By now you've heard about
Sen. Barbara Boxer's inflammatory remarks to Sec. of State
Condoleezza Rice at yesterday's hearings (Thursday, January 11, 2007).
Considering that Boxer is from California, it would be interesting to
see how the Los Angeles Times reported the Senator's outrageous
words. Like I said, it would be interesting to see. There is not a
syllable about the exchange in today's paper (Friday, January 12,
2007). Rather, when Boxer's "emotional confrontation" in the hearings
was mentioned in today's
front-page article, the Times focused on how Boxer "recalled Rice's
erroneous prediction to the committee in fall 2005 that the Iraqi army's
increasing capabilities would soon permit a drawdown of U.S. troops."
Ugh. There was no mention of Boxer's verbal attack at all.
Also ... On Tuesday, January 9, 2007, the House Committee on
Oversight and Government Reform finally issued
its
eye-opening report (pdf) on Sandy Berger's theft of important
classified documents from the National Archives. (In April 2005, Berger
pleaded guilty to stealing documents and
cutting them up with scissors.) Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), who served on
the committee, issued a statement that said Berger
"compromised national security much more than originally disclosed."
In addition, the report found,
The full extent of Berger’s document removal, however, is not
known, and never can be known. The Justice Department cannot be
sure that Berger did not remove original documents for which there
were no copies or inventory. On three of Berger’s four visits to
the Archives, he had access to such documents.
Pretty wild stuff. But, again, you didn't read a syllable about this
in the Times this week. (Patterico
noticed this, also.) In fact, the last time the words "Sandy Berger" was
found in the Times was three weeks ago when the paper devoted a puny
404 words to the matter on page A19 (Thursday, December 21,
2006). (Back in 2004, when the story first broke, I noted the Times'
pathetic coverage of the episode
here.)
The Times' well-oiled practice of downplaying or ignoring
unflattering actions of Democrats is nothing new and is business as
usual at the paper. We've chronicled and reported on it
here,
here,
here,
here, and
here, for example.
Considering the paper's past obsessions with "Jack Abramoff" and
"Valerie Plame," it's hard to imagine the Times allotting such scant
coverage if the guilty party were a Democrat.