If I don’t say it, nobody else will: It’s gratifying to see the editorial page of The New York Last Thursday, a Straight Up item, ON FLIP-FLOPS AND SHARP I suggested the lede might have read: “President Bush flip-flopped<\/B> on Because there’s a difference between news and opinion, it was a tongue-in-cheek suggestion On yesterday’s evidence, however — and in the cause of honesty and candor — let me repeat 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-801","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-cV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nTimes taking advice from Straight Up. Yesterday’s
\nPresident Bush flip-flopped<\/B> on intelligence reform and endorsed giving the proposed
\nnew post of national intelligence director some real authority.” (Boldface added.)<\/P>
\n
\nSHIFTS<\/FONT><\/STRONG><\/A>, led off like so: “How come when Kerry does it, it’s called
\n“a flip-flop,” but when the Nincompoop in Chief does it, it’s termed ‘a sharp shift from an earlier
\nposition’?” The question referred to the lede in the Times’s top
\n
\nWednesday, saying he wanted to give a new national intelligence director ‘full budgetary authority’
\nin a U-turn from his position five weeks ago when he declined to go along with a major
\nrecommendation of the Sept. 11 commission.” (Boldface added.)<\/P>
\n
\n(although offered seriously). I knew the Times could not have written that in a news story. Nor
\ncould the other papers — The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times or the Chicago Tribune —
\nwhose news ledes I rewrote that day.<\/P>
\n
\nmyself: Flippancy has its rewards. The evidence might just be a matter of coincidence,
\nof course. But to concede that would defeat the purpose of this item, wouldn’t it?<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"