One of the most annoying things about the New York Times is metropolitan coverage that gives readers the sense that the Times is unfamiliar with basic facts about the city that is supposed to be the newspaper's home town. So, an article in today's metro section about a new way for the city to charge fees to trucks that park on the streets claims "Variable parking rates, depending on the time of day and the duration of the parking, have also been used in Europe, but not in the United States, experts said." It's unclear which "experts" the Times is referring to, but they can't be anyone who has ever looked for parking in Manhattan. There are dozens of commercial parking garages in Manhattan that offer some kind of "in by 7, out by 7" rate to early arrivals, and dozens of others that charge different rates on nights and weekends than they do by the hour during the weekdays. The news in the story is that government is finally catching up with the pricing efficiencies that have long held sway in the private sector. But the Times story is oblivious to this.
Take Your Pick: The metro section of today's New York Times contains a news story about Hillary Clinton's day of campaigning that reports Mrs. Clinton "released the latest in a parade of notably negative advertisements." An "ad campaign" box that runs on the same page of the metro section and which is written by a different reporter analyzes Mrs. Clinton's latest commercial and says, "This is one of the few negative ads in the campaign." How can these sentences both be true? Is there any editor who reads all this stuff before it goes in the newspaper? Or are readers just supposed to decide for themselves which account in the Times to believe?
Free To Be, You And Me: In an editorial that you have to read to believe, the New York Times today writes: "Marlo Thomas has the right idea. An ardent Democrat, she went on the 'Today' show Thursday to reprimand her husband, Phil Donahue, for helping Ralph Nader spread the fallacious message that it makes no difference whether Al Gore or George W. Bush wins the presidency. Ms. Thomas set an admirable example." First of all, Mr. Nader hasn't been claiming it makes "no difference"; he's been saying it makes little difference, or not much difference. Second, all Mr. Donahue did to help Ralph Nader was to have him as a guest on his TV show and make a few campaign appearances with him. Does the Times want Mr. Donahue to bar Mr. Nader from his show, the way that Mr. Nader has essentially been barred from the news columns of the Times? Under the plan for public financing of political campaigns that the Times says it favors, taxpayer funding would help all candidates spread their messages. How does the Times propose to deal with the problem of candidates using that federal money to spread messages the Times regards as "fallacious"? By sending the candidates' wives out to reprimand them?
The Times editorial goes on to say, "It is past time for everyone, including Mr. Gore, to get tougher on Mr. Nader." Tougher? The Times has been running scathing editorials about Mr. Nader for months now -- if they get any tougher, they are going to be calling for having Mr. Nader arrested. What is Mr. Nader's sin that gets the Times so worked up in a lather? You guessed it: he's a member of the Times' least favorite group, the rich of the non-Sulzberger variety. "Mr. Nader, with his nearly $4 million net worth, can afford to be indifferent about the public policy fallout of a Bush victory," the Times writes. But in fact, Mr. Nader is a perfect example of the foolishness of the Times' approach to wealth. Mr. Nader was not born to great wealth, unlike, say, the Sulzbergers. He has a $4 million net worth because he lives frugally, works hard and invests wisely. Why should readers share the Times' contempt for him? Would it be better if he had spent his money eating at fancy restaurants like the ones the Times reviews in its dining section, or if he had worked less hard over the years at researching and writing books that sold well? If anything, it's the rich who can afford to be indifferent to the public policy fallout of a Gore victory; they need the marginal tax breaks and economic growth and improvements to public schools promised by Mr. Bush less than middle- and low-income taxpayers do. That is why Mr. Gore is ahead in wealthy states like New York, California and Connecticut, but Mr. Bush is ahead in poorer states such as Alabama and Kentucky.
Then the Times editorial goes and calls Mr. Nader a male chauvinist. Actually, it accuses him of engaging in "male chauvinism carried to a new extreme." A new extreme! All Mr. Nader suggested was that a Bush-appointed Supreme Court wouldn't necessarily mean the immediate criminalization of all abortion in America. This is not male chauvinism; it's true. As Christopher Caldwell pointed out in his New York Press column this week: "There is no threat to abortion rights coming from anywhere in this country. Republicans persist in appointing such pro-choicers as Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter to the Supreme Court. But even if the Court were to consist of five Clarence Thomases and four Antonin Scalias, there would be nothing it could do to stop Congress and the states from legislating their own abortion laws--which they'd do in a heartbeat if Roe v. Wade were ever overturned." The Times claims Mr. Nader is not concerned because he is not one of the "60 million American women of childbearing age." The Times claims Mr. Nader "would be jumping up and down if it were his constitutional protections and his physical health and his medical autonomy that were being put at risk." But the whole crux of the abortion debate is that in, say, the admittedly extreme case of a woman who is 8-months pregnant and suddenly wants to have an abortion because she doesn't want to have a daughter and would prefer to have a son, it is not only the woman of childbearing age but the father and the potential life that have a stake in the decision. By suggesting that the only ones whose rights are at stake in the abortion battle are women of childbearing age, the Times is doing a disservice to fathers and to female fetuses who might be aborted for sex-selection reasons. If it is only the mother's view that matters, why was the Times so adamant about wanting to send Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba?
Mideast Peace: A New York Times editorial today on the "Elusive Mideast Truce" claims that "further escalation of the fighting would serve no one." It worries about the "devastating" results that would ensue if the fighting did not "stay confined to the West Bank and Gaza Strip." But as David Wurmser of the American Enterprise Institute has argued, regionalizing the conflict would actually serve America's and Israel's best long-term interests by eliminating the centers of Islamic radicalism and Baathism that are funding and promoting the attacks on Israel and on American interests in the region. In other words, further escalation of the fighting in the short term could serve Israel and America -- not to mention that it could help liberate the millions of Arabs now suffering under the boot of brutal dictatorships.