The New York Papers are on a Roll

Picture credit: http://sonicgallery.com
It's true, I've noticed some exceptional news coverage and analysis from the New York papers recently. Pity the Times hasn't risen to the challenge.

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First item: the Sun's Seth Lipsky astutely points out that Bush's sentiments regarding Supreme Court nominations are effectively restated by this editorial:

The Supreme Court, by its very nature, must be a conservative body; it is the conservator of our institutions, it protects the people against the errors of their legislative servants, it is the defender of the Constitution itself. To place upon the Supreme Bench judges who hold a different view of the function of the court, to supplant conservatism by radicalism, would be to undo the work of John Marshall and strip the Constitution of its defenses. It would introduce endless confusion where order has resigned, it would tend to give force and effect to any whim or passion of the hour, to crown with success any transitory agitation engaged in by a part of the people, overriding the matured judgment of all the people as expressed in their fundamental law.

You guessed it: that was a New York Times editorial from 1916.

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Second item: The Post's John Podhoretz restates the obvious regarding the Wilson-Plame affair:

...a 2004 British inquiry chaired by Lord Butler put it: "We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government's dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded." What isn't controversial is this: Karl Rove didn't "out" Valerie Plame as a CIA agent to intimidate Joe Wilson. He was dismissing Joe Wilson as a low-level has-been hack to whom nobody should pay attention. He was right then, and if he said it today, he'd still be right. And if Valerie Plame wants to live a quiet spy life, she should stop having her picture taken by society photographers and stop getting stories written about her on the front page of the Times...

While the Journal goes on to call Rove a "whistle-blower":

...In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd discovered in Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or even why he was sent on the mission. The media and the Kerry campaign promptly abandoned him, though the former never did give as much prominence to his debunking as they did to his original accusations. But if anyone can remember another public figure so entirely and thoroughly discredited, let us know... As for the press corps, rather than calling for Mr. Rove to be fired, they ought to be grateful to him for telling the truth.

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Of course, some of the New York papers still employ their long-time, failed theater-critics op-ed columnists, whose rants are frequently eviscerated in embarassing fashion. Witness this takedown of Bob Herbert by Faces from the Front.

“We want to inform the Ummah [all Muslim believers] that your brothers in the Al Qaida organization will not stop Jihad until the Sharia of Allah is the only source of laws on earth.” When I first read those words from an Al Qaida In The Land of Two Rivers press release in April, shortly after the insurgent's failed attack on Abu Ghraib, I was obviously wrong about about their goals and how to deal with terrorism. I am so grateful the New York Time's Bob Herbert and The Guardian's Gary Younge set me straight... Published in 1964, and given its prominence in Muslim political theory, I thought Qutb's Milestones, would be a good foundation from which to understand the roots of [Jihadism]. But, Gary Younge corrects my youthful err, "What he would not acknowledge is that [Blair's] alliance with President George Bush has been sowing the seeds and fertilising the soil in the Gulf, for yet more to grow. The invasion and occupation of Iraq - illegal, immoral and inept - provided the Arab world with one more legitimate grievance." You see, I thought the roots of [Jihadism], at least the philosophical ones, were grown in the late 19th and early 20th Century by Muhammed Abduh, Hassan al-Banna and Sayyid Abu'l-A'la Mawdudi. Obviouly the organizations... and philosophies developed by these men play little or no role [in] today's... terrorism. Their complaints about the back sliding of Islam, and the need for Muslims to confront the the west were the rantings of gadflys... As the Time's Bob Herbert notes, "Whatever one's views on the war, thoughtful Americans need to consider the damage it is doing to the United States, and the bitter anger that it has provoked among Muslims around the world. That anger is spreading like an unchecked fire in an incredibly vast field." What was I thinking? [Jihadists] only began to hate the West when Bush was elected. I mean, that bombing of the World Trade Center back in 1993... the Hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985... the Embassy Bombings in 1998--those were all related to something else...

Bathe in the fount of wisdom and read the whole thing.

Maybe some day, the geniuses at the Times will take off their intellectual-dishonesty blinders and have an open, realistic conversation about the world in which we live.