Safire Versus the Truth
Are double standards better than no standards at all?
by Tamara Baker

Oct. 22, 2002 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (APJP) -- Ever since Salon was forced by The New York Times to scotch the Jason Leopold story on what former Enron executive (and current Bush Army Secretary) Thomas White knew about the financial misdealings of the Enron unit he led, I've been thinking about the blatant double standard that exists in today's American corporate media.

If you remember, The New York Times, after Paul Krugman had cited Leopold's article in a column of his, came under withering fire not only from Tom White, but from the various maws of the conservative media establishment. This in turn led them to give Leopold's story a far more thorough vetting than any they ever gave to anything written by, say, Jeff Gerth on either the Clintons or Wen Ho Lee.

You will recall that Jeff Gerth's Whitewater coverage, which has been discredited from stem to stern by the comprehensive legwork of Gene Lyons and Joe Conason, nevertheless snagged him a Pulitzer. Jason Leopold, on the other hand, had a story that in the main holds water, with only one truly questionable element in it -- namely, the e-mail he cited therein -- yet he's being thrown on the scrap heap.

Think about this for a second.

The New York Times was so flustered over a cite made by one of their opinion columnists -- not a journalist, mind you, but an opinion columnist -- that they went to great lengths to vet the cite to a fare-thee-well.

Too bad they aren't so persnickety when it comes to their own journalists -- or some of their other columnists, such as, say, William Safire.

You know the man -- the guy who Media Whores Online, one of the better media watchdogs out there, calls "Safliar."

If the vacation hadn't intervened, I was thinking of writing a bang-up piece on how William Safire is allowed to say whatever the hell he feels like saying, without anyone interfering.

I wanted to force myself to read a few of his recent columns, just so I could pick them apart with the savagery they deserve -- and that which The New York Times apparently reserves only for those writers who dare to target the Bush regime. I wanted to show that The New York Times has a very lax standard for William Safire, and very tough ones for its other, less-conservative columnists.

But I find that Joe Conason, the superb, has beaten me to it -- and in the process, done a much better job than I ever could.

Go ahead, click on Joe's link. It's free, and you'll enjoy it.

Oh, and by the way: If you're wondering how Jeff Gerth got his Pulitzer...

Guess who sits on the Pulitzer Committee? Just guess.