... Mr. Kerry's speech, delivered at George Washington University, came first and its tone was less acerbic.

And then after another eight grafs:

About 20 minutes before Mr. Kerry finished, Mr. Cheney began a half-hour defense of Mr. Bush's policy and a review of Mr. Kerry's voting record and past statements.

You wouldn't think it'd require quite so much effort, spread over quite so many column inches, to specify accurately when and in what relation to each other two campaign events occurred. Or maybe it's not fumes—maybe there's some rip in the space-time continuum above W. 43rd Street that morphs "almost simultaneously" into "first one speech then the other" into "one speech began not long before the other ended". [Makes you wonder if Dick Cheney could use the singularity to go back in time and lie about things that haven't even happened yet. That'd be cool.]

Of course, the notion of precedence is trivial in itself: two speeches given on the same day (in the same news cycle), both scheduled well in advance and clearly with knowledge of each other, who cares by how many minutes one has priority? But then why all the fumbling, Nick 'n' Kit? The answer, of course, is that they're struggling with the requirements of narrative: and the narrative in play here is, Republicans attack, Democrats defend. Madigan and Seelye's article is explicitly designed to place Kerry on the defensive—Cheney's the alpha dog here; hence his critique "skewers" Kerry, he is "blistering" and "scathing" where Kerry is merely "less acerbic," the only coloring adjective the piece offers the Dem candidate. [The writers also ladle on an entirely unrelated Kerry-must-defend incident at the end of the article, in which Kerry has to back away from a recent Dean comment, just to keep things moving in the right direction.]

The attack-and-defend narrative naturally requires the attacker to strike the first blow—otherwise, what's the defender defending against? And that's why Madigan and Seelye fudge the order of the two speeches with "almost simultaneously," before minimal respect for the record forces them gradually to expose their bad faith. They're trying to finesse a kind of contradiction in narrative terms: attack-and-defend is the structure that A1 absolutely demands for this kind of reporting (God forbid the Times should ask its writers to focus on any substance in these speeches)—and yet the Democrat spoke first! We can't have that, not when we know that those big macho Republicans always, always have priority on the offensive.

As a side note, Kerry's "foreign leaders" pseudo-quote continues to be reported on A1 as recognized fact. Dick Cheney, say Madigan and Seelye, "derided Mr. Kerry for suggesting last week that certain foreign leaders, whom he later would not name, wanted Mr. Kerry to win the election." Note that a twist has been added—not only is the pseudo-quote fact, but Kerry's unwillingness to respond to phony criticism has become a perverse refusal to step up and name the people we can't be really sure he was actually alluding to. Magically, Kerry's silence has become evidence of what was actually on his mind. Deft use of the subordinate clause there, Kit.

posted by michael  12:14:32 PM  
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