An article in the international section of today's New York Times reports on anti-missile weapons in outer space. "Those programs were once at the center of the Strategic Defense Initiative, derided by opponents as Star Wars," the Times says.
What's the headline on this Times story? "Cast of Star Wars Makes Comeback in Bush Plan."
Smartertimes.com isn't suggesting that Star Wars be banned as a reference to missile defense in news coverage. But the combination of today's headline and the line in the story sure does suggest that among those "opponents" deriding space-based missile-defense are the headline writers in the news department of the New York Times, who are supposed to maintain at least a pretense of neutrality on the question.
Uncompetitive: The lead, front-page news story in today's New York Times is a dispatch from the G-8 summit at Genoa, Italy. "Mr. Bush has countered the protesters by insisting that ever freer trade is the answer to the problems facing developing nations, though never once here has he explored the side effects on countries unable to compete with the richest nations," the Times reports. This sentence contains so many wrongheaded assumptions that it's hard to know where to start. Perhaps the most glaring is the phrase "unable to compete." Talk about your soft bigotry of low expectations. No country is inherently "unable to compete." Some may be saddled with oppressive governments and may lack natural resources, but it's overly pessimistic to write them off as "unable to compete." The juxtaposition with "the richest nations" makes it sound like the "unable to compete" nations the Times is talking about are the poor nations. But in fact, labor costs tend to be lower in these poor nations than they are in rich nations. So free trade means those poor nations will probably benefit as jobs move there from rich nations. The rich nations benefit, too, as their consumers can pay lower prices for goods made with lower labor costs. If anything, the "side effects" of free trade may be worse in those "richest nations," where there are some job losses as work moves overseas. Finally, how does the Times know that Mr. Bush has "never once" explored this question? Isn't it possible he did so privately and the newspaper just hasn't heard about it?
Note: Smartertimes.com is in Massachusetts and operating off the New England edition of the New York Times.