This morning's New York Times carries a news article and a "Metro Matters" column about a new study comparing the performances of New York's government-run schools and its Catholic schools.

The news article reports that the study "was conducted by a public school advocate teamed with a proponent of taxpayer support for private and Catholic schools in the form of vouchers." The article identifies Raymond Domanico as the "public school advocate." That's an oversimplification. Here's Mr. Domanico, speaking to the Heritage Foundation in 1993: "we are by no means hostile to private schools. We simply differ with voucher proponents on tactics. We have always believed, and we are beginning to see evidence which bears this out, that policies that open up the public school system to parental choice and autonomy and entrepreneurship would begin to yield some school initiatives which challenged the conventional distinctions between the public and private sectors."

In any event, being a "proponent of taxpayer support for private and Catholic schools in the form of vouchers" is not necessarily inconsistent with being a "public school advocate," as the Times seems to suggest. Many proponents of vouchers propose them on the grounds that they would improve the government-run public schools by exposing them to competition.

The Metro Matters column claims, "The parochial schools do not provide special education, a costly endeavor." That's just false; the parochial schools sure do provide special education. A quick check of the Web site of the Archdiocese of New York shows a series of special education programs, from the Cooke Center for Learning and Development on Riverside Drive in Manhattan to the Seton Foundation for Learning in Staten Island.

Sorry: Here's how a news article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on an increase in the fares for PATH trains. "Sorry, PATH train riders. You'll have to pay more, too." Imagine if the Times brought this sort of directness to its coverage of the tax cut debate in Washington. Every time the Democrats blocked a Republican tax-cut proposal, the newspaper's article could begin, "Sorry, taxpayers. You'll have to pay more." In the case of the PATH fare increase, the Times is taking a narrow view of the matter. The article could just as easily have begun, "Congratulations, non-PATH-train-riding taxpayers. The subsidy you provide to users of public transportation will get smaller." Smartertimes.com has a vague memory that at one point the Times believed in the principle that the newspaper was supposed to neither apologize for the news nor rejoice in it but merely deliver it in a straightforward manner. Sorry, readers, but that time seems to have passed.

One-Sided: An item in the world briefing column in the international section of today's New York Times reports that "the United States rebuked Mary Robinson, the United Nations commissioner for human rights, suggesting she had taken a one-sided view in a report on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict." It sure would be nice to know which one side of this conflict the United States thought Ms. Robinson was on. The Times leaves that question unanswered.

An editorial in today's New York Times comes out against Taiwan's request that America sell it four destroyers equipped with Aegis radar. "The sale of the Aegis radar system is not justified at this point and would be needlessly provocative," the Times declares. "Selling the Aegis would diminish, not increase, security across the Taiwan Strait."

This is an odd construction. It's unclear how arming a democracy would decrease security in the strait. Presumably the government of Taiwan, which is elected democratically, thinks that the destroyers would increase the security of its own people. Otherwise, Taiwan would not have asked America to sell it the weapons. The only entity whose security could possibly be diminished by the arms is Communist China. And it's unclear why the Times would want to be against diminishing the security of that unfree regime, which, as the Times' own news department reported recently on the newspaper's front page, is brutal to the point of harvesting organs from the prisoners it executes. So, either the Times is taking the position that it knows better than the Taiwanese what is best for Taiwan's security, or it is taking the position that it wants to increase the security of Communist China.

The notion that the Aegis-equipped destroyers would be "provocative" seems rooted in the notion that they "could be adapted to provide Taiwan with a limited shield against Chinese missile attack." This is the twisted logic of appeasement, New York Times-style: It is "provocative" for a democracy to be able to defend itself against an authoritarian Communist regime.

If America goes ahead with the sale, the Times warns, "Mr. Bush is likely to condemn his China policy to a sustained period of discord with Beijing." So what? The aim of America's foreign policy at its best isn't accord or discord but the spread of freedom and democracy and the peace and prosperity that are its consequences. America is going to be in discord with Beijing so long at the Communist leadership there is locking up journalists and labor union organizers, restricting religious freedom and banning non-Communist political parties. If the Times thinks such discord can be prevented by refusing Communist China's neighbors the arms it needs to defend itself, it's delusional.

Usual Suspects: An article in the "Dining In" section of this morning's New York Times reports on the commercial success of a book about the fast food industry. The Times says the book is compelling because it "is not just another screed from the usual suspects, like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals or the food police at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (movie popcorn equals death.)"

Oh yes, the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Funny, that organization was quoted on Sunday, March 18, 2001 in the lead, front-page article in the New York Times about food-borne illnesses. And in that news article it was identified not as the screed-issuing "usual suspects" or the "food police" but simply as "a nonprofit group." Guess you have to read the food section of the Times to make sense of the spin that's seeping into the front-page news coverage.

Late Again: The Times waddles in this morning with a front-page article on the controversy about David Horowitz's college newspaper advertisements opposing reparations for black Americans. How slow off the mark was the Times on this one? One clue is that the second paragraph of the story begins with the phrase "a few weeks ago"; another is that the front-page paragraphs of the story also include the phrases "last week" and "in recent weeks." Another clue is that Jonathan Yardley covered the matter thoroughly -- and well -- in his Washington Post column published March 5, 2001.

