Overlooking Asia

TimesWatch.org ^ | 11/17/03 | C.Waters

[Hipixs]

Thom Shanker erroneously reported on November 14: "In his first trip to Asia since returning to the Pentagon for a second tour as defense secretary, Mr. Rumsfeld stressed that he was carrying no formal proposals for discussion in coming days with the leaders of Japan and South Korea."

As the Times noted in a correction the next day, "[Rumsfeld] had previously visited several parts of Asia since joining the present Bush administration. This is not his first trip there."

What makes this a particularly odd mistake for Shanker is that he accompanied Rumsfeld on at least one of his previous trips to Asia. In a June 16, 2002 report titled "On Tour With Rumsfeld, the Jacket Stays On and the Monkeys Stay Way," Shanker wrote that one of Rumsfeld's international jaunts ended "on the Asian subcontinent with a tour of India and Pakistan as they ever so carefully stepped back from a dangerous confrontation."

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Times Watch for Monday, November 17 [Time Sensitive]

Overlooking Asia

Thom Shanker reports Donald Rumsfeld had never been to Asia as Bush's defense secretary--even though Shanker covered a Rumsfeld trip to Asia last year.

[Hipixs]

Did Shanker fall asleep in Geography class? Or have Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Kazakhstan moved to another continent? Rumsfeld has been to all these countries in 2001-2002.

[Shermy]

Maybe one of the editors added that error.

[thoughtomator]

According to liberals, 'Asia' means 'the Pacific rim', as in their world the millions of jihadis between Vietnam and Morocco don't exist.

- your friendly lib-to-English translator

[tdadams]

Well, I agree sort of, but I don't think that mindset is confined to liberals/leftists. It's just my conjecture, but I think a lot of people consider Asia to be mostly southeast Asia, China, Korea, and Japan. Countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Azerbijan, etc are considered "the Middle East" even though that's not a continent.