BCT Editorial – 3/3/08

This page was last updated on March 3, 2008.

Deeply flawed; Editorial; Beaver County Times; March 3, 2008.

This editorial subtitle is “The United States will pay a terrible price for Bush’s misguided policies in Iraq.”

Since this is just another exercise pretty much repeating past Times Bush bashings, I’ll critique only a few portions below.

“According to Noble [sic] Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University professor Linda Bilmes, the Bush administration wasn’t off by a few billion. It blew it by trillions.”

[RWC] Gee, the predicted cost of a war was in error by a whole bunch. No kidding. We can’t predict the cost of deterministic domestic spending programs, and the Times expects an accurate cost estimate for a war? I wonder what FDR’s World War II cost estimate was and how accurate. Let’s also look at the estimates for the Civil War, World War I, Korean War, et cetera.

Regarding the misspelling of Nobel, I’ve noticed what appears to be a trend of an increasing number of typographical errors. Has the Times cut editor and proofreading jobs?

“Needless to say, the Bush White House was quick to condemn the conclusions of their book.

“‘People like Joe Stiglitz lack the courage to consider the cost of doing nothing and the cost of failure. One can’t even begin to put a price tag on the cost to this nation of the attacks of 9-11,’ said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. ‘It is also an investment in the future safety and security of Americans and our vital national interests. $3 trillion? What price does Joe Stiglitz put on attacks on the homeland that have already been prevented? Or doesn’t his slide rule work that way?’

“If the post-Sept. 11, 2001, era has taught us anything, it is that the veracity of reality-based criticism of the Bush administration’s policies can be measured directly by the extent to which this White House goes to impugn the patriotism of its critics and the swiftness with which it resorts to 9-11 scare tactics [sic]”

[RWC] You have to love this comment. If criticism is false, the Bush administration won’t attempt to refute it. In the Times world, the Bush administration attempts to refute only true criticism. Of course, had the White House ignored this criticism, the editorial would have referred to the silence as tacit approval or something similar. The Times premise is simply an amateur attempt to put someone in a “damned if they do; damned if they don’t” position.

Regarding the “patriotism” and “scare tactics” comments, I didn’t see any of that in the White House comment quoted by the editorial. This is another example of the leftist (or anyone insecure in their beliefs) position that any criticism of a fellow traveler is a personal attack.

Another example of the Times apparent current quality control issues is the missing period at the end of the last sentence.