yeah - krugman really is an island of sanity. ive been singing his praises for years... his prev article was called 'the wastrel son'. guess who he was talking about... krug has been similarly scathing for at least a year. comfortingly, his articles usually get to #1 on the nyt's 'most emailed' list - altho most of their op-ed writers tend to get up their on the list... i hope for krugmans sanity that he never has to be in the same room as the rest of the oped team.

btw - heres the Times' weaculpa http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/26/international/middleeast/26FTE_NOTE.html which says in part "Some critics of our coverage during that time have focused blame on individual reporters. Our examination, however, indicates that the problem was more complicated. Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper."

i dont really like to beat up on the nyt - but they have categorically been infiltrated by a bunch of sooperfreaks - both journos and opeders. the partial weaculpa shows that they arent serious about the problem - they darent even mention anyone by name, and tried to spread the blame around. its absolutely not true that the problem was 'rushing scoops into the paper' - the most egregious mistakes were judy millers articles - its not true that her stories 'turned out' to be incorrect - they were false from the outset, and she knew it (as evidenced by her absurd disclaimers) and anyone with half a modicum of a clue fell off their chair laughing when reading her stuff - front page, above the fold. judy still has a job after making up a bunch of shit which contributed to dead people, visavis jayson blair who made up details about whether there was a tree in the front yard or if there were sheep in the paddock next, or making up a quote - and he got howled outta town and had a media-wide ban on reviewing his book. lemme repeat, judy is still working for the nyt - as are all the others.

of the non-krugman oped-ers, the others are certifiable freaks who can hardly hold a thought together long enough to write an article. most of the time its as though they write down some thoughts, throw them into a blender, and print the words in the order they come outta the blender - occasionally with a conjunctive to get from one thought to another.

eg heres friedmans latest titled "Shoulda, Woulda, Can" (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/27/opinion/27FRIE.html)
he wants "a bipartisan commission looking forward. I'd call it the National Commission for Doing Things Right"
which would "adopt a 50-cents-a-gallon gasoline tax, the Patriot Tax". its near-impossbile to read an article by friedman without having to pause at least once to try to understand the logic gymnastics that he just seemed to perform... and friedman makes up a quote in just about every article, jaysonblair style, cept friedman protects himself better: 'an iraqi told me last week...'

and safire is the grand dame of agenda creeps - his latest missive is called "The Bush-Kerry Nondebate" which ends helpfully thus: "Should Kerry act water's-edgily on Iraq? Or should he satisfy his angry left now, figuring he can go statesmanlike in October? We'll see tomorrow, in his answer to Bush's concessionary tactics and unwavering purpose."
and this from his previous article "Brahimi had another demand: cut off Chalabi, who had led the Governing Council to hire an accounting firm and lawyers to investigate the U.N.'s complicity in the $5 billion oil-for-food kickback ripoff. On orders, Bremer shut down the Iraqi attempt to recover the stolen money. Accountants were hired who were more amenable to the U.N."
he seems to think that chalabi has more cred than the UN when everyone else is blaming hero-in-error chalabi for everything. eg the weaculpa has this to say about chalabi "The problematic articles varied in authorship and subject matter, but many shared a common feature. They depended at least in part on information from a circle of Iraqi informants, defectors and exiles bent on "regime change" in Iraq, people whose credibility has come under increasing public debate in recent weeks."
you'll remember when the foil4ood thing was coming out, my comment was that it looked very serious, apart from the fact that it was only safire and brooks and fauxnews et al who were trying to give it legs.

and then we have certified neocunt davidbrooks whose recent contributions include "let's face it, we don't know whether all people really do want to live in freedom. We don't know whether Iraqis have any notion of what democratic citizenship really means." and "But despite the killings in Gaza this week, some important good things are happening there. The first good thing is that the Israeli security fence is turning out to be a boon to stability, rather than an irritant." and "Vice Premier Ehud Olmert epitomizes the new realism. When I had coffee with him this week, I expressed frustration with the outer settlements. Olmert defended the settlers warmly, saying they were believers sacrificing for a cause. "They need a hug," he said, waxing Oprah-esque."

and then theres maureen down who is equally likely to say something sensible as to waste an article about the colour of kerry's sweater.

(and then theres herbert who often makes sense in a normal kinda way - including his most recent about gores speech which is #2 on the 'most emailed'
www.nytimes.com/2004/05/28/opinion/28HERB.html )

so despite the weaculpa - the nyt team is broken yet intact and its almost inconceivable that the problems will go away. lemme repeat - jayblair got excoriated and miller has a job. the 'liberal media' myth is one of the gop's greatest successes...


On Fri, 28 May 2004 11:57:48 -0400, "Adam" wrote:

>
> Don't know if you saw this already, but nice article by
> Paul Krugman in the
> NY Times...
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/28/opinion/28KRUG.html
>
> Seems like the 'liberal media' and lukeryland are
> coming closer together...