In a long editorial today that is directed at undecided voters, the New York Times claims that George W. Bush's "anti-government statements are out of sync with the public." As evidence, the Times cites a poll by the Pew Research Center that found "54 percent of Americans view the federal government favorably and rate it as more trustworthy than pharmaceutical companies, oil companies and health-maintenance organizations." Well, the election's outcome will be a good indicator of whether Mr. Bush's anti-government statements are out of sync with the public. But the idea that some cornball poll about trustworthiness undermines Mr. Bush's positions on the government's role in medicine, energy policy and health care is just flaky. Imagine the poll results that could be gotten if the Pew Research Center asked the following questions: "Do you believe the federal government should set prices for medicine and limit the profits of drug companies, even if that meant the drug companies would be less likely to develop new drugs to cure cancer and other diseases?" "Do you agree with Al Gore's position in his book, Earth in the Balance, that there should be a new federal tax on energy that would make your gasoline costs and electric bill even more expensive?" "Did you agree with Hillary Clinton's 1993 plan to massively expand government control over the health care system, a plan that Al Gore loyally defended at the time but that he now claims he opposed?" Those poll results might give a good indication of whose view of the role of government is more "out of sync with the public," the Bush view or the Times-Gore view.
Unpalatable: An article in the Week in Review section of today's Times says, "It could be that Mr. Bush's talk of 'compassionate conservatism' was merely a way to repackage his genuine conservative beliefs in a more palatable way." More palatable to whom? What's unpalatable about genuine conservatism? The answer is apparently obvious to the editors at the Times, so much so that they just take it for granted that genuine conservatism is unpalatable.
Obesity: The Times weighs in today with another long front-page article in its series on obesity. Today's article buys into the notion that fat persons are the victims of "discrimination," "prejudice" of a sort that should be outlawed. The article quotes, in all seriousness, a physician complaining about people who see weight "as almost like a moral issue -- it's like you are virtuous if you restrain yourself and you're sinful if you give in." The Times essentially lumps this moral view in as "fat discrimination." But an aversion to gluttony and a preference for moderation has long been a part of the Western moral tradition, from Aristotle through Maimonides. It's just strange the way the Times is willing to dismiss this moral view as "fat hatred" and "fat discrimination." The Times treats fat persons with the sort of slack the newspaper rarely displays toward others who can't control their vices, such as, say, cigarette smokers. The Times article complains about "plane seats that are too narrow" for fat persons. Never mind the question of whether it's the plane seats that are too narrow or the persons that are too wide. When was the last time the Times had an editorial or a news story complaining about the horrible "discrimination" and "hatred" that motivated the decision of airlines to ban smoking on most commercial flights? The argument could be made that the situations are different because second-hand smoke imposes costs on non-smoking passengers and on flight attendants. But making larger seats available to obese passengers at the same costs as the regular seats would also impose costs on the other passengers, who would have less space of their own in the plane and would wind up subsidizing the overweight passengers.
Wrong Date: An article about "Why Newspapers Endorse Candidates" that runs in the Week in Review section of today's Times refers to "Michael Gartner, who won a Pulitzer in 1977 for his editorial commentaries in The Daily Tribune of Ames, Iowa." Mr. Gartner's Pulitzer prize for his work in Ames came in 1997.