The lead editorial in today's New York Times comes out in favor of keeping the American war against terrorism bogged down in Afghanistan. It does this in a backhanded way, praising President George W. Bush. "Americans trust Mr. Bush's leadership on foreign policy because his direction has been fair and nonpartisan, rising far above the ideology on which he campaigned. He has steered clear of political grandstanding, consulting Democrats as well as Republicans, and ignoring the hawks in his own party who have been demanding a wider war," The Times says.
It's not just the hawks in the Republican Party who have been demanding a wider war. A September 20, 2001, letter to President Bush said, "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism. The United States must therefore provide full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition. American military force should be used to provide a 'safe zone' in Iraq from which the opposition can operate. And American forces must be prepared to back up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition by all necessary means."
That letter was signed by, among others, former Representative Stephen Solarz, a Democrat, and by Leon Wieseltier and Martin Peretz of The New Republic, who aren't exactly well-known Republicans. In addition, the Democratic vice presidential candidate in 2000, Senator Joseph Lieberman, has also called for targeting Iraq in the war against terrorism. He has done this repeatedly, but one recent example was in an op-ed piece in the October 29, 2001, Wall Street Journal. The Times's depiction of the demand for a wider war as a somehow "partisan" position of the hawks in the president's "own party" is contradicted by the facts.
Moreover, it's not even clear that the president has been "ignoring" these hawks, as the Times claims that he has been. It is possible that there are secret actions being taken against Iraq, or that Mr. Bush intends to take on Iraq in the next phase of the war.
Finally, the "trust" indicated by polls of the American public on how Mr. Bush is handling foreign policy has no relation to his decision not to immediately expand the war, despite what the Times suggests. A recent Reuters-Zogby poll found 74% of American support widening the war to include Saddam Hussein.
Not in the Times: The New York Times coverage of the mayoral campaign has been focusing on the candidates' TV commercials and personal appearances at the expense of the highly targeted direct mail campaign, which is in some ways more interesting. The latest Bloomberg move has been to mail Democratic women voters on Manhattan's Upper West Side a campaign flyer that says, "Bloomberg for Mayor: Pro-Choice and Anti-Death Penalty, Promoting Universal Health Care and Cracking Down on Illegal Guns." This strikes Smartertimes.com as at least worth noting in passing, coming as it does from a candidate who is nominally a Republican.
Pastrami Problem: An article in the metro section of the New York Times reports that during a visit yesterday to Katz's Deli, Michael Bloomberg "ate a hot dog with mustard -- and nibbled on some corned beef." This is a major campaign blunder, and the Times just lets it slide without comment. Any real New Yorker would know that at Katz's the right thing to order is the pastrami.