The Not-Welcome Sign

"So instead of coming right out and asking what they really want to ask -- 'Are the Clintons Still Doing It?' -- we get all these silly nudge, nudge . . . wink, wink hints, insinuations, and too-obvious-by-half code words. . . .

"Then there was this can-you-find-the-secret-hidden-meaning quote from an anonymous friend: '[Hillary] needs to be in her own separate orbit, so if something explodes in his world, she will have at least some space and distance to manage it.' Gee, what kind of thing could 'explode' for Bill Clinton? Let's ask Dr. Freud. Or Ron Jeremy.

"The worst of it was when Healy pulled out his abacus to calculate the potential for couplings between the former (and potential) first couple: 'Since the start of 2005, the Clintons have been together about 14 days a month on average. . . . Last August, they saw each other at some point on 24 out of 31 days. Out of the last 73 weekends, they spent 51 together.' It's Page Six as math quiz! . . . The piece was the worst of both worlds: it was tabloid journalism without the kick."

The New Republic's Jonathan Chait , a self-described Bush hater, is rubbing his hands together and chortling:

"It appears that the scales have fallen from David Frum's eyes. The former Bush speechwriter and current National Review writer once had faith in the basic decency and honesty of George W. Bush. But now the president he once served so loyally, and whose honesty he once found above reproach, has done something utterly uncharacteristic. He has presented his policies in a misleading light.

"No! you say. This can't be true! But it is. Allow me to quote Frum: 'Putting the [National] Guard on the border is a symbolic act. . . . But I am afraid that in this case the symbolism is manipulative and deceptive.'

"Deceptive? Bush? He must have the wrong guy. Just a couple of years ago, Frum wrote: 'I've always thought it strange that so many on the left have chosen to make an issue of President Bush's honesty. The president is, if anything, almost excessively direct and self-endangeringly truthful.'

"It's funny. I remember when Bush insisted that he wanted to bring the parties together to pass a patients' bill of rights, even as he arm-twisted Republicans who favored such a bill into renouncing it. I remember when he insisted that lower-income workers reaped the biggest share of his tax cuts. I remember when he presented his stem cell position as a way to dramatically expand research opportunities. One could say that misleading rhetoric was the hallmark of Bush's political style. But if you said that two years ago, you were a rabid Bush-hater.

"Now the immigration debate, which has turned the right against itself, has provoked a kind of right-wing glasnost. Former Bush loyalists are discovering all sorts of unpleasant things about him, and each other."

Jonah Goldberg says the facts are now in and the media blew it big time after Katrina:

"In all of Louisiana, not just New Orleans, the total dead from Katrina was roughly 1,500. Blacks did not die disproportionately, nor did the poor. The only group truly singled out in terms of mortality was the elderly. . . . Blacks were, if anything, slightly underrepresented among the dead given their share of the population.

"This barely captures how badly the press bungled Katrina coverage. Keep in mind that the most horrifying tales of woe that captivated the press and prompted news anchors to scream--quite literally--at federal officials occurred within the safe zone around the Superdome where the press was operating. Shame on local officials for fomenting fear and passing along newly minted urban legends, but double shame on the press for recycling this stuff uncritically. Members of the press had access to the Superdome. Why not just run in and look for the bodies? Interview the rape victims? Couldn't be bothered?"

There's considerable consternation at the Philadelphia Inquirer over local businessman and PR guy Brian Tierney buying the paper, and the Philly Daily News, from McClatchy:

"For much of his career, Brian P. Tierney was paid to challenge how his clients were portrayed in the news media, including Philadelphia's two major daily newspapers.

"On Tuesday, he stepped forward as the chief executive officer of those newspapers. And some journalists are worried whether he will be able to resist the temptation to try to shape news coverage, despite his emphatic promise not to do so.

" 'How does somebody who has spent his life making millions of dollars suppressing the news and stifling aggressive investigative coverage suddenly become a champion of it?' wondered Monica Yant Kinney, The Inquirer's New Jersey columnist, who has clashed with Tierney. 'How does this guy go from being our slayer to being our savior?'

"Tierney, a longtime Republican activist, for years ran a public-relations firm that employed what reporters viewed as hardball tactics in representing the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and other major local institutions that were the focus of critical news stories.

"But he said, over and over again, that, as the co-owner of The Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, he would respect the editorial independence of the publisher, editors and reporters."

Let's hope so.