by JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, May 15, 2003 3:19 P.M. EDT

All the Moose That's Fit to Print
The New York Times' big management scandal is taking on the qualities of an absurdist comedy. Publisher Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger Jr., executive editor Howell Raines and managing editor Gerald Boyd held "a town-hall-style meeting of newsroom staff members yesterday," the Times reports. But not everyone was invited. Shut out was Jacques Steinberg, the reporter who wrote the Times' account of the meeting. A note atop his piece explains: "The Times meeting was closed to news coverage. As a result, Mr. Steinberg, The Times's media writer, did not attend it." He did, however, obtain "a recording made by someone in the audience," presumably an employee of the Times, and the Times published his account of the meeting based on that recording.

The Daily News, however, scooped the Times on one delightful detail that presumably didn't come through on the audiotape:

In a surreal moment that reminded one staffer of Shari Lewis' old TV show, Sulzberger produced a stuffed toy moose that he sometimes trots out as a symbol of open communication.

Its use struck some in the audience as a tone-deaf and patronizing gesture.

Sulzberger handed the moose to Raines, who laid it aside.

The Boston Herald reports that the Boston Globe, owned by the New York Times Co., spiked a column by "Boring Broadsheet boy wonder Brian McGrory" because McGrory was critical of Raines for the way he mismanaged the case of erstwhile reporter Jayson Blair.

James Lawrence, editorial-page editor of the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle, notes that some newspapers still have standards: "Amazingly, in the four years that [Blair] was at The Times, he was responsible for 50 corrections. That never could have happened at this newspaper, where we have checks and balances to protect our credibility."

Then there's the whole diversity question. As we noted Monday, the Times' longsome account of Blair's career skated over the issue, though it quoted Boyd as denying that diversity played a role in Blair's January 2001 promotion to "full-time reporter": "To say now that his promotion was about diversity in my view doesn't begin to capture what was going on," Boyd said.

This was the official Times line, as BusinessWeek online's Ciro Scotti notes in a column posted yesterday: "Asked whether it remained the position of the Times that race didn't play a role in Blair's rise, Times spokesman Toby Usnik said: 'This was about a promising young reporter who committed fradulent [sic] journalism--nothing more, nothing less.' " Some outside commentators, including Lawrence, Terry Neal and Joan Ryan, echoed this view--only to be contradicted by Raines at yesterday's meeting. From Steinberg's account:

Before opening the session to questions, Mr. Raines made a pre-emptive attempt to address whether Mr. Blair's race--he is black--had played a role in his being added last fall to the team covering the hunt for the snipers in the Washington area. . . .

"Our paper has a commitment to diversity and by all accounts he appeared to be a promising young minority reporter," Mr. Raines said. "I believe in aggressively providing hiring and career opportunities for minorities."

"Does that mean I personally favored Jayson?" he added, a moment later. "Not consciously. But you have a right to ask if I, as a white man from Alabama, with those convictions, gave him one chance too many by not stopping his appointment to the sniper team. When I look into my heart for the truth of that, the answer is yes."

As for Blair himself, the Associated Press reports that "late Tuesday, he read a statement to the AP in which he said: 'I remain truly sorry for my lapses in journalistic integrity. I continue to struggle with recurring issues that have caused me great pain.' " In a 1999 commentary for the Diamondback, the student paper at the University of Maryland, Blair asserted without elaboration that he once "was the victim of sexual assault." To say the least, the veracity of this claim is hard to gauge.

In the most predictable part of the story, the Daily News reports that Blair "has hired an agent to scope out book and TV deals that could net him a mid-six-figure paycheck." The News adds that if a Blair project reveals confidential information, "The Times might file a lawsuit against him 'to force him to disgorge the profits,' " according to lawyer Mark Biros. Sounds like a plot for the sequel.

Our Friends the Saudis
This news from Riyadh is a bit worrying: "The FBI team in the latest al-Qaida terror case was kept small to avoid the perception that U.S. law enforcement officials were taking over," the Associated Press reports. Officials are at pains to say that "the six-member team will aid, not run the investigation." Given the Saudis' record of noncooperation in the investigation of the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, one cannot be cheered by this news.

