A news article in the business section of today's New York Times reports that Enron executive Kenneth Lay "contributed about $600,000 to Mr. Bush's campaigns." That's an overstatement. According to the Center for Public Integrity, Mr. Lay's contributions to Bush's campaigns for governor of Texas amounted to $122,500. Contributions to presidential campaigns are limited to $1,000 per election, and Federal Election Commission records show that Mr. Lay contributed $1,000 to Bush for President Inc. and $1,000 to the Bush-Cheney 2000 Compliance Committee Inc. (Donations toward compliance committees don't count toward the per-election limits.) Mr. Lay raised money from other people for the Bush campaign, and he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in "soft money" contributions to the national Republican Party. He also gave to state Republican parties. But a contribution to the Republican Party is different from a contribution to Mr. Bush's campaign. The statement in the Times news article that Mr. Lay "contributed about $600,000 to Mr. Bush's campaigns" is inaccurate.
Beetle Blunder: Remember that stirring Times editorial from Thursday? The one defending the wild salmon in Oregon that said, "Nor is the problem the Endangered Species Act, which has to do with far more than the protection of flora and fauna. It speaks to the human condition as well: when an entire species is sufficiently threatened to require protection, it usually means that the same ecosystem will eventually fail the humans who depend on it as well." Well, check out today's Times editorial on the Asian Longhorned Beetle. The Times refers to it as a "scourge" and a "pest" and calls for "nothing less than eradication of the Asian Longhorned Beetle on this continent." Well, by the logic of Thursday's editorial, once the Asian Longhorned Beetle is eradicated on this continent, humans won't be far behind. There's no attempt in today's Times to explain what makes the Oregon salmon worth saving but the Asian Longhorned Beetle worth destroying. A cynic might say that the beetles are threatening to devastate trees in Central Park -- near the homes of the limousine liberals who write the Times editorials. The effort to save the wild salmon, however, is threatening only to devastate the livelihoods of Klamath Basin farmers, who don't write the Times editorials.