A front-page article in this morning's New York Times runs under the headline, "With Glare Hitting Clinton, Limelight Eludes Schumer."

This is sort of funny in itself. There's a picture of Senator Schumer on the front page of the New York Times. His name is in the headline. And yet the Times claims he is eluding the limelight.

There's more. The article reports that "Mr. Schumer's friends were so concerned that he might shrivel in the limelight of his new colleague, in fact, that they briefly considered having a celebrity-filled party for his 50th birthday on a scale that the Clintons themselves might have staged."

That's it. The Times just leaves this suggestion hanging there tantalizingly without reporting how Mr. Schumer actually celebrated his 50th birthday. If the Times reporter couldn't figure it out, he might check with the newspaper's publisher, who might be able to fill him in.

The news article also claims that "Mr. Schumer has a hurried manner." This is a matter of opinion, and would be better explained with anecdotes, quotations or more detailed description than with such a judgmental adjective. What is hurried to someone from the Deep South can be slow-paced to a New Yorker. The editor of Smartertimes.com has had several encounters with Mr. Schumer and has never found him hurried.

Most disappointing about this story, though, is the way it is an example of the tendency of the Times to emphasize personality at the expense of policy in its reporting on politics. The article manages to mention Mr. Schumer's birthday party and Mrs. Clinton's hairstyle near the beginning, but substance is relegated to a glancing reference at the end of the article. The Times reports that "Mr. Schumer is pushing to make college tuition tax-deductible," but there's no discussion of whether this would be a wise policy decision. There's no mention of how Mr. Schumer is doing in meeting his campaign pledge to push for a move of the American embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. And there's no mention of Mr. Schumer's decision to assemble a "Group of 35" to examine the supposed crisis of a lack of commercial space in the New York real estate market, just as that market was about to ease and the supposed crisis was about to abate.

"Unregulated, Unlimited": A front-page news article in today's New York Times about Senator McCain's effort to trample the First Amendment by restricting political speech twice refers to "soft money" donations to the political parties as "unlimited, unregulated." As Smartertimes.com noted last week, it's just false to say that soft money is now "unregulated." Disclosure is required, and there is a regulatory agency, the Federal Election Commission, charged with enforcing the disclosure requirement. That disclosure requirement in itself constitutes a regulation. The idea that soft money is "unregulated" is scare language thrown around by those hoping to impose more regulations on an activity, political speech, that is already regulated beyond the level dictated by a reasonable interpretation of the First Amendment. Would the Times describe those going to church and praying on Sunday -- another First Amendment-protected activity -- as engaging in "unregulated" prayer? As it is, soft money donations are regulated much more rigorously than other First Amendment activities such as prayer or newspaper editorial-writing.

A front-page article in today's New York Times reports on how "happily engaged" conservatives are in the Bush administration. "Among the recent nominees particularly popular with conservatives was Wade F. Horn, formerly president of the National Fatherhood Initiative," the Times reports. In fact, there were at least some conservatives who were annoyed at Wade Horn's nomination, mainly because he was a public supporter of Janet Reno's decision to send Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba.

The same Times article reports that "at one recent meeting, for example, conservatives expressed concern to an administration official about the issue of embryonic stem cell research, which is under review by the Department of Health and Human Services." This is a perfect example of an issue on which conservatives are split between a religious wing and a pro-business, anti-regulation, pro-technology wing. Whatever position the administration ends up taking on this issue, some "conservatives" are going to be unhappy. The Times article uses the term conservative in such a vague and undefined and general way that it isn't all that informative.

Hello, Dolly, Oh Hello, Dolley: The "Essay" column on the op-ed page of today's New York Times says that "Dolly Madison was lucky to get out of the White House with the portrait of Washington." As the Times' own stylebook puts it, "Dolley Madison was the wife of James. Dolly Madison is an ice cream and a bakery."

In Letters: Smartertimes.com readers offer their ideas about what Arthur Sulzberger Jr. meant when he said there are only two and a half English-language daily newspapers left in New York.

The lead, front-page news article in this morning's New York Times, about the fact that Americans "may be more likely to get sick from what they eat today than they were half a century ago," is an editorial for more government regulation, masquerading as a news article.

Consider the named sources the article relies on: four government regulators/bureaucrats, one official of a non-profit group that has been a consistent advocate of more government regulation, one public health professor. The article quotes not a single restaurant owner, food manufacturer, grocer or representative of a food industry trade association. It quotes not a single economist or skeptic who might offer an analysis of the costs of additional federal inspections as compared to the benefits. To the extent that the food industry's views are expressed in the article at all, they come in paraphrases, without naming any sources and without direct quotes.

