An article on the front page of the metro section of this morning's New York Times reports that "A number of Connecticut lawmakers are pressing to stop high schools from starting their day before 8:30 a.m., a legislative response to research suggesting that teenagers do not physiologically wake up until well after their school day begins." This is not a joke, at least according to the Times article, which plays the story with barely a glimmer of a grin, dutifully quoting "many experts on teenage sleep." One of these "experts" operates out of the National Institutes of Health (your federal tax dollars at work); another is stationed at an Ivy League university.

For some reason, the problem of early morning classes seems particularly acute for teenagers. The Times reports that "younger children generally do not have the same trouble adjusting to early-morning start times," perhaps because their "circadian rhythms are not as affected by early morning school hours."

For some reason, it does not seem to have occurred to the Times that a reason these teenagers are tired in the morning could be that they were up all night gossiping on the phone to their friends, listening to rock music, doing drugs and having sex (with the assistance of taxpayer-provided free contraceptives). Or that a possible response to the problem of tired teens in early morning classes might be, rather than having the classes start later, having the teens go to bed earlier. Or that having to get up early and think while tired might be good preparation for the world of work, where many employees in demanding fields are expected to do exactly that.

The entire story is a good example of the liberal approach to educational standards: If the students don't meet the standards, the standards should be changed to be less rigorous. If the students can't make it to school on time and awake, the proper response is to delay the start of the school day.

A front-page article in this morning's New York Times reports on Bill Clinton's explanation of his pardon for Marc Rich. "It was a Democrat, Jack Quinn, Mr. Clinton's former White House counsel, who served as Mr. Rich's conduit to the White House and is seen as the person who persuaded Mr. Clinton to pardon Mr. Rich," the Times reports.

The "is seen as" construction is a classic example of the Times slipping into the passive voice in a way that is less than helpful to the newspaper's readers. "Is seen" by whom? Who is doing the seeing? If it is the Times editors and reporters, why don't they just make bold and say it is Mr. Quinn "who persuaded Mr. Clinton to pardon Mr. Rich"? What's with the hedging? Why stick in the "is seen as"? Is it because the statement is unsubstantiated? After all, it could have been Prime Minister Ehud Barak or Denise Rich that did the persuading. The phrase "is seen as" is seen as pretty thin cover for the Times to drop its own views or suppositions into news articles.

'Andover Academy': A "Public Lives" profile of Clay Johnson in the national section of today's New York Times refers to "Andover Academy, the elite Massachusetts school." The formal name of the school is Phillips Academy. It is in Andover, Mass. and is informally known as Andover to distinguish it from Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H. But "Andover Academy" is not the idiom of those who attend it.

Akin Jordan: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on lobbyist Bill Paxon and his law firm Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. The Times reports that Vernon E. Jordan Jr. "has left the firm for Wall Street." It is true that Mr. Jordan spends many days of the week in New York City working in finance. But according to the Akin Gump web site, Mr. Jordan is still "of counsel" to the Washington office of the law firm, suggesting that it is inaccurate to say that he "has left."

Free Pills: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times raises an alarm about the fact that the city's government-run hospitals will start charging $10 fees for prescription drugs. Exempt from the new fees, the New York Times reports as an aside, "are those in public programs for AIDS or prenatal care, those with tuberculosis, or teenagers who receive oral contraceptives." Whoa. It seems that in the world the Times editors inhabit, the fact that the city's taxpayers are footing the bill for distributing free oral contraceptives to teenagers is worthy of no further comment or explanation.

Speaking Cyrillic: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times describes a typewriter repair shop that is closing. "The remaining inventory includes keys for letters in languages including Farsi, Serbo-Croatian and Cyrillic," the Times reports. Cyrillic is not a language but an alphabet.

Max for the Minimum: The lead paragraph of an article in the arts section of this morning's New York Times describes the scene at a suburban mall, where "families were making final purchases at T.J. Max." The name of the store is T.J. Maxx, spelled like that.

The New York Times travel section today advises readers on how to break American law in order to aid a brutal Communist dictatorship.

