"I don't think anybody who has a job like mine," says Gail Collins, editorial page editor of the New York Times, "is deluded that many people change their opinion about who they're going to vote for for president when they see the Times editorial."

...Collins of the New York Times, when asked to describe the politics of her editorial section, says first, "I will leave that to others to characterize,"...

EDITORS' NOTE
New Corrections Policy

Starting October 1, corrections on Page A2 will be published in two groupings. Substantive errors — those that have materially affected the reader’s understanding of a news development — will be addressed under the traditional heading, "Corrections." Narrower errors — those involving spelling, for example, or dates and historical references — will be corrected under a second heading, "For the Record."

On any day when all of the corrections fall into the second category, the heading will read "Corrections: For the Record."

This change is prompted by readers’ suggestions — and most recently by a suggestion from The Times’s public editor, Daniel Okrent, in his column last Sunday -- to give greater prominence to corrections of the most serious errors.

Editors' notes, which address lapses of fairness, balance or perspective, will continue to appear under their separate heading, ordinarily beneath the corrections.

I haven't any idea what to call this new format I'm recommending, so let's kick off Public Editor Readership Contest No. 1.

Send entries to public@nytimes.com, and I'll paste the winner on Al Siegal's door.

"Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Death Star."

In a New York Times column earlier this week, Krugman suggested that Kerry should take President Bush to task for supposedly having no strategy for handling North Korea's nuclear menace. Here's the lie Krugman recommends that Kerry use:

"Recently, when a reporter asked Mr. Bush about reports that North Korea has half a dozen bombs, he simply shrugged."

That reporter Krugman is talking about is actually two reporters, David E. Sanger and Elisabeth Bumiller, and they both work for Krugman's own New York Times. In their August 27 interview with President Bush, they indeed wrote that Bush "opened his palms and shrugged when an interviewer noted that new intelligence reports indicate that the North may now have the fuel to produce six or eight nuclear weapons." But then they devoted three further paragraphs to describing Bush's statements about his Korea strategy, with a heavy emphasis on diplomacy and multilateral cooperation (the same kind of approach, actually, that liberals usually endorse).

So did Bush "simply shrug"? Yeah, right. And O. J. Simpson simply rang Nicole's doorbell.

Incidentally, I pointed out Krugman's distortion of his own newspaper's reporting, and his shameless misrepresentation of Bush's position on Korea, to Times "public editor" Daniel Okrent. As I have come to expect after long and bitter experience, once again Fig-Leaf Dan covered up for Times op-ed page. As I reported on my blog, Okrent replied to me, "I think this is what columnists do, and I'm not going to hold Krugman to a standard any different from the one I hold the other columnists to."

Which is to say: no standard at all. Apparently it's okay for New York Times columnists to lie. So of course it's okay for them to advise a candidate for the presidency to lie, as well.

Here's another whopper, straight from Krugman's word-processor to Kerry's debating podium: U.S. forces in Iraq are "obviously under instructions to hold down casualties at least until November."

That'll go over big. Now just how should Senator Kerry frame that? How about, "Mr. President, we just aren't killing enough soldiers in Iraq! Let's get with the program!"

No go? How about this, then: "Mr. President, the war is obviously a failure. So now you are trying to trick the American people by winning!"

Of course these lies of Krugman's aren't going to help Kerry survive tonight's debate. No matter what Krugman lies Kerry tells, he's bound to look like a fool when he inevitably contradicts some other lie he made up all by himself in the past. So Krugman's got Kerry's excuse all limbered up for when he loses -- it's the media's fault for emphasizing style over substance. As Krugman puts it, "Mr. Bush does a pretty good Clint Eastwood imitation."

According to Krugman, Al Gore actually won the 2000 presidential debates. Remember, though, according to Krugman Al Gore actually won the election that year, too. And just as the Supreme Court supposedly stole the election from Gore, the media stole the debates from Bush. Here's Krugman's revisionist history:

"Interviews with focus groups just after the first 2000 debate showed Al Gore with a slight edge. Post-debate analysis should have widened that edge. ...But...[a]fter the debate, the lead stories said a lot about Mr. Gore's sighs, but nothing about Mr. Bush's lies. ...after a few days, Mr. Bush's defeat in the debate had been spun into a victory."

