In his column on the op-ed page of today's New York Times, Paul Krugman writes, "After all that effort to convince people that the private sector can police itself, the most admired company in America turns out to have been a giant Ponzi scheme -- and the most respected accounting firm turns out to have been an accomplice." It's inaccurate to call Enron "the most admired company in America." Fortune magazine conducts an annual survey of the most admired companies in America. The Fortune survey rated Enron as the most admired company in the pipeline industry. But that is a far different thing from being "the most admired company in America." In the overall survey, Enron didn't even rank in the top 10 most admired companies in America, a list that was headed by firms like General Electric, Cisco Systems, Wal-Mart Stores, Southwest Airlines, Microsoft and Home Depot. Mr. Krugman also doesn't give any evidence for his assertion that Arthur Andersen is "the most respected accounting firm." And it seems a bit premature -- before anyone has been indicted or convicted -- for Mr. Krugman to be naming an entire accounting firm as an "accomplice," a term that implies some kind of criminal wrongdoing.
Relinquish: An op-ed piece in today's New York Times describes Yasser Arafat as "the first Palestinian leader" to "relinquish the objective of regaining all of historic Palestine." There's no evidence that Mr. Arafat has relinquished the goal of eliminating Israel, a goal the Times article euphemistically and falsely refers to as "regaining all of historic Palestine." In fact Mr. Arafat and his advisers have repeatedly spoken in Arabic about a phased plan in which the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state in the West Bank and Gaza would be a prelude to the next phase, the elimination of Israel. Mr. Arafat's refusal publicly to abandon his demand for the "return" of millions of Arab "refugees" to Israel in connection with his acceptance of a state in the West Bank and Gaza is another sign that he has not relinquished the goal of eliminating Israel.
Public Interest: An article in the business section of today's New York Times refers to TomPaine.com as "a public interest group and web site." Only if one thinks that higher taxes, bigger government and more restrictions on political speech are in the "public interest." The Times practice is to label conservative groups as "conservative groups" and liberal groups as "public interest" groups.