The Times prints an article about a bike tour of Cuba. The article omits any mention of the country's horrible human rights record. The article paints Castro's island as practically paradise. "No one is ever in a hurry," the article claims. At a medical clinic, "The care was professional, courteous and free." "Cuban culture, we discovered, is distinctive and flourishing," the article reports.

Most disgusting is the sidebar that runs along with the Times article. Titled "Arranging a tour," the sidebar reports, "According to the Trading With the Enemy Act, it is illegal for most Americans to spend dollars in Cuba without first obtaining a license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control in the Treasury Department. Numerous United States organizations promoting cultural and educational exchanges have obtained such licenses, which permit travelers to spend a limited amount of dollars, and are bringing thousands of visitors to Cuba each month. Nevertheless, many Americans ignore this law by entering Cuba from either Canada or Mexico, which was what our group did (the International Bicycle Fund has applied for licenses but never received one, said Dave Moser, a fund official). For details on enforcement of the act, contact the Center for Constitutional Rights, 666 Broadway, New York, N.Y."

First, note the incredible euphemism. When George W. Bush broke the law against driving under the influence of alcohol, did the Times write that he "ignored" the law? No, he broke the law, violated the law, committed a crime. "Ignore the law" is an artful way to put it. Just to get a measure of the Times' hypocrisy on this point, remember that violating the "Trading With the Enemy Act" is one of the accusations that has been made against Clinton pardon recipient Marc Rich. A Times editorial last month hyperventilated that Mr. Rich had been "illegally trading with Iran in oil," and that Clinton's pardon of him was "indefensible" and "a shocking abuse of presidential power." Yet here the Times has one of its own free-lance travel writers contributing a sunny feature about going along on a group that "ignored" the same law the Times is so exercised that Mr. Rich supposedly violated.

What takes the cake, though, is that the Times is referring its readers for information on enforcement of this law not to the U.S. Department of State nor to the U.S. Department of Treasury but to this outfit called the Center for Constitutional Rights. The executive director of this group turns out to be Ron Daniels. And Mr. Daniels, it turns out, is something of a revolutionary himself. "What Black America needs is a visionary movement which understands the need to fundamentally change the racist/sexist/exploitive capitalist society we live in and advances a politics of social transformation," he wrote last fall. And lest you misunderstand what he means by "social transformation," Mr. Daniels explained, "voting in and of itself and by itself is not sufficient to make sustained progress on the Black agenda in this country, particularly on those issues where the politicians are reluctant to act. If Black people expect to make significant progress on issues like affirmative action, a moratorium on more police, prisons and the death penalty, a domestic marshal plan for urban and rural development and reparations, we had better be prepared to rock this nation to its foundation with massive demonstrations, strikes, civil disobedience campaigns and economic sanctions." (He means "Marshall" Plan, but never mind.)

Oh, and one other thing about Mr. Daniels. He was one of four persons honored at an event on November 14, 1999, at the Communist Party Headquarters in New York marking the 75th anniversary of the newspaper of the Communist Party, USA. According to a report of the event in the Communist newspaper, he told the crowd that it is "vital" that the People's Weekly World "remain solid, especially in the era of the conglomeration of the media. We need a place we can get our message out."

Well, looks like Mr. Daniels has found a place other than the People's Weekly World where he can get his message out. It's called the New York Times.

Some Smartertimes.com readers wonder why Smartertimes.com makes such a fuss over the American Communists and even Cuba now that the Cold War has ended. After all, the notion of a bike tour with Cuba as "trading with the enemy" may seem almost quaint, or even paranoid, in 2001.

But there are no apologies here for marking these points, because they are marked most emphatically by Cubans themselves, who have been struggling courageously for years at great personal risk to throw off Castro's yoke. So while the Times "ignores" the American laws on trade with Cuba and portrays the island as a paradise, the most recent annual report on Cuba from Freedom House reports, "Political dissent, spoken or written, is a punishable offense, and those so punished frequently receive years of imprisonment for seemingly minor infractions. A person can even go to jail for possession of a fax machine or a photocopier. Although there has been a slight relaxation of strictures on cultural life, the educational system, the judicial system, labor unions, professional organizations, and all media remain state controlled. . . . Cuba under Castro has one of the highest per capita rates of imprisonment for political offenses of any country in the world."

