An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on Senator Hillary Clinton's opposition to President Bush's nominee to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Mary Sheila Gall. "Senator Clinton said the fact that Consumers Union, the typically apolitical organization that publishes Consumer Reports, opposed Miss Gall's nomination figured in her opposition to the nomination," the Times says.
Calling Consumers Union "typically apolitical" is like calling the weather in Antarctica "typically scorching." It's just absurd on its face. A quick check of the Consumers Union Web site discloses a slew of press releases that take positions on bills before Congress and other political issues. To mark President Bush's first 100 days in office, for instance, Consumers Union issued a press release that said, "We are seriously concerned about the President's decisions on several issues of great importance to consumers, including energy policy, health care, financial services, and telecommunications. Many of the Bush Administration's actions in these areas have favored business interests at the expense of consumers." Another press release was headlined, "Cheney Energy Task Force Leaves Consumers in Dark." Consumers Union lobbies Congress intensively like any other interest group. Maybe the Times thinks Consumers Union is "typically apolitical" because the Times agrees with most of Consumers Union's positions. But when the Times calls Consumers Union "typically apolitical," or lets Mrs. Clinton get away with doing so unchallenged, the newspaper is just being typically political.
Levy's Apologists: The editorial writers at the New York Times, who are emerging as the chief apologists and excuse-makers for the failures of New York City's public school system, offer their explanation today for the $2.8 billion overrun in the $7 billion school construction budget. "Part of the problem is the fact that the Board of Education is required to estimate what a school will cost five years in advance, even before plans are drawn up and a site is acquired. This is virtually impossible given the volatility of building costs," the Times reports. It's a "problem" and "virtually impossible" to estimate building costs five years out? What sort of dream world are the Times editorialists living in? Take a major construction project in the private sector -- say, the construction of a new headquarters building for the New York Times. A press release from the New York Times Company in October, 2000, announced the hiring of architects for the building. "Occupancy would occur in 2005," the Times Company press release said. Looks like "five years in advance." Does the Times expect its readers to believe that architects competed for that job and the Times Company moved ahead with site acquisition and negotiation of tax breaks without any internal estimates of what the building would cost?
The editorial notes that "no one in private industry has to do such a mammoth job while constrained by public-sector pay scales, civil service restrictions and state and city contracting regulations." It sounds for a second as if the editorial is headed in what would seem like the direction that would logically follow -- reduce the restrictions and regulations and privatize the construction. But no -- the Times doesn't want to change the constraints. It suggests instead "using less expensive materials -- a choice that will mean more maintenance costs down the line." If the constraints were changed, the Times editorialists would have less convenient excuses for the cost overruns.
Unreformed on Welfare: A dispatch from Ontario in the international section of today's New York Times reports on an effort to test welfare recipients for illiteracy and drug and alcohol addiction. "There is no evidence that people on welfare have a higher incidence of those problems than other people," the Times claims. "No evidence"? Again, what kind of dream world is the Times living in? In Michigan, a pilot program found that "just over 10% of the applicants for cash assistance tested positive [for drugs] as opposed to the approximately 1% of the state employee job applicants who test positive each year." And a 1994 study by the Columbia University Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse found that "27 percent of welfare mothers abuse or are addicted to alcohol and drugs, compared to 9 percent of mothers not receiving welfare."