Free Republic

Philip Taubman, Washington bureau chief for The Times, is responding to reader questions in the paper's editions this week. Among those he addressed this morning is the one below: Q. Please tell us your voting record for the past ten years. I want to confirm your liberal bias. --David Owens A. I'm always amazed at the certitude with which people make assumptions about journalists and their political views. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I have voted for Republicans and Democrats over the years. And I published a book in 2003, Secret Empire: Eisenhower, The CIA, and The Hidden...

The New York Times is outraged that President Bush failed to breach his own heavy security, and inform its reporters and editors in advance of his secret Thanksgiving trip to visit with American G.I.s in Baghdad. The President also failed to inform the al Qaeda and Baathist leaderships, respectively, of his trip. Security was so tight for the trip, since otherwise Saddam-loyalists and terrorists active in Iraq would surely have attempted to assassinate the President. On November 22, enemy fighters armed with shoulder-fired missiles hit an A-300 DHL Express freight plane in the left wing, as it took off from...

Philip Taubman, the deputy editor of the editorial page at The New York Times, has been named the newspaper's Washington bureau chief. Mr. Taubman's appointment was announced yesterday by Bill Keller, the executive editor. In his new position, Mr. Taubman, 55, will oversee all aspects of the newspaper's coverage of the nation's capital. He replaces Jill Abramson, who was recently appointed as one of two managing editors at The Times. "Phil (like Jill) brings an investigative reporter's patience and tough-mindedness to the news," Mr. Keller said in a statement. Mr. Taubman said in an interview that his "hope is to...