A front-page article in today's New York Times runs under the headline, "Plain-Talking Bush Is Using His Charm on European Stage." The article reports that "In Brussels, at the NATO meeting that brought Mr. Bush, Mr. Blair and other European leaders together, he had a retort for a photographer who was trying to get a shot of the American president and the French prime minister, Jacques Chirac, and complained to Lord Robertson, NATO's secretary general, 'Your backside is in the way.'"
The prime minister of France is Lionel Jospin; Mr. Chirac is the president of France.
Free Pass for Bloomberg: The New York Times has lavished front-page coverage on the mayoral candidacy of Michael Bloomberg, paying more attention to him than to the other mayoral candidates. And today, an article in the national section of today's New York Times gives Mr. Bloomberg a free pass. Under the headline "U.S. to Investigate Death in an Asthma Study," the Times writes about an investigation into the death of a "healthy volunteer in an asthma experiment at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore." In a full-length story on the death, the Times apparently finds it not worth mentioning the fact that Mr. Bloomberg, a New York mayoral candidate, is chairman of the Johns Hopkins board of trustees.
End the Silence: The lead editorial in today's New York Times, about economic growth in New York City, says, "It is time for the mayoral candidates to end their silence on economic issues." What silence? All the mayoral candidates except for Mr. Bloomberg appeared on Thursday at a conference sponsored by the Manhattan Institute. Fernando Ferrer called for a new tax dedicated to the construction of a Second Avenue subway; Alan Hevesi called for the city to open 200 storefront computer training centers; Peter Vallone came out against a living wage law, saying it "borders on socialism, which is something I'm not in favor of"; and Mark Green called for an "economic comstat," with which the city would woo private employers on a sector-by-sector basis rather than by simply granting tax breaks to individual firms that threaten to leave. Herman Badillo called for a phase-out of rent control. All of these are economic issues; the only reason that it seems as if the candidates have been silent on them is that the Times metropolitan coverage prefers to dwell instead on Mr. Vallone's hair, Mr. Bloomberg's personal wealth and the tactical maneuvering of the celebrity campaign consultants.
Plumping for Iran: In an op-ed piece in today's New York Times, Lee Hamilton and James Schlesinger call for America to appease the terrorist human-rights abusers who rule Iran. The Times describes Mr. Schlesinger as "energy secretary and defense secretary under Jimmy Carter." That was more than 20 years ago. There's no disclosure at all of Mr. Schlesinger's current affiliation with Lehman Brothers, an investment bank that does so much business in the energy sector that it advertises in Oil and Gas Investor. That puts the op-ed page article's claim that "American companies are missing opportunities to invest in Iran and develop its vast oil and gas resources" in a whole new light.
Slow on Chagall: The New York Times metro section today carries an article on a Chagall painting that is missing from the Jewish Museum. Le Monde carried a story about the missing painting on June 12; the New York Post had it on June 9; the Times waddles in today.
Once-Literate: An article in the Arts and Ideas section of today's New York Times reports on the woes of the publishing industry in the Arab world. But the headline and some other references in the article speak of the "Middle East." As in "Publishers in the once-literate Middle East are hindered by censorship, war, poverty, zealotry and the lure of TV." As in a photo cutline claiming that "throughout the Middle East, a region noted for its novelists, literature has lost its popularity." The article contains not a single mention of Israel, which is strange for an article that runs under a headline referring to the Middle East. Israel, after all, is in the Middle East.