The lead editorial in this morning's New York Times is, by Times standards, pretty harsh on Al Gore. It calls his rush to court in an effort to litigate his way to a victory the voters would not grant him "worrying." But on a second reading, the Times' pro-Gore sentiments in the face of the facts become clear, as an astute Smartertimes.com reader in Los Angeles, Henry Fetter, pointed out in an e-email early this morning. The Times editorial says "Both Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush need to be asking themselves whether a scorched-earth legal strategy" serves "the broad national interest." "Both"? It is only the Gore campaign that has announced that it will pursue a scorched-earth legal strategy.
The editorial also likens Mr. Gore's scorched-earth legal strategy to Mr. Bush's entirely appropriate desire to begin planning for the next administration. "Neither the prospect of legal warfare not Mr. Bush's rush to put together a transition team is helpful at this point," the Times says. In this case, the Times is holding Mr. Bush to a higher standard than Mr. Gore. Funny, there hasn't been a Times editorial condemning Mr. Gore for starting work on the transition. Yet a news story in the Times on November 4 reported that Mr. Gore had gotten his own transition team up and running even before the election. That article reported, "Despite the uncertain outcome of the race, Mr. Gore has started low-level, low-profile planning for a presidential transition. Last summer, he asked a longtime adviser and former aide, Roy Neel, to lead a pre-election transition operation that would focus on process but not on personnel. Mr. Neel, a former chief of staff for Mr. Gore in both his Senate and vice presidential offices, is now on unpaid leave from his job as president of the United States Telecom Association. Gore aides said that Mr. Neel had been working in Washington, with occasional visits to the campaign headquarters in Nashville, for several months. He and a collection of current and former Gore aides have been researching the history of previous transitions and writing memorandums about how a transition should be organized."
The Science of Counting: An article by a Times science writer quoting statisticians about the disputed ballots was so good that the Times apparently saw fit to run it twice in today's paper. In my New York edition, the article appears once on page A24 under the headline "In Research, Recounts the Norm," and again on page A28 under the headline "Question of Numbers No Longer Is Academic." Both times, the article is slugged "The Science of Counting." One, two. Some science.
Big Time Scenario: An intriguing story in the national section of today's Times runs under the headline "President Could Be Picked Without Florida." The article outlines a scenario under which the Gore campaign could use legal tactics to delay the certification of electors in Florida, meanwhile claiming a victory in the electoral vote by winning a majority of all non-Florida electoral votes cast by the December 18 deadline. The article quotes "Walter Dellinger, professor of law at Duke University," as supporting the legality of this scenario, which would favor Mr. Gore. But in a big-time omission, the article fails to inform readers that Mr. Dellinger was solicitor general in the Clinton administration and is not exactly an impartial authority.
L.A. Riots Explained: An article in the national section of today's New York Times manages to do in a single paragraph what it took other newspapers months of investigative reporting and hundreds of inches of copy to do: explain the Los Angeles riots. The Times blames the riots on the district attorney of Los Angeles County, Gil Garcetti. "The failure of his office to gain convictions against four white officers who were videotaped beating Rodney G. King, a black motorist, led to riots in which more than 50 people were killed and property damage totaled nearly $1 billion." The leap of logic here is breathtaking. As if the jury's verdict and the popular reaction to it were already determined, and as if the only variable affecting whether there was going to be a massive race riot in L.A. were the performance of the prosecutors. Really.
Death Takes a Holiday: An article in the business section of today's Times about the "Funeral Business's New Look" passes along wholesale a quote from a Wall Street analyst who claims that the stock prices for funeral home companies are down because of "weakened death rates." Think about this for a second. (The Times editors apparently didn't.) "Weakened death rates"? In the long run, everyone dies. The death rate is 100%. This should be already priced into the stocks of funeral home companies. If the death rate has really weakened, the story belongs above the fold on the front page of the Times, not buried, so to speak, in a quote from a stock analyst midway through a business-section story about the funeral home industry.
Bilingual Education: Wednesday's Smartertimes.com commented on a column on the Times education page about bilingual education. Today's Times carries a correction of the column. The correction reads as follows: "Because of an editing error, the Lessons column on Wednesday, about bilingual education, misstated the writer's view of when that system is most useful in the teaching of English. The column was intended to say that bilingual teaching of English is warranted when it intellectually challenges students in a language they understand. He did not say it should be promoted because most often it teaches English more effectively." This correction obscures more than it clarifies, but what it seems to suggest is that the columnist isn't really interested in having students learn English; he just wants them to be intellectually challenged "in a language they understand." He's certainly entitled to his view, but it seems as if the vast majority of taxpayers who support the public school system -- not to mention the parents of the Spanish-speaking students who are the main victims of the current system -- are interested in having students learn the American language. There's no correction today of the original column's dismissal of those English-immersion advocates as ideological crusaders.