Under Siege

"I definitely made a mistake in not including the attribution," says Pfeiffer, a former National Review Online writer who has been with the Times for just over a week. He says he believes he "intended" to credit the Sun-Times "and I didn't. I guess it's a fairly weak excuse, but it's an honest one."

Times Managing Editor Francis Coombs says Pfeiffer "acknowledged a stupid mistake. Needless to say, that's correct." The paper ran a correction Saturday, and Coombs said the editors will review Pfeiffer's other stories before deciding what action to take.

Furthermore . . .

Well, the first of the Abramoff photos has surfaced in Time , and while you need a really strong magnifying glass to spot Black Hat Jack in the background, this is not a grip-and-grin but a meeting between Bush and Indian tribal leaders:

"It shows a bearded Abramoff in the background as Bush greets an Abramoff client, Raul Garza, who was then the chairman of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas; Bush senior advisor Karl Rove looks on. The photograph was provided to TIME by Mr. Garza. The meeting took place in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House on May 9, 2001. Told about the photograph in January, the White House said it had no record that Abramoff was present at the meeting. Shown the photograph today, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the White House had still found no record of Abramoff's presence but confirmed that it is Abramoff in the picture."

That would amount to a record, wouldn't it?

How long before this unfortunate incident becomes a metaphor for the war?

"Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and wounded a prominent Austin, Tex., lawyer on Saturday while the two men were quail hunting in South Texas, firing a shotgun at the man while trying to aim for a bird, a member of the hunting party said."

Lots of weekend pieces about a split on the right, such as this Philadelphia Inquirer story: "In their winter of discontent, many on the right are breaching Reagan's 11th commandment, which decrees that no Republican shall ever speak ill of another.

"And the target of their ire is President Bush.

"At the dawn of a crucial election year - and with all the polls indicating that the Democrats are poised to make gains in the House and Senate - the Bush White House is banking on a big, enthusiastic conservative turnout in November. But that will happen only if the Bush base calls a halt to its Bush-bashing.

"The bashing has been quite intense in recent days. Commentator Jonah Goldberg, miffed that Bush has piled up record deficits and boosted the size of government, writes that Bush 'is spending money like a pimp with a week to live.' Another, Fox News analyst Tony Snow, says that Bush's decision to shelve his Social Security privatization plan is 'an act of surrender.' Yet another, former Reagan domestic-policy adviser Bruce Bartlett, is releasing a book this month titled Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy ."

Like a pimp?