The Gore campaign marches on, at least in the New York Times news coverage of the Bush administration. The lead article in the Week in Review section of this morning's New York Times reports on how the Bush administration is handling the Middle East. The first quote in the article comes from one Bruce Jentleson, who is identified as "director of the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy at Duke University" and a member of "the State Department's policy planning staff in 1993 and 1994." The Times doesn't mention that he was one of two foreign policy coordinators for Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. The Gore connection is not a reason to avoid quoting Mr. Jentleson, but mentioning it in the article might be helpful to readers trying to evaluate Mr. Jentleson's comments and trying to understand why he would be quoted in a Times article about Middle East policy.
Also quoted in the article is Robert Satloff, who is identified as the executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. The Times doesn't mention that Mr. Satloff was considered for a job on the staff of the Bush administration's National Security Council. Again, that's no reason not to quote Mr. Satloff, but it is information that might be helpful to readers trying to evaluate Mr. Satloff's comments.
Abortion and Sex-Selection: A dispatch from India in today's New York Times reports on the widespread practice there of using ultrasound testing to allow parents to detect and abort female fetuses. The parents prefer to have male children. This interesting dispatch would be made more interesting if it included some comments from the American abortion-rights and international family planning groups such as Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League. It would be interesting to see what their views of such practices are and whether they would condemn them.
Note: Smartertimes.com is in California and operating off the New York Times national edition.