And while the article tells us that the supposed increase in food-related illnesses has taken place while the Food and Drug Administration's resources have "scarcely changed," the article says nothing about what has happened to resources devoted to inspections at the state and local level. Many inspections of restaurants and sidewalk food-vendors are done by state and local officials, not the Food and Drug Administration. If the resources devoted to those state and local inspections have markedly increased over the past half century -- as they may well have -- and food-related illnesses have still soared, it may be an indication that additional federal regulation is not the solution to the problem of food-related illnesses.

The Times article seems to assume that federal inspectors are the only force that can reduce the incidence of food-related illnesses. There's no consideration of the legal risks to companies and the damage to sales that result when bad food goes on the market and the word gets out. Those potential damages to a company's profits already have a more powerful regulatory effect on corporate behavior than increased inspections probably would. Another potentially powerful force that the Times doesn't consider is education -- advising consumers that they need to cook certain foods through and wash other foods and surfaces. The government could send out an army of 10 million F.D.A. inspectors to inspect every inch of every seafood factory in the country. But if a consumer then takes the duly inspected seafood and leaves it out on his dirty home kitchen counter for a week, then eats it raw, the consumer is likely to end up with a food-related illness. And the Times would no doubt fetch up with a front-page news article editorializing about the need to send government inspectors into your home kitchen.

' Cold War Mindset': An "editorial observer" column in today's New York Times reports that the Central Intelligence Agency was locked in "an inflexible cold-war mindset" during the Gorbachev era. The Times column describes these views as "moldy," and says the American government "didnÕt get its money's worth" from the CIA. What is the evidence of this? All the column offers up is that "Just nine months before the Kremlin stood aside as the Berlin Wall fell, the C.I.A. was confidently predicting that Moscow's long-range objectives included preserving Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe and driving a wedge between Western Europe and the United States." The truth is, those were Moscow's long-range objectives. The CIA was right about that. Just because the Soviet Union was unable to achieve those objectives does not mean that it did not want to.

'A Few Hard-Liners': An article in today's New York Times magazine reports that, on abortion, "The great coup de grace of the new Bush administration was to rescind federal financing for groups promoting abortion abroad -- hardly the end of reproductive choice as we know it. A few hard-liners clambered to the rooftops, but few listened and fewer followed them."

A New York Times editorial from January 24, 2001, about the abortion-abroad question said the administration's move "cuts against Mr. Bush's campaign statement that the United States should act with humility rather than arrogance in foreign relations. It is a form of arrogance to impose a gag rule on doctors and health advocates in other countries as the price of receiving vital assistance for its poorest and most defenseless citizens, particularly its women, especially when it involves an activity that is constitutionally protected in the United States."

Is the Times magazine suggesting that the newspaper's own editorial board is composed of "hard-liners" and that "few listened" to that January 24 editorial and that "fewer followed" it?

An article in the Arts & Ideas section of today's New York Times discusses American analysis of the Soviet Union during the Cold War. "One could go further and argue that the C.I.A. underestimated the crushing effect on the Soviet Union of America's social welfare programs (which blunted the Communist critique of capitalism)," the Times writes.

This is really classic. There's certainly a case to be made for a social safety net in America. But the notion that American housing projects and the Aid to Families With Dependent Children program are what crushed the Soviet Communist empire is just a gem that is typical of the New York Times approach to the Cold War. If it was social welfare systems that those trapped behind the Iron Curtain wanted, they could have stuck with communism. The Soviet government was bombarding its people with propaganda images of American homelessness and poverty that undermined the idea that America had a healthy social welfare system, and the president who won the Cold War, Reagan, was the one who launched the attack on Cadillac-driving welfare mothers that led ultimately to the 1996 welfare reform. What leaked through the wall of Soviet propaganda and helped motivate the fall of the Communist regime was not news of Social Security and Medicare but of the wealth that could be obtained in America and the West and of the freedom and democracy that are its foundations. The passage in the Times article does mention the pull of "an open and democratic society" but only after "the crushing effect on the Soviet Union of America's social welfare programs."

Thin on Education: The New York Times devotes acres of newsprint in its metro section this morning to Sean "Puffy" Combs sobbing about his ex-girlfriend Jennifer Lopez, not to mention the earth-shattering news that some tiles in a Chelsea gallery have been painted the color of avocado. That's all entertaining, but Smartertimes.com gets the sense this morning that it is coming at the expense of serious, substantive coverage of policy matters like education.

In an article this morning about an effort to let Edison, a for-profit company, operate five New York public schools, the Times reports that the president of the United Federation of Teachers yesterday urged parents in two of the five schools to vote against the plans. The Times report leaves readers wondering whether the UFT supports turning the other three schools over to Edison management, or whether the union is simply neutral on those schools. And the newspaper never says how an Edison takeover would affect the unionized teachers at the schools, instead taking the union president at her word that she was coming out against Edison at the two schools because she perceived "unequivocal opposition by both parents and staff" and because the schools had improved in the past year. If there is already "unequivocal opposition" by parents to the plan, why is the union president, as the Times reports, "urging parents . . . to vote against the privatization plan?" That is, if they are already unequivocally opposed, why do they need to be urged? Again, the Times doesn't try to answer any of these questions or even probe them in any seriousness. Maybe there wasn't enough space, what with all the coverage of Puffy Combs and the avocado tiles.