On the other hand, the Middle East Media Research Institute has an encouraging roundup of commentary from the Saudi press, which confirms our perception that May 12 may be prompting a Sept. 11-like epiphany in Saudi Arabia. "Some articles in the Saudi press called for criticism and reform of Saudi society" is how Memri--often accused unfairly of being anti-Arab--sums it up. Here's our favorite quote, from Hamad bin Hamed Al-Salame writing in Al-Jazirah, which World Press Review describes as a "pro-government" paper:

Oh foreign cave-dwellers, depart our country and go to hell! . . . Leave us. We are a believing people, and our government is wise. . . . Go with all your ugliness and baseness. . . . Go to hell. All your terrorist acts and bomb blasts will not make us bow our heads. . . . Go to the place from whence you came, to the caves of Tora Bora, and kiss the feet of your masters who taught you to spill blood and kill innocents. . . . They were the ones who taught you how to lie, deceive, and mislead the simple folk. Go, cowards. . . . go to hell, or go to the heaven of your leader, who taught you sorcery in the caves of Tora Bora. Sit by his side in the dark paradise of ugly ideas and deeds. . .  which if distributed to all the inhabitants of the Earth would suffice them until the Day of Judgment. . . .

Go, idiots, and awaken all the sleeper cells. . . . Wake them, and go with them, far from us. You have no place among us. . . . Go to hell.

In a New York Times op-ed, Sulaiman Al-Hattlan, a columnist for the Saudi daily Al Watan (also "pro-government," as are most Saudi newspapers, according to WPR) strikes a hopeful note:

Because of the dominance of Wahhabism, Saudi society has been exposed to only one school of thought, one that teaches hatred of Jews, Christians and certain Muslims, like Shiites and liberal and moderate Sunnis. But we Saudis must acknowledge that our real enemy is religious fanaticism. We have to stop talking about the need for reform and actually start it, particularly in education. Otherwise, what happened here on Monday night could be the beginning of a war that leads to the Talibanization of our society.

On the streets of Riyadh yesterday, I saw thousands of angry Saudis. I am angry too. What our extremists exported is coming back to hit us, dreadfully, at home. This Saudi anger could be a sign that our society soon might be able to start looking at itself.

Reuters reports from Jeddah that "leaders of Saudi Arabia's Shiite Muslim minority have petitioned Crown Prince Abdullah to demand a greater say in the affairs of the conservative Sunni-ruled kingdom." This may be yet another benefit of the liberation of majority-Shiite Iraq.

What Would We Do Without Experts?
"Experts: Terrorism Still Real Threat"--headline, (Bloomington, Ill.) Pantagraph, May 14

Throw Out the Baath Water
The war may be won, but bringing order to postwar Baghdad has proved difficult. The Washington Post reports that Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, the U.S. miltary commander in Iraq, attributes most of the trouble to "remnants of Saddam Hussein's defeated government," who, in the Post's words, "have terrorized Iraqis, targeted U.S. troops and destroyed repairs made to Iraq's war-damaged infrastructure":

McKiernan reported that "most" U.S. military resources are being used to combat these groups, which he speculated include members of the paramilitary and security forces once commanded by [Saddam] Hussein and his two sons, Uday and Qusay. "Until these people are destroyed or captured, the security environment here in Iraq will remain problematic," he said.

Our colleague Rob Pollock, also reporting from Baghdad, also stresses the importance of de-Baathification in bringing peace to Iraq. The military seems to be getting the message; the Associated Press reports from Ad-Dawr that "heavily armed U.S. Army forces stormed into a village near the northern city of Tikrit before dawn Thursday, seizing more than 260 prisoners, including one man on the most-wanted list of former Iraqi officials." Some 230 of the prisoners "were being released later in the day."

David Warren, a columnist for the Ottawa Citizen, cites pseudonymous Baghdad blogger "Salam Pax" as an example of the problem. From Pax's writings, Warren infers that his background is in the privileged Baathist elite; his father apparently was an oilman, and his grandfather was "an Iraqi tribal chief," presumably loyal to Saddam Hussein. Pax, whose criticism of the coalition has received widespread attention in the Western press, is acting in his own self-interest, Warren argues:

One of his insightful tips to the Western journalists was that "ordinary" Iraqis despise all these exiles who have parachuted in with the U.S. military, and who have "appropriated" such private property as the old Mansour Social Club, and Iraqi Hunting Club--which were, incidentally, Baathist social preserves (clubs in which Salam would likely have had memberships.) He falsely suggests that these properties were obtained through "looting." (They were assigned to the exiles by the U.S. military.)

Now, Salam would never have known any "ordinary" Iraqis, unless he was interrogating one privately. He does know that Ahmed Chalabi, and Kanan Makiya, the politicians coming down from free Kurdish territory, and the other exiles returning to Iraq, are the class that are trying to replace his class. They were the people who were fighting the good fight against Saddam abroad, and committed their lives irretrievably to a democratic future for the country--when people like Salam's were making their profitable accommodations with the regime.

