Two front-page news articles in this morning's New York Times -- one on the Rev. Jesse Jackson, another on Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik -- quote Rev. Al Sharpton as a kind of expert outside commentator. A third article, about women in law school, mixes it up a bit and relies on Carol Gilligan and Lani Guinier.
The story about Rev. Jackson is notable for mischaracterizing the criticism of him. The Times describes the complaints as "concentrating mostly on the fact that Mr. Jackson's groups accept money from corporations he criticizes." It's not so much the fact that Rev. Jackson accepts the money that upsets his critics -- it's that, after he gets the money, his criticism of the corporations tends to quiet down or end.
The story about women in law school contains a quote from Professor Gilligan that seems to suggest that women lawyers are more important than women doctors. "Women may go to medical school, and that's good for a variety of reasons. But that doesn't affect the structure of our society," Ms. Gilligan tells the Times. If the sexes are as different as Ms. Gilligan claims, it's hard to see how she can argue that the entrance of women into medical schools into large numbers "doesn't affect the structure of society." Or that if it doesn't, how the entrance of women into law schools in large numbers would affect the structure of society. No women who are physicians or medical school deans are quoted in the article, so they don't have a chance to defend themselves against the lawyer supremacy claim asserted by Ms. Gilligan and duly trumpeted by the Times.
Fashion Police: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on the annual Gridiron Club dinner and says that President Bush appeared "In tuxedo and white tie." It's possible that Mr. Bush was in a tuxedo and white tie, but, more likely, he was in a white tie and tails. If Mr. Bush were in a tuxedo and white tie, it would be a fashion foul for the Times to describe it as "the requisite ultra-formal garb, a far cry from the ranch wear he prefers." A tuxedo is by definition tailless, and is not "ultra-formal," but, as Webster's Second put it, "considered less formal than a swallowtail coat." The Times also does Senator Lieberman a favor by omitting the more tasteless jokes he told (for those, see the Washington Post's more colorful account of the dinner).