Big surprise, the New York Times is taking out after Bush today.
The Democratic Party is not exactly the last word in prescience, but even the Democrats have put their finger on the mood of the moment, focusing on the theme of administrative incompetence. They're striking the right note, but it's not a tune we can afford to listen to for the next three years.
In the first place, the Times has little business attacking anyone for incompetence these days. Perhaps they don't feel the need to look at themselves, or like a source for their most recent suspect story, they wear a hood when they do look in the mirror.
Reported the Times yesterday, "The online magazine Salon is challenging the identity of a man profiled by The New York Times in a front-page article on Saturday who says he is the iconic hooded figure in a published photograph who was abused by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison in 2003 and 2004.
"Salon bases its challenge on an examination of a set of 280 Abu Ghraib photographs it has been studying for several weeks and an interview with an official of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command, known as the C.I.D., who says the man identified by The Times is not the detainee in the photograph."
The Times quoted Susan Chira, its foreign editor: "We take questions about our reporting very seriously, and we will carefully investigate Salon's findings. We attempted to verify the claims of Mr. Qaissi thoroughly. We spoke with representatives of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, who had interviewed Mr. Qaissi and believed him to be the man in the photographs."
The Times and Salon seem to be handling this disagreement in a cordial matter. The good news is this will increase the probability of the truth coming out. It's of course unfortunate, however, that things weren't completely clear the first time around. As usual, Jeff Jarvis sums things up nicely:
Interesting sources. Some might not feel they are so trustworthy in this particular case. Too bad the Times didn't think enough to contact Bush's incompetent administration first for a little fact checking to be 100% certain before splashing the piece on the front page. They should consider merging with CBS.
Yes, the Bush administration is having trouble right now. However, if you strip away a great deal of the poor reporting which has made it look so much worse, I'm far from convinced incompetent is the right word.
As for the editorials particulars, Outside The Beltway has a solid response to the latest Times editorial - on merit, it doesn't hold up.
Comments