Dropping even the pretense of objectivity, the Times runs a top-of-the-front-page news article today asking of George W. Bush "To what degree is he his own man?" and answering, "almost everything he achieved, he did in part because of his name and family connections." Lower down in the article, there is a discussion of the fact that "with regard to the use of a condom," President Bush never told his son "to wear a 'raincoat' or anything."
This is all consistent with the Times' usual practice in political coverage. First, there is the focus on personal details at the expense of policy and substance. Second, there is the tendency to hold Republicans to a more stringent standard than Democrats. So, for instance, Richard Cheney's ties to the Halliburton Corporation are flogged endlessly, while Al Gore's ties to Occidental Petroleum are virtually ignored. And George W. Bush's relationship with his famous father is probed extensively, while Mr. Gore's ties to Mr. Gore's own famous father, who was a senator from Tennessee, are virtually ignored.
Not only is the Times eager to psychoanalyze George W. Bush, but Mr. Bush gets criticized for not being eager to jump on the couch and play along. "Friends and family members say the entire Bush family is exceptionally averse to introspection, in part because of an ingrained notion that excessive reflection is wimpish and also because of a fear that journalists will pounce on any self-searching and exaggerate any vulnerabilities it reveals."
Apparently, any candidate who refuses to do what Mr. Gore has done -- that is, to bare the details of his wife's clinical depression and his own need for therapy after his son was hit by a car -- is now going to be mocked for having an "exceptional" aversion to introspection. A more judicious view would be that Mr. Gore has an exceptional affinity for introspection -- a quality that, hard as it may be for the Times to believe, may not be exactly at the very top of the list of traits Americans are looking for in a presidential candidate.
And anyway, it's not George W.'s fault that his father was president of America. George W. had no choice in the matter. What did the Times want him to do, run away from home and disown his parents? If the Times editors are looking for some perspective on George W. Bush and this question of whether "almost everything he achieved, he did in part because of his name and family connections," they might check in with their own publisher, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr.
A New Industry Targeted: Al Gore has already made his presidential campaign an effort to bash big oil, the pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, and tobacco companies. Apparently buoyed by his success with that strategy, Mr. Gore today adds film, television, music and video-game companies to the list. The Times reports this on its front page under the headline "Gore Takes Tough Stand on Violent Entertainment." Is there any sector of America's capitalist economy that Mr. Gore thinks is working properly and that he does not think is in need of additional federal regulation? (Clearly, the high-tech sector doesn't qualify, given the Clinton-Gore Justice Department's antitrust case against Microsoft.)
Appeasement Watch: In an editorial today, the Times asserts that "President Clinton was right to shake the hand of President Fidel Castro of Cuba when they met at the United Nations last week. Mrs. Clinton made the correct protocol judgment not to have a public confrontation with Suha Arafat during a trip to Israel last year." Unanswered is the question: Is there any dictator so blood-soaked, any accusation so abhorrent and false, that it would justify in the view of the Times a refused handshake or a public confrontation that breached protocol?