[Austin-ghetto-list] WSJ & Rew Rupublic cited in great NYT op ed

[Jon Ford]

Good article, Jim-- takes whacks at a number of public offenders.But if Bush 
acted presidential at all in the days after the 911, it was because, liking 
a clue, he probably listened to his advisors rather than reading the popular 
and pseudo-intellectual press.There are some advantages in being a 
non-reader!


Jon


>From: "JIM  BALDAUF" <jfbaldauf@prodigy.net>
>To: <austin-ghetto-list@pairlist.net>
>Subject: [Austin-ghetto-list] WSJ & Rew Rupublic cited in great NYT op ed
>Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 16:17:56 -0500
>
>This story makes Bush look moderate compared
>to the WSJ and New Republic and others.
>jb
>
>OP-ED
>=========================
>The End of the Beginning
>By FRANK RICH
>The only certainty ahead is that there will be more change.
>http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/29/opinion/29RICH.html?todaysheadlines
>
>
>The End of the Beginning
>by Frank Rich
>
>(snip)
>Such was the hysteria on the right after Sept. 11 that National Review's 
>Web edition disseminated a call from the TV commentator Ann Coulter to 
>"invade [the hijackers'] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to 
>Christianity." Presumably her targets include Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the 
>home states of most of the 19 identified hijackers. Then came the "open 
>letter" signed by William Bennett, Richard Perle, Gary Bauer and editors of 
>The New Republic and The Weekly Standard threatening to brand Mr. Bush as a 
>wimp - guilty of "surrender in the war on international terrorism" - if he 
>bucked their demand to attack Iraq. Mr. Bush has to date blown off these 
>influential armchair generals, coming down in favor of the more 
>incremental, less unilateral strategy of an actual general, Colin Powell.
>Mr. Bush has so far turned aside other wish lists from the right as well, 
>including The Wall Street Journal editorial page's patriotic call for the 
>president to use his high poll ratings in the aftermath of a mass murder to 
>push divisive judicial appointments through the Senate. Mr. Bush's quick 
>condemnation of Jerry Falwell's and Pat Robertson's effort to blame America 
>first, notably its gays and lesbians, for the attacks not only forced the 
>TV blowhards to a hasty retreat, but also hammered in, perhaps for years to 
>come, how Taliban-like America's own homegrown mixture of fundamentalism 
>and politics can be. As the president jettisoned these former allies, so he 
>nimbly embraced a former bête noire, big government, to pump up the economy 
>and airport safety - even to the point of creating a new federal agency, 
>the Office of Homeland Security, whose name, though presumably not its 
>mission, has an almost Stalinist ring to it.
>
>But the fact remains that, as far as the war goes, the Bush administration 
>hasn't acted yet. The president's policies are a work in progress, subject 
>to further about-faces. All sweeping judgments and bestowals of carte 
>blanche on his leadership are laughably premature. Only in a foreshortened 
>Hollywood scenario can an unproven leader change in an instant, with one 
>speech, into a giant. Washington's rush to canonize Mr. Bush - he's already 
>been likened to Lincoln by the capital's dean, David Broder - is gaseous 
>complacency of the sort that got us where we are today.
>
>This is a time for more skepticism, not less, especially from news 
>organizations tempted to blur the line between jingoism and journalism. 
>Until CBS News and The Associated Press blew the whistle this week, the 
>White House's excuse for the president's elusiveness on Sept. 11 - a 
>phoned-in threat to Air Force One - was widely reported as fact, not the 
>spin it was. The administration, whose efforts to restrict civil liberties 
>have even brought Bob Barr and Maxine Waters together in opposition, is so 
>eager to stifle dissent in the media that its press secretary publicly 
>denounced a smart-aleck as benign as a late-night comic - in this case Bill 
>Maher - for a tasteless wisecrack.
>
>
>
>


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