Monumental Misfire

"To accompany the editorial in the new issue of the Weekly Standard, we have reproduced the page with the Mohammed cartoons from the September 30 Jyllands-Posten. Readers should be able to see what this controversy is about. More important, in light of recent instances of capitulation to the threats of radical Islamists, and in response to eloquent pleas by individuals like Walid-al-Kubaisi in Norway to publish the cartoons in order to protect freedom of expression, we wanted to do our small part to stand against intimidation by extremists."

Is McCain solidifying his support on the right? Power Line's Paul Mirengoff weighs in:

"In a front-page story, The Washington Post reports what everyone who has been paying attention knows -- Senator John McCain is courting Bush loyalists for his likely run for president in 2008. Will he succeed? Here, I think one must distinguish between two types of Bush loyalists. The first type, the ones who feature in the Post's story, consists of the operatives who pushed Bush to the forefront in 2000. Many of them have a strong pragmatic streak. Indeed, the Bush of that time was not an established conservative figure. His attraction consisted in his status as an ill-defined, somewhat right-of-center figure who, it was thought, would appeal to the electorate. McCain, by positioning himself as somewhat right-of-center (not a huge move) may well succeed in courting elements of this group.

"The second group of Bush loyalists consists of his present voting base. This group is more conservative than his original backers and, in my opinion, more conservative than Bush himself. Winning this group over will be a much more dicey proposition for McCain. In my case, for example, while I have tremendous respect for McCain the chances that I would vote for him in a Republican primary are poor. However, I certainly would expect to vote for him if he were the Republican nominee."

Washingtonpost.com just went to clickable bylines (click to send the writer an e-mail), and so is the New York Times. Editor Bill Keller explains:

"It won't work if we don't use it . . . Readers appreciate thoughtful answers to legitimate questions and criticisms. That doesn't mean that every personal attack must be parried, every anti-Times campaign repulsed, every line-by-line analysis rebutted in kind. It simply means that readers should be heard and, whenever possible, engaged. In many cases, no reply will be called for beyond the auto-reply acknowledging that a reader's message has reached you. In other cases, a polite acknowledgment will be plenty. And in all cases, it's worth keeping in mind that what you say to readers and how you say it will be taken -- rightly or not -- as representative of The Times."

Ever wonder how "independent" think tanks pressure their staff to research the appropriate conclusion? In the NYT, Elisabeth Bumiller cites an e-mail from the vice president of the National Center for Policy Analysis to conservative scholar Bruce Bartlett for daring to criticize Bush and Cheney:

"'100K is off the table if you do another "dump Cheney" column and 65K donor is having a rebuttal done, in a national magazine, to your attack on the fair tax people so that 65K may be gone also,' Ms. Goodman wrote about one of Mr. Bartlett's columns about the vice president. 'Do you have any ideas on where I could raise that amount quickly?' "

Do you have any idea where this group, which wound up firing Bartlett, could get its reputation back? I don't.