So if those trapped under Castro's boot can even to this day risk years in prison for challenging the dictator, the least Smartertimes.com can do is risk being caricatured by some of its good liberal friends as a relic of the Cold War.

Pardon Him: The New York Times lets Bill Clinton get away with some real stretchers in an op-ed piece today explaining his decision to pardon Marc Rich and Pincus Green. Reason number five, according to Mr. Clinton, has to do with the fact that "the Justice Department in 1989 rejected the use of racketeering statutes in tax cases like this one, a position that The Wall Street Journal editorial page, among others, agreed with at the time." Well, if Mr. Clinton is all of a sudden taking marching orders from the Wall Street Journal editorial page when it comes to RICO prosecutions and pardons, why did he pardon Rich and Green but not Michael Milken, who served his time and never was a fugitive?

The op-ed piece also strangely claims, "While I was aware of and took into account the fact that the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York did not support these pardons, in retrospect, the process would have been better served had I sought her views directly." What's puzzling is how -- other than clairvoyance -- Mr. Clinton could have been aware of the U.S. attorney's opposition to the Rich and Green pardons. The U.S. attorney was widely quoted the day after the pardons came down saying she had no idea they were even under consideration. The quotes from the U.S attorney seemed to suggest that no one had sought her views on the matter, directly or indirectly. So it is hard for Smartertimes.com to understand how Mr. Clinton could have been "aware of" her opposition to a pardon.

Your Taxes: An article in the business section of today's New York Times reports, "Saying that it is needed to shore up the faltering economy, President Bush has proposed a $1.6 trillion tax cut over 10 years. He also wants to gradually repeal the estate and gift tax, reduce the marriage penalty and double the child tax credit." The word "also" suggests that the estate and gift tax, marriage penalty and child tax credit provisions would be over and above the $1.6 trillion tax cut; in fact, they are part of the $1.6 trillion tax-cut plan and are included in its estimated cost.

Slumming in the Slums: An "Economic View" column in the business section of today's New York Times purports to be about an economic study but in fact is an editorial in favor of Section 8 housing vouchers, which help some poor people afford better housing. The column reports that "The culture of poverty begins to lift only when slum dwellers move to better neighborhoods." The column says that "That insight runs counter to current public policy, which tries to improve life in the slums by spending millions on police, schools and jobs." Well, it may well be true that moving to better neighborhoods is better for slum-dwellers. But the Times column entirely ignores the effect that an influx of government-subsidized former slum-dwellers could have on a suburban neighborhood. Writing in the Baltimore Sun, Gady Epstein reported in November of 2000 on the effects the Section 8 housing program had on suburban Columbia, Maryland. After residents moved to Columbia from Baltimore with the help of the Section 8 program, the crime rate in Columbia skyrocketed, the performance of the Columbia schools declined, and Columbia's white homeowners started moving away in droves. The study cited in the Economic View column is mildly interesting, but the columnist goes way too far in drawing broad conclusions about anti-poverty policy from a narrow study. The column seems to endorse the idea of taxpayer subsidies to move poor people from slums to wealthy suburbs. But the column doesn't compare the cost of such a plan to that of other anti-poverty strategies.

'An Exemplary Intellectual Life': The New York Times book review today carries a laudatory review of a book of essays by Edward Said, calling it "the portrait of an exemplary intellectual life." Smartertimes.com wonders which part of Mr. Said's life the New York Times judges to be exemplary and intellectual -- the part where he was photographed throwing a stone from Lebanon at the Israeli border, or the part where, as documented by Commentary, he distorted and overstated his own connection to Jerusalem.

Immigration Assumptions: A long front-page article about Harlem in this morning's New York Times apportions credit to both conservatives and liberals for the neighborhood's improvement. "Conservatives can point to tough-minded welfare policies and aggressive police work. Liberals can point to the lowering of immigration bars," the Times says.

The assumption that liberals are for free immigration and conservatives are against it is just false. The Wall Street Journal editorial page, for instance, has long supported a constitutional amendment for open borders, and Republican senators like Phil Gramm and Spencer Abraham have called for increases in immigration. Some liberals, including labor leaders and African Americans like the late Barbara Jordan, have voiced support for restrictions on immigration, arguing that immigrants take jobs away from American workers and exert downward pressure on wages.

