If I don’t say it, nobody else will: It’s gratifying to see the editorial page of The New York
Times taking advice from Straight Up. Yesterday’s lead editorial began like so: “It was good news when
President Bush flip-flopped on intelligence reform and endorsed giving the proposed
new post of national intelligence director some real authority.” (Boldface added.)
Last Thursday, a Straight Up item, ON FLIP-FLOPS AND SHARP
SHIFTS, led off like so: “How come when Kerry does it, it’s called
“a flip-flop,” but when the Nincompoop in Chief does it, it’s termed ‘a sharp shift from an earlier
position’?” The question referred to the lede in the Times’s top news story that morning.
I suggested the lede might have read: “President Bush flip-flopped on
Wednesday, saying he wanted to give a new national intelligence director ‘full budgetary authority’
in a U-turn from his position five weeks ago when he declined to go along with a major
recommendation of the Sept. 11 commission.” (Boldface added.)
Because there’s a difference between news and opinion, it was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion
(although offered seriously). I knew the Times could not have written that in a news story. Nor
could the other papers — The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times or the Chicago Tribune —
whose news ledes I rewrote that day.
On yesterday’s evidence, however — and in the cause of honesty and candor — let me repeat
myself: Flippancy has its rewards. The evidence might just be a matter of coincidence,
of course. But to concede that would defeat the purpose of this item, wouldn’t it?
