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THE GRAY LADY'S GETTING GRAYER
Jake Stuiver | 17 November 2003

Two disturbingly shoddy pieces in the Times on Saturday, both flagrantly soft-pedaling Republicans' roles in a couple of contentious issues...

While one of the items was, appropriately, on the Op-Ed page, the more sinister journalistic infraction was on the front page. The headline was "Bitter Senators Divided Anew on Judgeships." The story details the disagreements, contention and filibusters surrounding the six judicial nominees being held up for confirmation in the Senate. Writer Neil A. Lewis frames it as a mean-spirited standoff between two stubborn, vindictive political camps. There is very little mention of the fact that the judges in question are all widely considered to be way out of sync with the American mainstream, and the Democrats see themselves as standing up for the majority of Americans and the integrity of the courts as a venue for the rule of law as opposed to extra-legal activism.

More to the point, the article features a graphic on the jump page that portrays the number of judicial nominees confirmed vs. not confirmed by every president going back to Roosevelt. The caption in the graphic states, "The number of nominees who were not confirmed by the Senate or never had their nominations reach the floor has been increasing with each president as process becomes more political." One need only look within said chart, however, to see that what the caption tells you the chart will tell you is never told. There is a steady increase in rejections from Nixon through Clinton. Then, under Bush II, the bar drops to just over a quarter of Clinton's. To be sure, the nature of the graphic is inherently flawed, as we're talking about total number instead of percentages. That means both Reagan and Clinton's bars spike significantly, primarily because they each served two terms, which isn't taken into account. Under Bush II, pending nominations and the fact that his term is incomplete also throws everything off. A percentage-based chart would be much more usefule. EITHER WAY, however, Bush's bars would be shorter than Clinton's -- a direct contradiction of what the adjacent caption tells you you're reading.

Such flaccid, "he said, she said" journalism is just the thing to fuel the "Bush-hater" mantra advanced on Saturday's Op-Ed page, by the patron saint of the Be Nice to Republicans Society, David Brooks. Brooks has already served up a couple dishes of "I know I should have said this when Clinton was under attack, but now I'm really sick and tired of all this nasty partisanship." Brooks explains in his piece why the Democrats should nominate someone other than Howard Dean, because he's just so mean and gloomy when it comes to criticizing the president. Brooks goes on to lament, in what he claims is a speech he's offering to a trailing Democratic candidate, how harmful all this partisanship is and how nice it would be for someone to come along and put a stop to it. Needless to say, there's little mention of how, in the current partisan stalemate, there'd be a lot more harmony and a lot less acrimony if Bush would find, in our vast ocean of talented legal practioners, a judge or two that are even remotely acceptable to those of us not in favor of burning the Constitution and setting up a feudal theocracy.