Naming names. From reader Ben Brackley, a Romenesko item about yesterday's WMD Editor's Note. Howell Raines, who was executive editor at the time of the disputed reporting by Judith Miller and others, emailed Tim Rutten of the LA Times with his reactions to the note. (The NYT didn't contact Raines before the Editor's Note was published.) Worth reading. For me the money graf is the one in which Raines, unlike his successor Bill Keller (who, incidentally, calls the note "an explanation" rather than an apology, pretty much in accord with my take on it), names names:

I assume that Judith Miller is the "individual" reporter who, according to the editors' note, is being singled out by outside critics. Like other Times readers, I could not tell from today's note what the editors found out about the disputes over her stories. I do know that while Judy Miller's work has been widely discussed, her reporting on Al Qaeda was prescient, and much of her work on terrorism over the years has been highly regarded. In any event, on the general subject of Ms. Miller's journalism, there is no shortage of in-house knowledge at The Times. In the years just prior to my editorship, it is my understanding that much of Ms. Miller's work was edited by Steve Engelberg, now of the Portland Oregonian. In his post as investigative editor, Mr. Engelberg reported directly to Bill Keller, then the managing editor of the paper and now its executive editor. When I was executive editor, her work flowed through various editors, including Mr. Engelberg and later Doug Frantz, now of the Los Angeles Times. During my editorship, Ms. Miller also worked often in the Times's Washington Bureau. The bureau chief at that time, Jill Abramson, told me that she had a good rapport with Ms. Miller, who had a conflicted relationship with some colleagues. Ms. Abramson, who is now managing editor, supervised a significant amount of Ms. Miller's reporting and personally edited the resulting stories before they went into the paper. It seems to me unfair to single out Judy Miller, even in a blind reference, or to cite individual stories by other reporters without drawing aside the veil of anonymity around un-bylined editors who worked with them.

Remarkable bit of chop-socky, and goes some way toward drawing the veil that Keller's note places in front of the editorial process. As Raines insists, "To achieve full disclosure of the sort I advocated as editor, detailed news stories are needed in addition to editors' notes to inform readers fully about how the paper operates."

As numerous people have remarked, Daniel Okrent is expected to use his Sunday column to report further on the issue. I suppose it's in order to wait and see, but frankly if a typically fangless Okrent piece is where this story goes to die (as far as the Times is concerned), I won't be surprised.

posted by michael  7:25:48 PM  
tell me about it []  

 

Contemplate, if you will, the level of intellectual refinement necessary to produce these sentences:

There is clearly a political component at play [in Bush's shifts of position on Iraq policy], as the White House seeks, while managing its own problems, to create a predicament for Mr. Bush's Democratic opponent. ... The fact that Mr. Bush has moved close to Mr. Kerry on some of these questions makes it much more difficult for Mr. Kerry to take advantage of what Democrats and Republicans view as the biggest political crisis of Mr. Bush's presidency, by emphasizing differences between them.

Adam Nagourney and Richard W. Stevenson, "Candidates' Iraq Policies Share Many Similarities"

[This is from yesterday's installment in Adam Nagourney's new series, "Bush Troubles Doom Kerry."] Reader—poor, blinkered, uninitiated reader—you see not with the eyes of a New York Times High Political Mandarin. For if you did, you would realize that all politics, distilled to its essence, is a contest of rhetorics: and that political advantage and disadvantage is finally determined by how candidates jockey with each other in speeches and position statements.

So, with the blood-dimmed tide loosed in Iraq, Bush obviously has Kerry exactly where he wants him! Caught between the rock of Bush's cleverly calibrated "we're identical cousins" policy shifts, and the hard place of Al Gore's antiwar rhetoric, how will Kerry wriggle free? Nagourneyson suggest that the only chip Kerry has left to play is a criticism of Bush's "credibility," an assertion that Bush is held in such disrepute around the world "that only a new president can rally other nations to provide the necessary assistance" to turn things around in Iraq. Since, as Stevengourney are aware, all politics is rhetoric, they can dispense with consideration of whether Kerry's assertion is true, and if true a real constraint on policy. They don't come out and say it, but Nagourson seem to find the "credibility" gag pretty thin rhetorical soup. After all, how can Kerry claim he's more credible than Bush? Credibility, as we all know, isn't part of the approved Kerry memes—that's Bush territory! Foolish, foolish John Kerry: you've just fallen further into Dubya's trap.

posted by michael  5:42:22 PM  
tell me about it []  

 

Strength is weakness, opportunity is peril. Adam Nagourney's been writing essentially the same article for months now, since John Kerry emerged as the presumptive Democratic nominee: Kerry faces major challenges, his campaign strategy/organization/presence is weak, how can he hope to win? Same two-step research procedure, too: (1) determine relevant Kerry sub-narrative; (2) curry through the list of Democratic insiders to assemble phalanx of hand-wringing quotes. Nagourney can probably cook one of these pieces up in a spare half-hour—wouldn't surprise me if he's got a bunch pre-written, ready to be pulled off the shelf, tricked up with a few topical references and sent off to market.

As Bush loses support and starts to move into Daddy territory, it requires a bit more ingenuity to sustain this production model, but Nagourney seems well up to the challenge. (Hell, he's delivered two on-topic articles in the last two days alone! If this were Stalinist Russia instead of Stalinist W. 43rd St., Nagourney would have been declared a Stakhanovite by now.) I'm going to clue you in on the strategy, but before I do, a warning: This rhetorical strategy reflects the deep wisdom of a veteran Times political reporter. Please do not try applying it by yourself, or while operating heavy machinery, or if you are in any way impaired by common sense.

Nagourney's wisdom: Nothing is more dangerous to Kerry than a failing Bush candidacy. (If it bothers you that this contradicts the earlier approved wisdom, which stated that Bush's strength on terrorism was likely to overwhelm Kerry, see my warning above.) A range of polls shows Bush's approval tanking, shows Kerry beginning to assume a statistically meaningful lead (even with fantasy-league candidate Ralph Nader in the mix). Watch and tremble, you masses, as Adam Nagourney suits up with the appropriate Kerry storyline and executes a perfect backflip into the deep waters of "some Democrats" and their "concerns":

In many ways, the Kerry on display this spring is keeping with his political style for the past 20 years. In campaigns, Mr. Kerry has not been inclined to take chances or make bold moves, and he is known among campaign strategists for a propensity to glide until, as one put it, his back is up against the wall.

This year, Mr. Kerry's most daring political move — investing all his resources in Iowa — came only as he appeared to face defeat in New Hampshire by Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor. ...

Some Democrats said they were concerned that, given Mr. Kerry's history as a candidate, these recent polls would encourage the less competitive side of Mr. Kerry's personality. A senior Kerry aide said that the campaign had to resist being lulled into complacency by polls that show Mr. Bush in trouble.

"Democrats Wonder if Kerry Should Stay on Careful Path"

Nagourney gets a degree-of-difficulty bonus on this one, too, because he manages to slide in the Kerry-is-a-weakling meme with that reference to the Senator's "less competitive side."

I'm confident that by the time January rolls around, Adam Nagourney will have figured out a way to demonstrate mathematically that Kerry's inauguration represents the end-stage of his political demise.

posted by michael  4:01:39 PM  
tell me about it []