And, in fairness, while Bill Clinton twice vetoed welfare reform, he did eventually sign it, and he deserved credit for campaigning on a pledge to "end welfare as we know it."

So for the Times to paint liberals as pro-immigrant and give conservatives all the credit for welfare reform is an oversimplification.

Late Again: A front-page story in today's New York Times explores the tax consequences for Internet company employees who exercised stock options only to see the value of the stock plummet. This is old news to readers of the Los Angeles Times, which ran an article on the front of its business section on December 22, 2000, that began, "The 'dot-com' shakeout is claiming a new wave of victims: workers who face huge tax bills on phantom profits from employee stock options."

Late Again: The Week in Review section of today's New York Times carries an article under the headline, "Breast-Feeding: How Old Is Too Old?" This is old news to readers of the Los Angeles Times, which carried a story on February 5, 2001, under the headline "Breast-Feeding Beyond Babyhood." The New York Times story focuses on the same Champaign, Ill., court case that the Los Angeles Times story focused on, and the New York Times story quotes one of the same experts, Katherine Dettwyler, who was quoted in the Los Angeles Times article. The New York Times article today gives no credit or mention to the report in the Los Angeles Times.

Can't Spell: What is it with the New York Times that it can't spell names correctly? The Week in Review section today, in an item on donations to Planned Parenthood, refers to "a White House spokesman, Scott McClennan." It's a pretty good bet the spokesman in question was Scott McClellan, who spells his name like that.

A front-page article in today's New York Times reports on the desire of the president of the University of California, Richard Atkinson, to end the use of the SAT in admissions. The article reports, "Like other school officials around the country Dr. Atkinson has sought to balance the values of diversity and academic quality." What is the Times suggesting here? That "diversity" -- presumably racial diversity, since that is what the preceding sentence in the Times refers to -- and "quality" are somehow competing or contradictory values that need to be balanced? Sounds like what George W. Bush would call the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Can't Spell: The lead, front-page article in this morning's New York Times, about the air strike on Iraq, refers to "Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, a Republican from Texas." The correct spelling of the senator's last name is "Hutchison," without an "n."

Prestige Problem: A front-page article in today's New York Times about Fashion Week declares, "the perception that the New York shows are slipping in prestige -- so much so that many designers and journalists say that the atmosphere in the tents resembles a trade show -- comes at a critical time in the industry." First of all, these fashion shows essentially are a trade show. It's odd that anyone not wrapped in delusions of glory would find this remarkable. Second, what is so un-prestigious, in the Times' view, about a trade show? Many hardworking Americans -- and many professionals in fields such as psychology, law, the newspaper industry, finance, high technology -- attend trade shows. The Times sentence has a haughty tone to it, as if the newspaper somehow believes that people who attend fashion shows are superior to those who attend Comdex or the annual meeting of the American Bar Association.

The Market: This is from an article in the metro section of today's New York Times about office space in Harlem: "Plans call for a second phase to include a 10-story office tower, and perhaps a hotel, but so far no office leases have been signed. Brokers say that because of construction costs, space in the high-rise building would cost $40 a square foot a year, compared with an average of $60 in Midtown, but still less than the market will bear. 'Trying to get commercial tenants and/or a hotel has been very difficult,' said Karen A. Phillips, the chief executive of the Abyssinian Development Corporation." If no office leases have been signed and trying to get commercial tenants has been "very difficult," wouldn't that suggest that the rent is not "less" than the market will bear, but more?

After getting scooped yesterday by the Daily News on the appearance at the Brooklyn Museum of a photograph depicting Jesus as a naked woman surrounded by black men, the New York Times unloads today in full force. The Times carries an editorial, a front-page news article, an art review, and a "critic's notebook" piece about the photograph and the objections to it that have been raised by Catholics and by Mayor Giuliani.

The front-page news article asserts "Mr. Giuliani's motives were a source of debate yesterday, particularly because he has no plans to run for office in the immediate future. In 1999, the mayor used his battle against the Brooklyn Museum in one of his successful fund-raising letters for his Senate campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton."