So some unspecified focus groups prove to Krugman that Gore really won -- probably the same focus groups that told the Coca-Cola Company that "New Coke" would be a marketing sensation. But that darned old conservatively biased media (you know the ones -- CBS, the New York Times, and so on) threw it to Bush by focusing on "Mr. Gore's sighs."

What Krugman cavalierly calls "Mr. Bush's lies" are in fact just policies with which Krugman disagrees -- it's no wonder they didn't get any particular press attention. And what Krugman dismisses as mere "body language" -- Bush's straight-shooting Clint Eastwood style versus Gore's haughty sighing and eye-rolling -- are, in fact, matters of urgent substance, not mere style, to voters. They are the subtle keys to the character of the men who would lead the world's most powerful nation.

In 2000, American voters made a perfectly rational choice about character. Before the debates, Gore led Bush in the polls by about the same amount that Bush now leads Kerry. But then voters got a good look at Al Gore -- a man of such weak character that had to resort in the debates to over-the-top theatrical gestures, desperately following paid advice from feminist Naomi Wolf on how to be an "alpha male". They quickly decided they'd prefer the plain-spoken Texan -- a man requiring nobody's hokey advice on how to be more manly.

A new Krugman Truth Squad member -- psychologist and philosopher Keith Burgess-Jackson -- notes on his blog that the same thing is likely to happen tonight:

"Substance means character, vision, and values. These will be on display during Thursday night's debate. Those who tune in will see which candidate is brave, determined, strong, and capable, and which grasps the nature of the threat we face in this frightening new world."

Perhaps Krugman's insistence that personal style must be ignored is because, as anyone who has seen him on TV knows, Krugman's own personal style is that of Woody Allen on a bad hair day. I guarantee you that the "body language" of this nervous, stammering homunculus is, indeed, the key to his character.

But what is even more significant is Krugman's insistence that Kerry try to win the debate by lying. For all Krugman's Bush-hating passion, it must be the case the he can't think of any true statements with which to attack Bush.

Well, perhaps there’s one. Krugman says that Kerry should attack the president because he has failed to capture Osama bin Laden. But maybe before Kerry takes Krugman up on this particular piece of advice, he ought to check with the little woman as to whether it's true or not. Teresa Heinz Kerry has been out on the campaign trail spreading the innuendo that bin Laden has already been captured, and is being saved for an "October surprise" to boost the Bush campaign. Last week she told an audience in Colorado,

"Osama bin Laden is now Osama bin lost," Heinz Kerry said. "He may now become Osama bin found in short order. Who knows?"

Now that Q2 GDP has been revised back up, will Krugman recant his "Bye-Bye Bush Boom" column -- which was silly to begin with -- and declare the recovery back "on"?

Fun fact: The Times has used "unsubstantiated" to refer to the Swift Boat Veterans over 20 times, but never used the phrase to refer to the "Bush-was-AWOL" charges.

Why did John Kerry cross the road? "I crossed the road to volunteer for Vietnam. Some of us know something about what it means to cross the road." Who was that lady I saw you with last night? "That was no lady, that was my meal ticket." How many John Kerrys does it take to change a lightbulb? At least four. One to approve the removal of the old lightbulb. One to declare his courageous commitment to replacing the old bulb. One to vote against funding the new lightbulb. And one to denounce George W Bush and America's Benedict Arnold CEOs for leaving everyone in the dark.

"Comparing these [Bush's] grandiose promises to his failed record, it's enough to make anyone want to, well, sigh."

I agree with Krugman that substance counts, but disagree about what counts as substance. Krugman thinks substance means facts. He says journalists should correct President Bush's expected factual errors. No. Substance means character, vision, and values. These will be on display during Thursday night's debate. Those who tune in will see which candidate is brave, determined, strong, and capable, and which grasps the nature of the threat we face in this frightening new world. I predict that John Kerry, who lacks character and vision and has the wrong values for this time and place, will fare poorly in comparison to President Bush, who will rise in the polls. Mark my words.

In Your Guts, You Know He's a Putz

Thanks. I'm not with you at all on this one. It's incomplete, it's tilted, it's possibly unfair. But I don't think this is a correctable error. I think this is what columnists do, and I'm not going to hold Krugman to a standard any different from the one I hold the other columnists to. Sorry.

The dictionary in the spell-checker that comes with the "Blogger" blogging softwares doesn't recognize the word "blog." What should I do?

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 12:53 AM | link  

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 12:33 AM | link  

Monday, September 27, 2004

Posted by Donald L. Luskin at 10:47 PM | link