My Seriously Good Idea

Daniel Okrent, public editor of the NY Times, just devoted a column to the Times handling of the Tony Hendra book review and the Times subsequent story about serious allegations against Mr. Hendra which seemed to be relvant to the book.

The Times recently ran a very positive review of Joseph Wilson's book, "The Politics of Truth".

Since then, they have devoted just a few paragraphs to the follow-up on Wilson's credibility, buried in a larger a story; shouldn't we expect more? Surely the question of how both sides approached the debate on our use of intelligence is newsworthy.

For example, missing from the Times rowback in the James Risen piece is any mention of the book review or the two Nick Kristof columns or the NY Times op-ed that launched Mr. Wilson's balloon. (Subsequent sourcing info in the WaPo.)

For a sense of how the media storm built, let's re-print the lead from the second Kristof column:

Condoleezza Rice was asked on "Meet the Press" on Sunday about a column of mine from May 6 regarding President Bush's reliance on forged documents to claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa. That was not just a case of hyping intelligence, but of asserting something that had already been flatly discredited by an envoy investigating at the behest of the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

The Times archive is on display here.

Let's go!

Daniel Okrent can be reached at: Public(at)NYTimes.com

UPDATE: Getting warmer! The NY Times tiptoes up to the issue with a Sunday piece titled "New Reports Again Question Whether Iraq Sought Uranium in Niger".

Some of Mr. Wilson's credibility problems are cited. However, the Times remains sphinx-like on the Senate report finding, undisputed by Mr. Wilson, that the Ambassador gave "misleading information" in anonymous leaks to the Washington Post and by extension, Nick Kristof of the NY Times. They also mention that Mr. Wilson's credibility is challenged by the news that his report to the CIA included information about an Iraqi trade delegation, but they fail to mention that Mr. Wilson omitted this key fact from his famous NY Times op-ed, and they slide past the fact that George Tenet disputed this part of the Wilson op-ed a year ago.

We also note that the Times gives one sentence to the Senate finding that Wilson lied about his wife's involvement, and four sentences to Wilson's response, thereby giving space to Wilson to rebut a case the Times never presents. Bah.

Much as we would like to credit the InstaPundit, we infer that the Times was stung by this:

Referring to Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair, The Wall Street Journal's editorial page on Thursday said, "It now appears that both leaders have been far more scrupulous in discussing this and related issues than much of the media in either of their countries, which would embarrass the journalistic profession, if that were possible."

Comments

[John Bravenec]

Welcome to 2004. We've already seen how little apologizing the Times was willing to do when it came to admitting their culpability in perpetuating the WMD nonsense they were fed.

Perhaps liberals and conservatives could band together, show bipartisan support and send the Editor a hair shirt.

[SweetMintTea]

My seriously good idea would be to send the scribes at the NYT and other media outlets sealed packets of sweet mint tea until they cover the updated story.

[Uncle Bill]

With digestive biscuits made of yellow cake.

[Mitch H.]

The tea would make the authorities suspicious that bioweapons had been sent. Actually sending uranium through the public mails to public figures wouldn't just seem like a bomb threat - by some admittedly loose standards, it actually would represent a "dirty bomb" contamination.

So, in consideration, one might suggest that such a thing would be a bad idea, even in jest.

[Stas` P]

Thank You. Suspicious of a CIA cabal, I have always wonndered why Clinton appointee and carryover bi-partisan CIA director George Tenant was not on record about this Wilson issue.

As Sherlock Holmes remarked "...the strange thing was that the dog did NOT bark in the night..." Instead this supposed deafening silence turns out not to be silence at all, just muzzling on the part of the MSM and NYT.

My apologies to Mr. Tenant.