MUGGING AS A SPECTATOR SPORT :

What did The Times know...? (MUGGER, Jewish World Review, May 22, 2002)

Nicholas D. Kristof, also a Times columnist, is next in line for the scrap heap [after Paul Krugman]. The Harvard/Oxford-educated writer earned his propaganda stripes with Howell Raines in the 2000 presidential contest with a series of front-page profiles of Bush and Al Gore. The stories about the then-Texas governor were so distorted it's possible even Paul Begala and Jonathan Alter blushed upon reading them. Kristof now covers the world for the Times. He's distinguished himself by making Thomas Friedman, the wishy-washy buddy of every leader in the Middle East, look like Charles Krauthammer in comparison.

On May 17, for example, Kristof confessed that at one time he believed Yasir Arafat was a fool for refusing to accept that give-away-the-store deal offered by Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton two years ago. But now, thanks to "various readers" (one assumes they would include James Zogby and any number of university professors), he's reevaluated his position, and thinks the Palestinian mass-murderer is misunderstood.

The Times under Howell Raines is becoming a paper with which no self-respecting cockatoo would line its cage. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 22, 2002 8:10 AM