Thanks but No Thanks
"Harvard Divinity School is poised to return a $2.5 million gift from the president of the United Arab Emirates after questions recently surfaced about his ties to a controversial Arab think tank with alleged anti-Semitic and anti-American leanings," the Boston Globe reports. The think tank, the Zayed Center, publishes Holocaust-denial literature, promotes LaRouchite conspiracy theories about Sept. 11, and has published "studies" asserting "that a Jewish conspiracy is manipulating American foreign policy."

The center also is guilty of crimes against Arab literature. The Globe reports it published Jimmy Carter's autobiography in Arabic.

Like a Hole in the Head
Geraldo Rivera is getting married again, and this time he says it'll be a religious ceremony. "I was not only bar mitzvahed; I was confirmed. But this is actually my first 'church' wedding, as opposed to some hippie thing in a back yard," Rivera tells the Washington Post's Lloyd Grove. "I'm making a conscious decision to take this whole Judaism thing seriously. I think the Jews need me right now."

The Agony of Deceit--II
Josh Marshall has come in for much mockery over his assertion that President Bush is secretly planning to bring democracy to the Middle East. Now he's got company, and this time the issue is domestic policy. Michael Tomasky, writing in The American Prospect, has uncovered the latest Bush "conspiracy":

On the tax cut--and specifically the proposed elimination of the dividend tax--the announced goals are to boost the economy and free the vast investing class, which Bush has taken pains to point out includes "teachers" and "policemen," from the yoke of purported double taxation. Who could possibly be against it?

The hidden goal is one that the administration won't quite come out and talk about (yet) but that is buried in reports few people read and will surely burst out into the open sometime during Bush's second term, should such befall us. That goal is to replace the income-tax system with a consumption-tax system.

The idea of a consumption tax was "hidden" in this year's 397-page Economic Report of the President (link in PDF form), a document prepared by the Council of Economic Advisers, which the president must submit each year to Congress. A contemporaneous report from Media General News Service explained that the report merely "floats" the idea, which it says critics dismiss as "pie in the sky," and "even the most ardent supporters concede it could take years to persuade Congress to pass such radical reform."

In other words, the Bush administration, in a publicly available document, has presented a policy idea that may or may not ever get anywhere, and certainly will not without a thorough debate in Congress. This is hardly a conspiracy, but it's hard to tell if those who assert it is are deluded or merely demagogic.

Not Too Brite--LXXIV
"An Italian mother stuffed her 14-year-old son with so many unnecessary medicines that he ballooned to 140 kg (310 lb), could not walk and eventually had to be taken to hospital," Reuters reports from Rome.

Oddly Enough!

White Whine
MSNBC's Jeannette Walls reports not everyone's happy about the new "Matrix" sequel: "The villains in the flick are a pair of white-skinned, white-haired, red-eyed twins, and groups representing albinos say the movie unfairly stereotypes pigment-challenged individuals."

Early Praise for This Column
"From out of Bari the Torah will go forth, and the word of God from Taranto."--Rabbeinu Tam, grandson of a famous 11th-century French rabbi, quoted in a New York Times article about the Jews of southern Italy

Fish Out of Water
"Those struggling to distinguish the small alpine country in Europe from Australia were dealt a blow when a kangaroo was hit by a car and killed in central Austria," the Associated Press reports from Vienna.

Kangaroos in Austria? How about camels in Wyoming? "Police intervened before pranksters could arrange a midnight rendezvous for Humphrey the Camel," the AP reports from Gillette, Wyo. "Humphrey is the mascot sculpture at the North Campus of Campbell County High School. Late Monday or early Tuesday, the pranksters went to work by using a prosthesis to make Humphrey more obviously male."

CNN reports that "Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck will be used in public service messages educating Cambodians about land mines," and a site called Zapato Productions urges readers to help save the apocryphal "Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus" from extinction. Oddly enough, though, while octopuses don't grow on trees, there is such a thing as an octopus tree.

OK, we give up. No matter how much we hunt, we haven't been able to ferret out anything as funny as Pinch Sulzberger's moose.

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Robert LeChevalier, Barak Moore, Michael Segal, Natalie Cohen, Mike Paranzino, Paul Music, Yehuda Hilewitz, Judie Amsel, Jeffrey Weinstein, Raghu Desikan, Bruce Oakley, Edward Schulze, Edwin Kehm, Drew Cooper, Charles Jacobs, Jerome Marcus, Ruth King, Chuck Smith, Elliot Ganz, Henry Stern, Norman Podhoretz, Robert Cahn, C.E. Dobkin, Kevin Babitz, Troy Taylor, Paul Cooper and Brian O'Rourke. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

Today on OpinionJournal:

• Robert Pollock: The party's over. Now America must eject the Baathist bigwigs.
• John Fund: Republicans gain in the land of Humphrey and Mondale.
• Milo Beach: Look to museums to teach Americans about other peoples.