The Times' lead editorial this morning attempts to defend Hillary Clinton's record on matters relating to Israel. With respect to Mrs. Clinton's 1998 call for a Palestinian state, the editorial says the remark "is now not far afield from current Israeli and American policies." In fact, it seems unfair to judge Mrs. Clinton's remark by today's negotiating positions; what matters is what the reaction was at the time. And at the time, even moderate American Jewish organizations that have been consistent supporters of the Oslo process of negotiation between Israel and the Arabs -- the American Jewish Committee, for example -- condemned Mrs. Clinton for interfering in a matter best left for negotiations between the parties. Mrs. Clinton herself has backed away from the 1998 remark in subsequent campaign-related appearances. The Times also defends Mrs. Clinton on her kissing of Suha Arafat after Mrs. Arafat had accused Israel of poisoning Arab women and children. The times says the meeting, "while awkward, was nonetheless handled in a way that did not disrupt sensitive negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders." But if not disrupting sensitive negotiations is the standard by which Mrs. Clinton's activities should be judged, then the Times out to condemn Mrs. Clinton's 1998 remark on Palestinian statehood, which was undeniably disruptive. In fact, the better standard of foreign policy performance is not failure to disrupt negotiations, but success in upholding American values. The Times trots out Prime Minister Barak as a defender of Mrs. Clinton's behavior in the Suha Arafat situation. But Mr. Barak's defense came only after the fact. At the time, Mr. Barak's office harshly condemned Mrs. Arafat's remarks while Mrs. Clinton was still debating with her coterie of dovish advisers about the political effects in New York of any post-kiss statement she would make.
Late Again: Two stories in the metro section of this morning's Times give you a sense of how common it is for the Times to be behind the other New York newspapers in coverage of local news. The "political memo" on the charge that Mrs. Clinton used an anti-Semitic slur points out that the Daily News and the New York Post had reported the story by Sunday morning. The Times waited until Monday to run a short inside story and until today to run two news stories and an editorial. Another story in this morning's Times, about a state investigation into the lobbying activities of Donald Trump, is a straight follow-up to an article that appeared in Monday's New York Post.
Note: Smartertimes.com is in Cambridge, Mass. this morning and is operating off the New England Final edition.