This past week, the New york Times ran a "mea culpa" on its coverage of the crisis in Iraq that led to the US attack on Iraq. Its lead reporter on those stories, Judith Miller, swallowed a lot of what Ahmad Chalabi and his friends said.
Wonderful. Maybe now the Times will turn its attention to its inability to use language correctly.
Today's Times, for example, carries a story headlined "Conservative Allies Take Chalabi Case to White House." In it, Elisabeth Bumiller refers to Raichard Perle as a conservative.
Conservatives, if there are any left, will (or should) protest loudly.
Meanwhile, I will do my duty by pointing out how you can describe Perle and his allies accurately. In traditional "political continuum" terms, they are "neo-conservatives."
In psychiatric terms - nuts. Or if you prefer a religious context - true believer.
But nobody who pushed the US to launch a preemptive war, unilaterally, based on an unproven geo-political thesis and justified by warped intelligence about WMDs and lies about Iraqi ties to al Qaeda cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be called "conservative."
PS The Associated Press story in today's Albuquerque Journal on Harlan McKosato's desire to create an Indian-oriented cable channel totally demolishes any distinctions between cable and over-the-air TV, channels and stations. In fairness to AP, the Journal headline writer makes a signifcant contribution to the confusion.
Except by our leading newspaper.