"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast" -Oscar Wilde |
"The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth, shall be watered also himself." -- Proverbs 11:25 |
MS. MITCHELL: Let me, let me show you a Wall Street Journal editorial--a very unusual editorial--that was in the paper on Friday. It said that "The problem with The New York Times is that millions of Americans no longer believe that its editors would make those calculations in anything close to good faith. We certainly don't. On issue after issue, it has become clear that The Times believes the U.S. is not really at war, and in any case the Bush administration lacks the legitimacy to wage it." John, I don't want to really put you on the spot here, but I am. Your paper's news columns also ran this story, and here you have this editorial. It really is a really sharp conflict.
MR. HARWOOD: Couple of points on that. First of all, that editorial wasn't kidding when they said there's a separation between the news and the editorial pages at The Wall Street Journal.
MS. MITCHELL: That's for sure.
MR. SAFIRE: Same with us.
MR. HARWOOD: Secondly, there is a very large gap between the ideological outlook and philosophy of The New York Times editorial page and The Wall Street Journal editorial page. There is not a large ideological gap between the news staffs of those two places, and why would there be? Some of the top people of The New York Times were hired from The Wall Street Journal. What I found shocking about the editorial was the assertion that The New York Times did not act in good faith in making that judgment. I don't know anybody on the news staff of The Wall Street Journal that believes that. I certainly don't. (Emphasis mine.)