An article about the schools chancellor's hiring of two campaign aides to Hillary Clinton is even thinner. How is this likely to affect the chancellor's relations with Mayor Giuliani, who is not on the best of terms with Mrs. Clinton? Is hiring a $120,000-a-year press secretary a politically astute move for a schools administration that is in the midst of difficult contract negotiations with teachers who say they are grossly underpaid? Is it a politically smart move for a schools administration that is constantly complaining to the state that it lacks the resources to teach students to read? It's great that the Times got this news into the paper, but it would also be great if it were developed into something more than a five-paragraph brief.

The most well-known New York Times Company executive at the moment is Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who is chairman of the company and publisher of the New York Times. The president and chief executive of the New York Times Company is a man with a less famous last name, Russell Lewis. And before turning to Mr. Sulzberger, Smartertimes.com would like to pause for a moment this morning to congratulate Mr. Lewis for finally saying in public that -- essentially -- his own flagship newspaper's editorial page is wrong on the question of the effect that President Bush's tax cut would have on the economy.

Mr. Lewis spoke to investors and analysts at the Bear Stearns 14th annual media, entertainment and information conference in Boca Raton, Fla. A text of the March 5, 2001, speech is posted on the Times Company's own corporate Web site. "We do not believe that we are in the midst of a protracted downturn," Lewis said. "We anticipate that the economy will begin to bounce back sometime in the second half of the year. The aggressive action of the Fed to date and the growing likelihood of a tax cut make this a realistic assumption."

So, there you have it, straight from the chief executive officer and president of the New York Times Company: "The growing likelihood of a tax cut" makes it more realistic to assume there will be a bounce-back of the economy.

Well, the tax cut that is growing in likelihood is the one passed by the House of Representatives, the one proposed by President Bush. And it may have slipped Mr. Lewis's mind as he was talking to Wall Street, but here's a sampling of what the New York Times has been saying in its editorials about that very same tax cut:

On February 25, 2001, the Times said that the Bush tax cut "is twisting the entire budget out of shape in a very unhealthy way. It is too big, too weighted toward the rich and too unlikely to be of immediate help to the economy."

On March 11, 2001, the Times said "the Bush tax reduction is too big." The same editorial said, "It makes no sense to pass a tax cut so sweeping that it diminishes the choices future Congresses, and future taxpayers, should face."

On March 14, 2001, the Times said, "Democrats and moderate Republicans in the Senate must ensure that the tax cut is not so large as to risk a return of runaway deficits, further undermining consumer confidence."

Funny how you don't hear Russ Lewis fretting about how the tax cut might be too big. After all, Mr. Lewis has a business to run and a stock price to keep up. And his comments at Boca Raton suggest that just maybe, in the course of those tasks, he's come to a conclusion that the editorial writers who work for him are unwilling to face up to: the Bush tax cut would be good for the economy.

Young Sulzberger: A little-noticed speech by Arthur Sulzberger Jr. that is also posted on the Times Company's corporate web site demonstrates, alas, none of the independent-mindedness of Mr. Lewis. Instead, it betrays either breathtaking smugness or a stunning ignorance about New York. Mr. Sulzberger recounts in his February 22, 2001, speech how Times forefather Adolph Ochs turned down a chance to invest in the Coca-Cola Company, how the Times foolishly sold its pioneering fax-machine technology for a song in the early days, how the Times missed an opportunity to create a television station in New York. Then, according the text of the speech, he said, "Before I paint too dark a picture, let me remind you that in 1896 there were seventeen English language daily newspapers in New York City. Today there are 2 and a half."

Whoa. Mr. Sulzberger's listeners are supposed to brighten at the fact that there are fewer voices and less competition in the New York newspaper market? This, too, is a direct contradiction of the newspaper's stated editorial policy: On August 16, 2000, commenting on the proposed purchase of a television station, a Times editorial said that "eliminating competition between two independent sources of news and entertainment would not serve the public interest." Mr. Sulzberger seems here to be indifferent to the public interest as he tackily rejoices in the death of competing newspapers. Imagine the field day the Times editorialists would have if Microsoft's Bill Gates were caught engaging in similar bright talk about the elimination of his competitors.

Just as tasteless and misguided is Mr. Sulzberger's claim that there are "2 and a half" English-language dailies in New York today. This sounds like an attempt at a joke, but the joke is really on Mr. Sulzberger, because he ends up sounding more arrogant than even Smartertimes.com. How could Mr. Sulzberger have arrived at the "two and a half" figure? Perhaps he was counting the Wall Street Journal (based in New York), the New York Daily News (the sixth-largest newspaper in the country by circulation), the New York Post (14th largest), the Staten Island Advance, the New York Law Journal, the Brooklyn Eagle and the Columbia Daily Spectator. We'll assume he's ignoring American Banker, the Daily Deal and Womenswear Daily, which also publish daily at New York. And we'll assume he's also ignoring Newsday, which is one of the top 10 papers in the country in circulation and which sells more copies than the Times does in Queens, but which is based outside of New York City, on Long Island. That would still yield a total of seven. And we haven't even mentioned Mr. Sulzberger's own newspaper. Maybe the way Mr. Sulzberger arrived at the "2 and a half" figure was by counting those seven papers, but by counting the Times as the equivalent of negative four-and-a-half newspapers.

