The Gore campaign is in even worse shape than we thought if it is getting this kind of treatment in a front page news story from the New York Times, which is usually a reliable supporter:
"'When I was in Vietnam, I didn't do the most or run the greatest danger,' Mr. Gore said. 'But I volunteered and enlisted because I loved my country, and I knew that if I didn't go, I knew that someone else from my home town of Carthage, Tenn., would have to go in my place.'
"Left out of that explanation are two other possible reasons for his decision to volunteer: his desire to help insulate his father, an antiwar senator from Tennessee, from Republican criticism, and his own interest in broadening his resume for a possible career in politics."
The use of the word "possible" is a red flag that the reporter is injecting his own cynicism. There are any number of "possible" reasons that Mr. Gore went to Vietnam, ranging from a hunger for Army food to a feeling that he looked good in uniform. The Times manages to pick two that depict Mr. Gore as being motivated by political concerns rather than by patriotism or morality. If there's some evidence that his decision to enlist was motivated by politics -- if, for example, Mr. Gore told friends at the time that those were his motivations, or if he has spoken publicly on prior occasions of the decision being motivated by politics -- then, by all means, the Times should share the evidence with readers and try to find out the reason Mr. Gore has changed his account. But if there's no evidence, just a possibility, then there is no justification for the newspaper to suggest in its own voice, in a news story, that Mr. Gore was motivated by political concerns rather than the patriotic and moral ones he cites.
Late and thin: The New York Times waddles in this morning with a story on the NAACP's plan to spend $7 million on political activities in connection with this year's election. The Times is late on this story, which The Washington Post reported on Friday. The Times story is also not as good as the Post story. The Post story, for instance, reports that the NAACP effort will be headed by Heather Booth, a former operative of the Democratic National Committee; The Times story leaves that information out. The Post story also considers whether the NAACP's action is hypocritical considering that the organization has called for a law banning this sort of political spending; the Times story doesn't probe that irony.