The Circuits section of today's New York Times carries a front-page article that is a friendly profile of a Web site dedicated to proving the innocence of the Soviet spy Alger Hiss. Today's Times article waddles in almost five months after Slate broke the story in its March 22, 2001 edition. The Times reports that "Bucking the trend of scholarship on the Hiss case in the 1990's -- a growing consensus that Hiss, indeed, had most likely been a Soviet agent -- the new site . . . rises to his defense." Well, the site is hardly "new" if Slate was writing about it in March. More seriously, the Times formulation is absurd. It's as if they wrote, "Bucking the trend of scholarship on geography in the 1990's -- a growing consensus that the earth is, indeed, most likely round -- the new site argues that the planet is flat." KGB documents located by the historian Allen Weinstein, as well as the decoded, intercepted Soviet intelligence messages known as the Venona papers, establish Hiss beyond a shadow of a doubt as a Soviet spy. Even Slate's Timothy Noah, hardly a right-wing lunatic, reports that the money for the Hiss-defense Web site "came from a foundation affiliated with the Nation magazine, which is pretty much the last general-interest magazine in America that remains committed to the idea of Hiss' innocence." The Times article doesn't mention the site's funding from the Nation-affiliated foundation. Maybe the Times is pretty much the last general-interest newspaper in America that remains committed to the idea of Hiss's innocence.
Growing Fear: A dispatch from Washington in the international section of today's New York Times reports on the comments of an Egyptian diplomat who is urging President Bush to crack down on Israel. "Mr. Baz's comments underscored a growing fear among some Arab leaders that the failure of the Bush administration to become involved would severely diminish American influence in the Middle East," the Times says. If the New York Times really believes that Arab leaders or Mr. Baz give a fig about the diminution of American influence in the Middle East, it is laboring under a misimpression. American influence in the Middle East is a threat to every single Arab regime in the Middle East, because American values -- freedom, democracy -- run counter to the values of every one of those Arab regimes. If these Arabs are so concerned about preserving American influence, why were they almost uniformly allied with the Soviet Union during the Cold War? Why do their government-controlled newspapers to this day constantly transmit the vilest anti-American messages? If anything, an American diplomatic intervention against Israel now would have the effect of diminishing American influence, because it would demonstrate that the Bush administration can be pushed around by terrorists like Yasser Arafat and by dictatorial regimes like the one Mr. Baz represents.
'Guiliani': A dispatch from Seattle in the national section of today's New York Times misspells the last name of the mayor of New York.