In any case, Smartertimes.com welcomes suggestions from readers about how Mr. Sulzberger arrived at the notion that "Today there are 2 and a half" daily English-language newspapers in New York.

Unregulated: The national section of today's New York Times carries an article about the McCain-Feingold free-speech infringement bill. "Mr. McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin, have proposed a ban on the unlimited unregulated donations to political parties known as soft money," the Times reports. It's just false to say that soft money is now "unregulated." Disclosure is required, and there is a regulatory agency, the Federal Election Commission, charged with enforcing the disclosure requirement. That disclosure requirement in itself constitutes a regulation. What other regulation the Times or anyone would propose, other than a limit or a ban, is unclear. The idea that soft money is "unregulated" is scare language thrown around by those hoping to impose additional regulations; it's strange to see the Times use it unattributed in a news article.

Putin's Vacation: The international section of today's New York Times carries a dispatch from Moscow reporting that "President Vladimir Putin is deep in the Siberian taiga -- either skiing or hunting wolves, the Kremlin will not say for sure." But a Reuters dispatch that runs on the same page of the Times reports that Mr. Putin is "on a skiing holiday in Siberia." Maybe Mr. Putin is hunting wolves while he is skiing, or maybe Reuters has authoritatively eliminated the wolf-hunting possibility in a way that the Times was unable to.

A news article in the national section of this morning's New York Times reports on additional tax reductions proposed by congressional Republicans.

"The Republicans' motives seemed to include giving some fresh meat to their conservative supporters, putting pressure on the Senate not to cave in to pressure from moderates, forcing Democrats into casting difficult votes and maybe even allowing President Bush to appear to be taking a middle ground," The Times reports.

It would be refreshing if, rather than speculating about the Republicans' motives -- while citing no evidence for such speculation -- the Times actually reported on the details of their policy proposals and the various reactions to them. When a newspaper has to hedge by not only writing "seemed" but also writing "maybe," it seems like maybe it would strike an editor somewhere that the news being merchandised under this "seemed. . .maybe" construction is kind of thin.

In addition, consider the breathtaking cynicism. In enumerating these possible motives for the Republican actions, the Times doesn't even list as a possibility the idea that the Republicans might actually be motivated by a principled belief that government is too large and that taxpayers deserve to keep more of their own money.

The "seemed" construction resurfaces later in this article, as the Times writes: "The Republican leaders estimated that their plan would cost $2.2 trillion over 10 years, well above the $1.6 trillion that Mr. Bush has said was his maximum, and the leaders' projection seemed to be on the low side."

As one astute Smartertimes.com reader asked in an email this morning, "Seemed on the low side to whom? A left-wing economist? A prominent left-wing Wall Street figure? Tom Daschle? Not even. Just to The Times."

The cynicism also resurfaces later in the article, with the Times writing, "The initiative by the conservative Republican lawmakers was one of several political maneuvers today in which lawmakers from various wings of each party were angling for political advantage." It's just odd the way the Times interprets every move as "angling for political advantage" rather than "representing constituents" or "advancing principles." Beyond the cynicism, it's just obvious. Does anyone in Washington ever angle for political disadvantage?

The lead, front-page article in today's New York Times is about a poll conducted by the Times. The language of the poll questions and the news article are so slanted that they aren't particularly informative. For instance, the article asserts, "There is little support for some of the president's priorities, like drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and withholding money from public schools that perform poorly." This confuses Mr. Bush's priorities with his tactics. His priority is teaching children to read; it's quite possible that the president would be perfectly happy if all the government-run schools did that successfully and he didn't have to withhold money from any of them. One of the poll questions on education falls into a similar pattern: It asks "Should parents get tax-funded vouchers even if that means public schools would receive less money?" Thirty percent of respondents answered "yes" to that question. The truth is, though, that "public schools" would receive less money under a voucher system only if your definition of public school is a government-run school, rather than a school that is open to the public.

The Times article and the poll refer repeatedly to "the Democrats' proposed tax cut." This gives the "Democrats' plan" more credit than it deserves: There are nearly as many different Democratic tax plans as there are Democrats running around on Capitol Hill, and some Democrats have been arguing against any tax cut at all until a full budget is approved.

Finally, the two poll questions on missile defense are worded so they are unlikely to produce a true measure of support or opposition to building a defense. One question asked, "Do you favor the United States continuing to try to build a missile defense system in light of the fact that $60 billion has already been spent on it?" This is a question that measures Americans' attitudes toward sunk costs and writedowns more than Americans' attitudes toward missile defense. Another question asked, "Do you favor continuing to build such a system even if it means breaking the arms control treaty we now have with Russia?" This is a question that measures Americans' attitude toward breaking treaties more than Americans' attitude toward missile defense. If the question were, "Do you think a treaty Richard Nixon signed in 1972 with the Soviet Union should prevent America from today building a shield to protect us from attack by missiles from Iran, Iraq, North Korea or China?" the answer would likely be different.