This cynicism about the mayor's motives is both unjustified and biased. For one thing, while the Times article asserts that the mayor's motives "were a source of debate," the article doesn't quote a single person questioning the mayor's motives or debating them. The only person commenting about the mayor's motives is the City Council speaker, Peter Vallone, who is quoting saying the mayor's motives are essentially sincere: he "feels he's on God's side."

What's biased is the suggestion -- unattributed to anyone other than the voice of the Times article itself -- that the only conceivable reason the mayor would protest the art is that it would help him in a political campaign or in fundraising. It's as if the Times is suggesting in its news article that the mayor's action, on the merits, is so unreasonable that he must have had some hidden motive.

Of course, the Times itself has higher standards than to show a full-frontal image of the photograph in color on its front page, or even clearly inside the paper. But the mayor's suggestion that the city's taxpayers might want to exercise the same discretion the Times editors did by not subsidizing the display of the photo is seen by the Times as so unreasonable that it raises "debate" about the mayor's motives.

The Times editorial makes a specious First Amendment argument, claiming that the First Amendment guarantees a museum a taxpayer subsidy to display anti-religious art. But it's funny how the Times' First Amendment absolutism all of a sudden evaporates when the newspaper supports, as it does in the name of campaign finance "reform," restrictions on the right of private individuals to buy political advertisements in the weeks before an election. According to the Times definition, the First Amendment guarantees museums a taxpayer subsidy, but doesn't guarantee individuals a right to political speech.

The Times art review asserts "we have every reason to be grateful" for the exhibit, and it suggests the contents are "a sign of conservative times." The Times coverage also repeatedly refers to the photograph of the naked Jesus figure as being of the photographer herself.

As the Forward newspaper, which has since been sold, editorialized the last time the Brooklyn Museum faced off against Mr. Giuliani: "The mayor does us all a favor, moreover, in illuminating the larger spectacle -- the astounding sense of entitlement of those who run our museums combined with the astounding sense of detachment from matters that are sacred and meaningful to ordinary people. . . the sense of entitlement has to do with whether the Brooklyn Museum is owed a subsidy from the already overtaxed citizens of New York so that it can mount a display of patently offensive sophomoric trash including the above-mentioned icon for those who mock Catholicism."

No Radio: The New York Times "Automobiles" section today features an article on the decline in "No Radio" signs in the windows of cars parked on New York City streets. The article attributes this to the plunging crime rate. But it may just be a consequence of the declining value of radios compared with other electronic equipment that is now available to be stolen. The editor of Smartertimes.com has seen cars parked in Brooklyn with signs that say "No laptop computer."

What is it about the New York Times that it can't spell names correctly? Today's blooper comes in the lead, front-page article about the inquiry into the pardon of Marc Rich. The Times reports that "the Justice Department's public integrity section, which investigates corruption, is headed by Lee Radick, an official who has been criticized by Republicans." Mr. Radek spells his name like that, with no "i" and no "c."

In some instances, the Times manages to spell names incorrectly even when it clearly knows the correct spelling. That is the case in an article in the international section of today's Times about the heir to the Peacock Throne. The Times article refers to him as "Riza Pahlevi," but it also includes the address of his site on the World Wide Web, www.rezapahlavi.org. It's clear from that web site that his preferred spelling in English is Reza Pahlavi, not, as the Times renders it, "Riza Pahlevi." It's a wonderful little example of Times arrogance -- that the newspaper would think it knows how to spell a name better than the actual bearer of the name. If there is some other innocent explanation for the spelling variations, the Times would do well to let readers in on it.

The Country of Europe: An article of the front of the business section of today's New York Times reports on a business that manufactures electronics. "The more automated plants operate in wealthier countries like the United States, Europe and Singapore," the Times reports. Well, Europe may be well on its way to a common market and a common foreign policy, but, at least for now, it's not a country in the same way that the United States and Singapore are.

