If It Fits, Print

Likely lost in the avalanche of dumbo holiday weekend stories-please, sir, another helping of the Star Jones/Barbara Walters smackdown-was last Saturday's Times op-ed column by Maureen Dowd, whose already subterranean standards were eclipsed by a frivolous romp on her keyboard. MoDo, if I can slip into the smarmy parlance of over-familiar bloggers, rewarded George W. Bush with a backhanded compliment, all because he escorted Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi to Graceland on June 30. At last, common ground between the President and the shrinking, shrinking, shrinking Dowd, who reveled in describing Elvis' "time capsule," one of the highlights being "the avocado glow of a '70s hag rug that covered floor and ceiling."

Dowd claims it's doubtful that Bush had ever seen "a round, mirrored, white fake-fur canopy bed before," forgetting how her colleagues had such a delish time in 2000 detailing the born-again Christian's wild and crazy days in the Disco Days, when he drank like an old-time reporter, supposedly whored around like JFK and sampled controlled substances. Given Bush's age, it's unlikely he didn't sing "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Love Me Tender" as an adolescent, even if later on the culture-changing influence of Bob Dylan escaped him and Paul was his favorite Beatle. (You have to wonder that had McCartney, rather than John Lennon, been murdered 26 years ago, and if he'd be so reviled by rock critics today.)

The visit to Memphis, said Dowd, the print equivalent of Connie Chung, was a "respite" from a surfeit of "bad news," which included "getting disciplined by the Supreme Court on Gitmo" [the ramifications of which are anything but certain] and "getting taunted again by Osama." Bin Laden videos don't exactly qualify as "bad news," I'd say, considering that his pre-election message in 2004 was a boon to the Bush campaign, and are now almost as ubiquitous as a New York "special issue." Nevertheless, in Dowd's eyes the Graceland jaunt was a rare "triumph in personal diplomacy" for the President who finally followed the example of his schmoozy dad in courting international leaders.

"That was the specialty of this president's father," she wrote, "who made a career of dragging befuddled world leaders off to baseball games, the Air and Space Museum and sprints on his boat in Kennebunkport." Left unsaid was the plain fact that Bush the Elder was a zero in the art of politics, and despite a rolodex the size of the latter-day Elvis and a phone bill that was probably thicker than a Robert Byrd pork-laden senate bill to bribe voters in West Virginia, he was no match for the ruthless, and effective, campaign of Bill Clinton in '92.

Now, here's where Dowd travels down an exceedingly strange path: "W. figured out what the Japanese leader was thinking, what he wanted and what mattered in his culture, and exploited it-unfortunately, waiting until Mr. Koizumi was almost out of office. Bush officials went out of their way not to do this with Saddam when they failed to consider that he might be hyping his W.M.D. arsenal or toying with U.N. weapons inspectors as a chest-thumping exercise aimed at impressing other Arab leaders."

Truly remarkable. Apparently Dowd thinks Bush should've coddled Saddam-maybe inviting him to the White House as often as Clinton did Arafat-and shared non-alcoholic beers with the tyrant during all-nighters in either Baghdad or Crawford. The idea of a Saddam photo-op throwing out the first ball at an Orioles Opening Day game in 2002 is, of course, repellent, but maybe that's just most voters and me. Dowd also scolded Bush for not sucking up to the "oddball leaders" of North Korea and Iran, since those kooks "might be acting out of insecurity, envy, bluster, one-upmanship and a desire to be respected-sort of how high school girls might behave if they had nukes."

In Dowd's increasingly daffy world, everything is related to the prom.

On the subject of Times employees in need of a "time out," what exactly compels publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. to consistently embarrass himself?

Let me preface this expression of disgust by saying I couldn't disagree more with the countless conservative media opinions and grandstanding GOP politicians who are calling for legal action against the Times since the paper published its June 23 story about the administration's program to track, and disable, the financial network of terrorist organizations. Obviously, the influence peddlers at the Times have flipped their wigs in an attempt to discredit, humiliate, distort and destroy Bush and nearly every member of his administration. (Not surprisingly, Bush's first Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, whose only claim to fame was traipsing around in costume with Bono in Africa, was canonized almost immediately after getting the sack in 2002.)

But no matter how distasteful the Times' invocation of the First Amendment as a justification for its vilification of Bush's presidency may be, it is the paper's Constitutional right to do so. The notion of actually jailing Times executives on charges of sedition, as some Congressmen-Jim Bunning and Peter King stand out-have suggested, is not only stupid but also counter-productive. The country's onetime "paper of record" is neck-high in quicksand as it becomes more shrill and partisan with each passing week, not only in the editorial section but on the front page as well, and it's even money that Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller, facing a revolt from company shareholders, will be banished before Bush finishes his second term.

An extraordinary Wall Street Journal editorial on June 30 took the Times to task for its debatable decision in publishing its story (separate articles came out in The Los Angeles Times and Journal itself-although the WSJ edit took pains to point out that its own "wall" between the news and opinion pages isn't as blurry as the Times') but didn't advocate any sanctions. It did, however, remind readers of Sulzberger's bizarre commencement address at SUNY New Paltz in late May.

The outspoken and obnoxious publisher apologized to the graduates, saying that his generation was determined "not to repeat the mistakes of our predecessors. We had seen the horror and futility of war [Vietnam, where apparently young Arthur served in a "virtual" way] and smelled the stench of government corruption. Our children, we vowed, would never know that. So, well, I am sorry?It wasn't supposed to be this way. You weren't supposed to be graduating in an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land."

And, for good measure, he also apologized for a country where some citizens are opposed to abortion and gay marriage, as if those holding such views have i.q. levels of, say, Dowd or the Dixie Chicks chicks. Last week, he pummeled the Journal's opinion editors for daring to criticize him, and expressed his faith in that paper's news section editors for having a clearer understanding of the world than their colleagues on the editorial pages.

Keller's own explanation to readers defending publication of the June 23rd story, first in a letter to readers, quickly followed up with a joint op-ed with Los Angeles Times editor Dean Baquet (July 1) was strange enough, but for the Times' publisher, who can delegate subordinates to defend his paper, to get involved in the fracas, is something indeed.

Sulzberger lives in his own bunker, plush though that may be, presumably watching Humphrey Bogart in The Caine Mutiny far too many times for his own now questionable sanity.