Merger Motivation: A front-page article in today's New York Times about hospital mergers reports that "The goal of the mergers -- New York and Columbia-Presbyterian Hospitals; Beth Israel Medical Center with St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center; and Mount Sinai with New York University Medical Center -- was, of course, to save money." That's an oversimplification. The goal of these hospital mergers, as much as saving money, was to make more money by increasing market share and thus improving bargaining power with managed-care companies. The Times article gets into this eventually near the end, but it doesn't support the headline that the mergers are "stumbling," so it gets short shrift.

Late Again: The national section of today's New York Times carries an article under the headline "U.S. Attorney in New York Will Coordinate Inquiry on Pardons." The Los Angeles Times reported this yesterday, writing, "The decision by Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, described by Justice Department officials as unprecedented in its scope, empowers U.S. Atty. Mary Jo White of New York to vastly broaden her office's review of three controversial cases to encompass all 177 pardons and commutations granted by Clinton on his last day in the White House." Today's New York Times article fails to credit the Los Angeles Times article. Worse, the New York Times fudges the matter, referring in its article with a March 13 dateline to "today's decision." If the decision was made March 13, how did the Los Angeles Times manage to report it in an article published March 13, complete with references to "the plan approved by Ashcroft"?

Can't Spell: An article in the "Workplace" section of today's New York Times about commuter romance refers to a woman named "Heidi Taff." A photo cutline alongside the article renders her last name as "Taft."

The New York Times this morning runs a curious correction: "A picture caption in Arts & Ideas on Saturday about the Vienna Freud Society's cancellation of a lecture by Prof. Edward Said of Columbia University, after members saw a photograph of him throwing a stone, misstated his target. He was aiming toward an Israeli guardhouse at the Lebanese border, not at Israeli soldiers."

This correction raises more questions than it answers. How can the Times know for sure what Mr. Said was aiming at? Isn't "aiming," within certain bounds, one of those things in the category of "state of mind," about which a newspaper can never really report accurately other than by simply reporting what someone says about his or her state of mind, and labeling it as such a description? Was the Israeli guardhouse unmanned or were there Israeli soldiers in it at the time? How does the Times know that?

The Saturday Times article itself described a claim by Mr. Said that he wasn't essentially aiming at anything and that "there was nobody there" but that rather he was engaged in a stone-throwing contest with his son.

The Washington Post has quoted an eyewitness account in the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir that said Mr. Said, as the Washington Post put it, "stood a short distance away from Israeli soldiers in a two-story watchtower decked out with blue-and-white Israeli flags. With his family by his side, the newspaper said, Said heaved a rock over the border toward the soldiers. It struck a barbed-wire barrier."

Maybe the Times went back and interviewed other witnesses, including Israeli border guards. But if the Times really believes its own correction, how can it justify running a letter to the editor in today's paper that states, "The photograph accompanying the article of Mr. Said hurling a rock at Israeli border soldiers shows a reprehensible act"?

Blowing Smoke: An editorial in today's New York Times endorses a City Council ordinance that would, the editorial says, "shift smokers out of the city's eateries altogether." Smoking is bad for you, but that's not the issue. The Times editorial doesn't even try to explain why the decision on restaurant smoking policies should rest with the city government rather than with restaurant owners. Or with customers and employees who can set their own policies by their decisions to patronize or work at establishments that are smoky or smoke-free.

Can't Spell: An article about California politics in the national section of today's New York Times refers to "Sherry Bibitch Jeffee, a political scientist at the University of Southern California." This may be a new low in New York Times name spelling, because the newspaper has managed to misspell two of the professor's three names. The correct spelling is Sherry Bebitch Jeffe.

Can't Spell: An article and photo cutline in the international section of today's New York Times refer to President "Muhammad" Khatami of Iran. An item in the World Briefing column refers to President "Mohammad" Khatami. Smartertimes.com understands that spelling of foreign names in English can vary, but one would think that the Times would choose one spelling of this man's name and stick with it, at least for all uses within one day's issue of the paper.

Not Dead Yet: The Washington Post catches a New York Times whopper; click to read the Post column here.

Here's the lead of an article in the national section of this morning's New York Times: "WASHINGTON, March 11 -- An influential federal advisory commission says the financial condition of the nation's top hospitals has significantly improved, so there is no need for Congress to increase their Medicare payments, despite insistent pleas from the industry. If Congress accepts the advice, as it often does, lawmakers will have more money available for new Medicare benefits like prescription drug coverage."

Talk about liberal assumptions. Sure, lawmakers will have more money available for "new Medicare benefits." But they will also have more money available for defense spending, or for returning to the people as a tax cut, or for hoarding for the expected increase in Medicare spending that will come with the retirement of the baby boom generation. The Times article doesn't explain why the only option worth mentioning for using the money is on new Medicare benefits, other than by quoting an AARP lobbyist who wants to use the money that way.