Hypocrisy Watch: In an editorial today, the Times whips itself up into a froth over the fact that minority managers hold 7 of the top 25 positions at the city parks department. It says that is a "disturbing picture" and an "unacceptable" pattern. But let the reader's eyes drift upward on the page to the Times masthead, and one is reminded that the Times record on racial diversity in the top ranks is probably worse than that of the parks department. The Times also condemns the parks commissioner's practice of having his staff wear name tags with nicknames. "The name tags ought to go," the Times thunders. "This demeaning practice has no place in a professional organization." The editorial might have noted that the parks commissioner himself wears one of those supposedly "demeaning" name tags. Granted, it is his choice to do so, but it's also the choice of the employees to work there. If they don't like it, they are free to go get jobs somewhere else where they don't have to wear name tags.

The Devil and Daniel Webster: A front-page article in today's New York Times about calling card charges includes a pullout quote that says, "'No hidden charges' takes on a meaning that would have baffled Daniel Webster." The Webster the Times seems to mean in this reference is Noah, not Daniel.

The New York Times uses the top of its front page this morning to display what is essentially a press release about an advertisement that will appear in Sunday's New York Times. The advertisement comes from "dozens of rich Americans" who oppose a repeal of the death tax, or, as the Times calls it, the estate tax. The Times should have charged the rich Americans double for the ad, because, for all the critical treatment the ad's arguments get in today's news columns, the Times might have just been straightforward about it and run the ad twice.

The most hilarious arguments in the Times article are made by one of the ringleaders of the "dozens of rich Americans" for the estate tax, Warren Buffett. Mr. Buffett, the Times reports, said the estate tax plays a critical role "in promoting economic growth, by helping create a society in which success is based on merit rather than inheritance." Mr. Buffett, the Times reports, said repealing the estate tax would be the equivalent of "choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the eldest sons of the gold-medal winners in the 2000 Olympics," which he said would be "absolute folly."

Hmm. Does Mr. Buffett think that New York Times readers have already forgotten that September 3, 2000, article in the Times business section, a profile of the billionaire's eldest son, Howard Buffett? "As the eldest son of the Oracle of Omaha, Howard stands to become the next chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, his father's holding company-turned-gold mine," the Times reported back in September. The Times added that if Warren Buffett "were hit by a car tomorrow, he said, his chairmanship would pass to Howard."

So, on the one hand, Mr. Buffett proclaims that as a matter of national policy, there should be a society "in which success is based on merit rather than inheritance." And he says that choosing Olympic athletes by choosing eldest sons is "absolute folly." Yet he himself chooses his eldest son to succeed him as chairman of the venture that is probably most important to him personally, Berkshire Hathaway.

Another argument made by the "dozens of rich Americans" is that "The estate tax exerts a powerful and positive effect on charitable giving. Repeal would have a devastating effect on public charities."

Here, again, Mr. Buffett comes off as a hypocrite. If he's so concerned about charitable giving, nothing is stopping him from giving away more of his vast assets right now. As it is, he has been criticized as a grinch by none other than Ted Turner and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd. Ms. Dowd wrote on August 22, 1996 that Bill Gates "and Mr. Buffett have given away some money, but not the really big bucks. The Microsoft founder promises to give away most of his $16 billion, but wants to wait until he is 50 or 60 to plan it. Mr. Buffett has said he will give the bulk of his $15 billion to population control, but not until after he and his wife are gone." Mr. Gates has started giving away more money in earnest since 1996, but Mr. Buffett still hasn't given away the really big bucks.

Again, the Times article points out none of these ironies. Nor does it quote any of the many Americans who are not rich but who aspire to be, or who are wealthy but not as wealthy as Mr. Buffett, and who want to repeal the death tax. (You have to go to www. deathtax.com to get a flavor of that.) Nor does it point out that Mr. Buffett has structured his own finances so as to minimize the tax he owes -- his wealth is mainly in the form of capital gains, which are tax-free until they are realized. In any event, the idea of being lectured on economic growth by a man who plans to give his fortune to population control is itself pretty rich stuff. Population growth, after all, contributes to economic growth.

Maybe if the folks at www.deathtax.com bought a full-page ad in the New York Times, they would get an above-the-fold front page news story showcasing their arguments. In so doing, however, they'd only be contributing to the profits of the newspaper empire run by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., who -- thank goodness for the estate tax -- is another product of that society "in which success is based on merit rather than inheritance."

