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BLAIR, BRAGG, DOWD ... KRUGMAN?Posted by Donald Luskin at 2:26 AM May 30, 2003I noticed that the Center on Budget Policy and Priorities was referred to as "a liberal group" in a New York Times article today (natch, the article was about something supposedly terribly wrong with President Bush's tax cuts). Is this something new for the post-Jayson Blair era? Nothing will ever stop the Times from being a mouthpiece for liberal advocacy groups, and reporting their opinions as news -- but perhaps at least the Times will now have the decency to disclose the political orientation of the source....

5/30/03 Maureen Dowd not wanted hereBy MARC R. MASFERRER The New York Times' considerable credibility problem is now our problem, as well. But unlike the Times, which has been engaged in a torturous exercise of naval gazing and self-flagellation, with its accustomed arrogance, since it was revealed that one of its younger reporters had committed all sorts of journalistic sins, we are doing something about it, and fast. Until she explains to our satisfaction her own ethical transgression -- an apparently deliberate distortion of a comment by President Bush — you will not find the work of Times columnist Maureen...

By rolling over Iraq, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld hoped to deep-six the sixties. The president was down with that. He never grooved on the vibe of the Age of Aquarius anyway.Conservatives were eager to purge the decades' demons, from tie-dye to moral relativism, from Hanoi Jane to wilting patriotism, from McGovern to blaming America first, from Lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds to the Clintonesque whatever-gets-you-through-the-night ethos.In their preferred calendar, more Gingrichian than Gregorian, American culture fast-forwards from Elvis's blue suede shoes to John Travolta's white polyester suit.Whatever else has gone awry in the Mideast so far, the administration may have succeeded in exorcising...

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...

An outrageous new falsehood is circulating about President Bush. Last week, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd misrepresented a Bush statement to imply that he said the Al Qaeda terrorist network is "not a problem anymore," and the distorted quotation has since been repeated by MSNBC "Buchanan and Press" co-host Bill Press, CNN's Miles O'Brien and others, including numerous foreign press outlets. At a time when the New York Times is under fire for its conduct in the Jayson Blair scandal, Dowd's creation of an exploding media myth is cause for serious concern.

In the town where I live, you can turn in a criminal by calling (800) 898-TIPS. The New York Times now offers a similar service to its readers. They can finger crooked stories by sending an E-mail to The Times at retrace@nytimes.com. Jayson Blair is the proximate cause of this humiliating hotline. But some of the TIPS coming into The Times aren't about Blair. Nobody knows exactly who's under investigation. Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Rick Bragg was suspended last week for letting an uncredited intern do his reporting. He's quitting. And at least one other internal review is taking place. It...