Wrong Museum: A brief in the business section of this morning's New York Times reports on Martha Stewart's plan to visit Cambridge, Mass. "On Wednesday, between stopping to see the collection of glass flowers at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University and the collection of cookbooks at the Schlesinger Library, she will tape a 'Car Talk' program, giving advice about how to fix stains on car seats and taking some good-natured abuse," The Times reports. If Ms. Stewart in fact stops to see the glass flowers at the Fogg Museum, she could wander around for a long time without finding them, because they are not there. The Fogg is an art museum. The glass flowers are part of Harvard's Botanical Museum, which is part of the Harvard Museum of Natural History, which is housed in a different building from the Fogg.

This morning's New York Times magazine features a profile of the New York schools chancellor, Harold Levy. The article reports that, after graduating from law school, Mr. Levy went to Wall Street, "first working at Skadden, Arps, Slater, Meagher & Flom." The Times manages to get part of the law firm's name wrong; John Slate spelled his name with no "r." The article goes on to report that on his first day in his office at the Board of Education headquarters, "Levy was hanging up several suits on hangers collected during his previous incarnation in the corporate world. He noticed the first-class insignia: Mandarin Hotel, Hong Kong; Burgenstock Hotel, Lucerne; Stafford Hotel, London."

Now, Smartertimes.com is not suggesting that Mr. Levy did anything wrong. For all Smartertimes.com knows, he fully reimbursed the hotels for the hangers, or the hotels gave him the hangers free as a promotion, or he was very careful to ask and get permission to take the hangers. But now that the Times has informed readers that Mr. Levy has these hangers, it's a bit of a letdown that the newspaper doesn't continue to press the chancellor on this point. Does he draw the line at hangers or does he also go for the towels and ashtrays? And does he feel any responsibility for all the time that those staying in less august quarters spend struggling to fit the little ball-bearing top on the theft-resistant hotel hanger into its receptacle on the ring that's attached to the closet bar?

Limited Agenda: A front-page news article in this morning's New York Times reports that George W. Bush "has a far more focused -- Democrats say less ambitious -- agenda than Mr. Clinton. The former president at this point was promoting a raft of initiatives to expand government; Mr. Bush is sticking to his signature plan to cut taxes."

Even the Bush-bashers on the Times editorial board acknowledge in their editorial today that the Bush agenda is bigger than the tax cut. The editorial says, "Mr. Bush is relying on the game plan with which he achieved success as the governor of Texas, concentrating on a limited agenda to the exclusion of almost all else. Since the inauguration, this has meant taxes and education." If even the editorialists can see fit to mention education as part of the Bush agenda, why doesn't the news article? In any event, it's pretty funny to see that the Times editorial page, after attacking Bush's record as Texas governor all through the presidential campaign season, has now all of a sudden declared it a "success."

An article in the metro section of this morning's New York Times reports on an effort by a candidate for mayor, Mark Green, to distance himself from his old boss, Ralph Nader. "Mr. Green's decision to back away from his association with Mr. Nader reflects concerns by him and his supporters that the affiliation may be invoked against him by his opponents in the months ahead. Voters in New York City Democratic primaries tend to the left side of the ideological scale, so such a line of attack may prove particularly potent," The Times reports.

Try to untangle that logic, for a minute. First of all, the notion that voters in New York City Democratic primaries tend to the left is contradicted by several important cases -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan's victory over Bella Abzug in the 1976 Democratic U.S. Senate primary, Bill Clinton's victory over Jerry Brown in the 1992 presidential primary and Charles Schumer's victory over Mark Green in the 1998 Democratic U.S. Senate primary. Second, even granting the Times assumption that Democratic primary voters in New York lean leftward, why would they punish Mr. Green for his ties to Mr. Nader? Mr. Nader, after all, ran to the left of Al Gore. If the New York Democratic voters were as left-leaning as the Times claims, they might appreciate Mr. Nader. Being angry at Mr. Nader because of Mr. Gore's loss to George W. Bush is not necessarily linked to tending "to the left side of the ideological scale," as the Times claims. It could be linked to being far enough to the center on the ideological scale that you prefer the welfare-reforming, free-trade-agreement-supporting Mr. Gore to the unadulterated left-liberalism of Mr. Nader.

Independently Wealthy: The metro section of today's New York Times includes a profile of the new chairman of the Republican Party of New York. "Mr. Treadwell, who is independently wealthy, attended Groton School, then went on to college at the University of North Carolina," the Times reports. "Independently wealthy" is one of those phrases that isn't really all that useful in newspaper articles. What does it mean? In Mr. Treadwell's case, it seems to mean that he is so rich he does not have to work for a living. But the phrase tells us nothing about how Mr. Treadwell got that way. The rest of the Times article doesn't tell us how he got that way, either, except to vaguely suggest that he inherited his money. The article doesn't come right out and say he inherited his money; it does mention, however, that his mother was "the daughter of one of the founding executives of General Electric" and that he grew up "both in the city and on his family estate in Westport, N.Y., in a large house on 385 acres overlooking Lake Champlain." If the reason Mr. Treadwell does not have to work is because he was born into a rich family, "independently" wealthy seems like an awfully indirect way for the Times to phrase it. There's nothing "independent" about such wealth, for it depends on the circumstances of one's birth. Anyway, Smartertimes.com, unlike, say, the Times editorial page, harbors no class-warfare-style resentment or embarrassment about such circumstances. But there's no point, particularly in a newspaper profile, in skirting these facts with euphemisms like "independently wealthy."

