So a Reporter Wanders Into a Bookstore....

The front-page article in the New York Times today on George Tenet's new book (in which he blasts the Bush administration; hence the front page article) contains a line that reads almost like a joke in an old nightclub routine. "So a reporter wanders into a bookstore..."

Says the Times, "The 549-page book, 'At the Center of the Storm,' is to be published by HarperCollins on Monday. By turns accusatory, defensive, and modestly self-critical, it is the first detailed account by a member of the president’s inner circle of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the decision to invade Iraq and the failure to find the unconventional weapons that were a major justification for the war."

So the Times got an advance copy, obviously. No! No! says the Times. Its reporter just happened to be wandering through a bookstore and lo and behold, there it was. "A copy of the book was purchased at retail price in advance of publication by a reporter for The New York Times."

But the book is not available on Amazon or in bookstores just yet.

There's nothing wrong or unethical about the Times getting an advance copy of the book, so as to publicize it. That's what obviously happened here, though apparently the Times actually paid for its copy. Why conceal the truth?

More Mealy-Mouthed Shilling from the Empty Suit

Going out with a whimper

The Empty Suit, New York Times "public editor" a/k/a spokesman Barney Calame, wind down his disastrous two-year term as public editor today, with a typically mealy mouthed column that says absolutely nothing about the Times' coverage of the Duke Universtiy rape case.

Calame "revisits" the infamous Aug. 25 article in whcih the Times essentially lynched the Duke University defendants. As usual, he says nothing in particular and churns out the usual patented Calame Whitewash: "I found that the past year’s articles generally reported both sides, and that most flaws flowed from journalistic lapses rather than ideological bias."

That's typical. No matter how dramatic the evidence, the Suit never finds evidence of ideological bias.

What the Suit forgets is that a series of notorious "journalstic lapses," all taking place on the same side of the ideological spectrum, is a prima facie case of ideological bias.

Calame winds up his two-year term as public editor this month. The general view of journalism critics in the mainstream media is precisely what I was saying two years ago: that he is little more than a shill for Times management.

Good riddance, Calame.

UPDATE: Here is a terrific blog post from Durham that sums up the situation nicely:

Sunday, Times public editor Byron Calame published his review of the Times coverage of the lacrosse case. It avoided any comprehensive analysis of the coverage, faulted Duff Wilson’s August 25 story but offered no convincing explanation of why the story was so flawed, and provided a basic message of “no harm, no foul” in the Times’ mishandling of the case.

The article that a good public editor might have written appeared in today’s Chronicle, penned by Iza Wojciechowska. “In the year since the story first broke,” wrote Wojciechowska, “The Times has been criticized for printing news with a slant favoring Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong and for drawing out the amalgam of sex, race and class issues that contributed to the case’s prominent position in the national spotlight.”

Two Lynchings

The media in recent days has been going bananas in its coverage of two lynchings: the Duke University "rape that was no rape" case, and the hypocritical pile-on of Don Imus for using the same "racial terms" that are common in rap lyrics.

The New York Times, as usual, stood out like a sore thumb.

While reporting the withdrawal of charges on the front page, the Times did not report its own tawdry record in hyping that story. Fox News observed that "nowhere did it mention a Times exclusive from last August in which the paper said: 'While there are big weaknesses in (prosecutor) Nifong's case, there is also a body of evidence to support his decision to take the matter to a jury. In several important areas, the full files, reviewed by The New York Times, contain evidence stronger than that highlighted by the defense.'"

The shameful hypocrisy of the Imus crucifixion was a kind of team sport enjoyed by the entire media. Rush Limbaugh, a target of Imus, said:

"To me, this really isn't so much about Imus," Rush said. "Imus is who he is, and everybody has always known who he is. It's more about the people that have propped Imus up and have looked the other way over all these years over all these things, and it's about a lot of hypocrisy in the 'drive-by' media.”

No such furor followed Imus' anti-Semitic remarks just five months ago. As The Forward noted at the time,

“I remember when I first had ’em on a few years ago,” Imus said. “The Jewish management at, whoever we work for, CBS, were bitchin’ at me about it.” WFAN is a subsidiary of WCBS radio.

“We had a meeting in my office,” Imus continued. “They were furious, but of course I don’t care what they say and never have.”

At this point, the show’s executive producer, Bernard McGuirk, a regular on-air presence, said of the Blind Boys, “Even if you wear a beanie, how can you not love these guys?”

“I tried to put it in terms that these money-grubbing bastards could understand,” Imus replied. “I said: ‘They’re handicapped, they’re black and they’re blind. How do we lose here?’ And then a light bulb went off over their scummy little heads.”

Imus co-host Larry Kenney, an impressionist who appeared earlier in the program as the Rev. Jerry Falwell, then said: “They probably were trying to push a more Semitic group on you. I don’t know, maybe the Paralyzed Putzes of Poland, or something like that.”

“You can’t believe what goes on behind the scenes, at least with me with these people,” Imus said. “And fortunately, I don’t care.”

The reaction? There wasn't any. Yet four words got his career tossed in the can.

It's hard to find a better example of political correctness, double standards and hypocrisy run wild.

The 'Chilling Effect' of Common Sense

Don't you think it would make this country safer if illegal immigrants are allowed to roam unhindered around the country -- without the police to worry about?

That preposterous mindset can be found, not in some Moonbat rag but in this Associated Press story out of San Francisco.

Seems an "activist attorney" by the bay wants a judge to compel "San Jose police to follow state law and turn suspects who might be in the U.S. illegally over to immigration authorities. "

Horrors!

Aside from the usual left-wing pap, we get the following:

Mark Silverman, director of Immigration Policy for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said the filing could have a "chilling effect" on immigrants' cooperation with police.

"It could actually endanger public safety," Silverman said.

Imagine that. Arresting illegal immigration is bad for our safety. What the AP misses is that this policy applies to arrested people. The cops would not be obliged to check the immigration status of anyone who drops by the station house.

The AP let this nonsense pass uncontradicted.

Not a Racial Killing?

If you don't think this country is totally consumed by political correctness, particularly on racial issues, think hard about this:

A young couple, students from the University of Tennessee, were victims of a carjacking and were kidnapped, raped, tortured and eventually murdered by five people. Read this gruesome account:

According to reports, (the man's) penis was then cut off before he was shot several times and set on fire, all while his girlfriend watched. His body was then dumped alongside train tracks. Christian was kept alive and gang-raped multiple times over a span of four days. Her breast was cut off while she was still alive and her kidnappers sprayed cleaning fluid into her mouth to cleanse it of DNA. Her body was then put into a garbage can.

The attackers were of a different race.

Now, if the victims were black and the perpetrators were white, this would be front page news around the country. But the victims were white and the alleged perpetrators were black.

This atrocity has been ignored by the media. Note this analysis in the Conservative Voice.

If you can find a better example of PC gone haywire, let me know.