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 Schadenfreude  |
This is the New York Times Schadenfreude Ping List. Freepmail me to be added or dropped.
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Posted on 05/28/2003 11:04:39 AM PDT by Paul Atreides
Leading New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has been swept up in the Timesgate scandal that began earlier this month when the paper fired reporter Jayson Blair for fabricating stories.
Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis admitted Tuesday that a recent column by Dowd criticizing President Bush is being "looked into" after questions were raised about whether the celebrated columnist had deliberately misreported a Bush quote.
"If Dowd intentionally misrepresented the President's words, she is guilty of a journalistic offense much worse than [reporter Rick] Bragg's intern problem, or even Blair's fantasies," wrote New York Daily News columnist Zev Chafets, to whom Mathis revealed news of the Dowd probe.
Chafets noted that if Dowd had indeed deliberately distorted the president's words, it could impact the Times' credibility even more than the Blair fiasco.
"Blair is a kid, after all, who made things up for fun and profit," he wrote in his Wednesday column. "Dowd is a major figure at The Times, a role model. A syndicated role model."
The controversy stems from Dowd's selective editing of a Bush quote in her column last week, "Osama's Offspring."
Here's what Bush actually said:
"Al-Qaeda is on the run. That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly but surely being decimated. Right now, about half of all the top al-Qaeda operatives are either jailed or dead. In either case, they're not a problem anymore."
But while Bush was clearly referring to the "top al-Qaeda operatives" who were "either jailed or dead" when he said they were no longer "a problem anymore," Dowd's truncated version made it sound as if Bush was boasting that he'd wiped out al-Qaeda entirely.
Here's how the Times' Pulitzer Prize winner covered the president's remarks:
"'Al Qaeda is on the run,' President Bush said last week. 'That group of terrorists who attacked our country is slowly but surely being decimated ... they're not a problem anymore.'"
In a move that was largely viewed as an attempt to keep the Timesgate scandal from metastasizing, last week the paper waved off probers from the office of the U.S. Attorney for New York's Southern District, who wanted to review Jayson Blair's work for possible wire fraud charges.
That may have been true before the Blair case. Now the Times is in a big pickle. They been caught in their own PC snare. To keep from looking like they're picking on the black guy, they will have to take down a few whites. Dowd's timing is bad. With the Blair controversy swirling, they can't give her a pass without violating their own PC skin-color numbers game rules. OOh, this is just so satisfying on so many levels!
Here ya go:
The US Attorney cannot conduct a successful investigation of such a situation (use of phones and other interstate electronic communications would be "wire fraud") without the cooperation of the entity which controls most of the necessary records and witnesses. This is another black eye for the Times and another indication that it is trying to suppress the larger aspects of the story, the failures in top management.
The Times should be cooperating with the US Attorney. It should also be suing Jayson Blair for fraud. AND, it should be offering the services of its high-powered attorneys to sue Blair at the same time for harms to everyone who was lied about in his stories. Of coursem Blair himself doesn't have much money at this point, having stuffed his money up his nose in powdered form.
But Blair is about to sign a publishing contract for a "tell-all" book on his fraud. Not a penny of that money should reach his pockets. Instead, it should go to the victims of his stories first, and to the Times second. Fat chance any of that will happen, but it SHOULD if the Times was truly interested in salvaging its repuation.
Congressman Billybob
Latest column, now up on UPI and FR (the title is not a misprint), "Memorial Day 2033."
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Schadenfreude |
"Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all the time thing. You don't win once in a while; you don't do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
"Winning is … a sometime thing; You… win once in a while; you don't do things right …all the time. Winning is … losing.
There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that's first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don't ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win, and to win.
There is…room for second place. There is only one place in my game, … to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game… it is a game …to win.
Every time a football player goes to play his trade he's got to play from the ground up-from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their heads. That's O.K. You've got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you've got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you're lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he's never going to come off the field second.
Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization-an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win-to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don't think it is.
Running a football team is …different than running any other kind of organization-an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to…be… hard or cruel. I… think it is.
It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That's why they are there-to compete. To know the rules and objectives when they get in the game. The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules-but to win.
And in truth, I've never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn't appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.
I don't say these things because I believe in the "brute" nature of man or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious."
I don't…believe in God.
...Vince Lombardi
In his late twenties?
You don't have to be.
From Media Research Center --
Best analysis I've seen of the Dowd misrepresentation.
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