Here's how the New York Times lead news article today reports yesterday's House of Representatives vote on part of the Bush tax cut: "In the end, no Republicans voted against the bill, and only 10 Democrats broke ranks and voted for it."

What's with the "only"? It sounds like the Times is trying to minimize the number of Democrats who supported the tax cut. Why not just say that 10 Democrats voted for the tax cut, and leave it to readers or to partisan spinners to decide whether 10 is "only" or "surprisingly many." If 10 Senate Democrats had broken ranks and voted for conviction in the impeachment, you can bet the Times wouldn't have used the word "only." And if 10 Senate Republicans end up voting against the Bush tax cut, you can bet the Times won't describe that as "only."

After all, yesterday's New York Times article on the Congressional maneuvering around the tax cut reported that "The best estimate, party leaders said, was that all Republicans would vote for the measure and that they would be joined by a half-dozen or so Democrats." So the 10 Democrats are actually more that the best estimate by party leaders from the day before. The Republicans won over more Democrats than expected, yet the front page news article still uses the word "only."

Friedman's Collapse: A Thomas Friedman column on the op-ed page of today's New York Times mis-characterizes the "macho" camp on foreign policy. The approach, Mr. Friedman says, holds, "We're the tough guys. We don't really believe in arms control. And we don't care if North Korea collapses. Deep down we don't even want a deal with North Korea, because that would eliminate the very missile threat we've been hyping to justify spending $60 billion on a missile defense shield. If the allies don't like it -- too bad."

It's not that the tough guys "don't care" if North Korea collapses. The tough guys are hoping North Korea collapses. It's a goal of the tough guys to make sure that Communist dictatorships everywhere collapse and are replaced by freedom and democracy. For its people, North Korea has already collapsed, as the excellent Times dispatch a while ago on the sorry state of the medical system there indicates. All that is left is for the regime to collapse, which can't happen fast enough for the good of the people stuck under its boot.

As for the missile threat, the macho camp knows that the shield is needed not only to protect against North Korea, but also against Iran, Iraq, Russia and Communist China. Mr. Friedman is so non-macho that he can't adequately state the macho argument, even for the purpose of dismantling it.

A news article in the national section of today's New York Times repeatedly uses the term "safety valve" to refer to a plan to make federal tax cuts contingent on budget surpluses. The use of this term seems to be the Times's own deliberate decision; the newspaper explains to readers at one point that "the safety valve approach" is "called a trigger mechanism in Congressional jargon." The newspaper could just as easily have written that "the trigger mechanism is called a safety valve approach in Times jargon."

The flaw with the Times jargon is that it suggests that there is something "safe" about the valve mechanism, something more safe than having the tax cuts go into effect without a surplus-related cutoff mechanism. That's an argument made by proponents of the trigger, but when the Times itself uses the polemical "safety valve" language in a news article, it's siding with the advocates of the proposal.

In fact, one could argue that the "safety valve" would be more accurately called a danger valve, because it would risk delaying expected tax cuts just when they are most needed -- at the time of an unexpected economic slowdown. That could make the slowdown even worse. The "safety valve" is also dangerous because the version being discussed would apply only to the tax cuts and not to spending, creating a presumption that the federal government is entitled to spend whatever it wants, and that the only controllable variable is tax rates.

Finally, the Times news article opines that "In the past, this kind of forced discipline has worked poorly. In the 1980s, the budget law required automatic spending cuts in each year that specific deficit goals were not met, but Congress invariably found ways around the law." Again, it's just weird for the Times to be slipping this kind of opinionated language into its news articles without attributing it to an expert. The idea that the Gramm-Rudman "forced discipline" to which the Times is apparently referring "worked poorly" is hardly a settled question. Arguably, it helped somewhat to restrain federal spending and -- alas -- to force some tax increases. In any event, forced discipline on government spending is a different animal than forced discipline on taxes. One of the ideas of the Bush tax cuts is to force discipline on government spending by giving the government less money to spend; a "safety valve" would eliminate that forced discipline, which is another reason it might be more accurate to describe it as a "danger valve."

A Bridge Too Close: A news article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports that parts of "five local suspension bridges" were closed yesterday because of falling ice. The article names "the George Washington, Bronx-Whitestone, Throgs Neck, Verrazano-Narrows and Triborough Bridges." The article neglects to mention the fact that the bicycle and pedestrian pathway on the Brooklyn Bridge was closed yesterday afternoon because of the falling ice.