'Rod-Larsen': A dispatch from Jerusalem in the international section of today's New York Times refers repeatedly to Terje "Rod-Larsen." This is a new spelling for the name of the U.N. envoy in the Middle East; the Times had been spelling his name as "Roed-Larsen."

A front-page article in this morning's New York Times about President Clinton's search for office space reports, "Gerald Ford pays $99,000 a year for space in Mirage, Calif." The Ford office is in fact in Rancho Mirage, Calif., not "Mirage."

Wrong Spelling: An article in the national section of today's New York Times runs under the headline "Los Angeles Cardinal Regrets Role in Pardon." The Times article refers to "Cardinal Roger Mahoney," and repeatedly to "Cardinal Mahoney." In fact the cardinal's last name is spelled "Mahony." The same article makes reference to a federal judge issuing a sentence on the low end "of Minnesota state law requirements." It would be helpful to readers if there were some explanation of why a federal judge would be bound by state sentencing guidelines.

Wrong Spelling: A dispatch from Houston in the national section of today's New York Times refers to "Representative Tom Delay, the Republican House whip." Mr. DeLay capitalizes the "L" in his name.

Keeping Travelers Informed: A graphic that accompanies an article in today's New York Times about air traffic delays has a label that says, "Keeping travelers informed." Then it lists "percentage of time passengers were notified of delays, cancellations and diversions." The percentages ranged from 75 to 38. It's unclear what criteria the Times or the Department of Transportation is using to measure whether passengers are "notified." Presumably, 100 percent of passengers are notified always if a flight is cancelled -- their flight doesn't leave, and eventually they notice that they aren't in the air. Same with a diversion; the plane lands somewhere other than where the passenger expected to be, and the pilot, or the terrain outside, notify passengers that the plane has been diverted. A passenger can notify himself that a flight has been delayed simply by looking at his watch. The label "Keeping travelers informed" seems to suggest the graphic refers to some notification issue rather than the actual incidence of delays, cancellations and diversions. The newsworthy question is how much advance notice, if any, the passengers get.

Weird Headline: This runs atop the continuation of an article in the metro section of today's New York Times: "Hospitals in the City Are Faulted for Not Reporting Many Errors." The hospitals can't win: If they reported many errors, you can bet they would be faulted for that, too. A clearer headline would say something like, "Hospitals in the City Are Faulted for Covering Up Errors" or "Hospitals in the City Are Faulted for Concealing Errors" or "Hospitals in the City Are Faulted for Letting Errors Go Unrecorded."

The metro section of today's New York Times carries a news story about the New York City parks commissioner, Henry Stern. "Although he grew up a Democrat who spent part of the summer of 1964 working for civil rights in the South, Mr. Stern has since moved politically from left to center and has become a strong opponent of affirmative action and racial quotas," the Times article reports. The word "although" in that Times sentence is incredibly telling about the Times' view of affirmative action and racial quotas. Outside the world the Times editors inhabit, there are many that argue that the color-blind vision of the 1964 civil rights effort in the South is entirely consistent with opposition to racial quotas. The word "although" clearly suggests that the Times is taking a stance on that argument. The Times' stance is apparently that support for civil rights in the South and opposition to racial quotas are somehow contradictory or inconsistent.

Moreover, the notion that it is Mr. Stern who has "moved politically" is itself debatable. It's quite possible that Mr. Stern stayed exactly where he was and that his allies in the civil rights struggle have since veered off into a far-left vision of a society in which people are judged by their skin color.

Racial Profiling: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports on Hillary Clinton's plans to introduce a bill to ban racial profiling by police. The article claims "Federal prosecutors also concluded that the New York Police Department's Street Crime Unit, which is now defunct, had engaged in racial profiling." Federal prosecutors concluded no such thing, and the Street Crime Unit, much as the Times may wish it to be defunct, still exists.

Excessive Length: A front-page news article in today's New York Times reports on touch-screen voting machines used in California. "They can easily handle, at no extra cost, ballots of excessive length, which are common in California," the Times reports. How long must a ballot be, one wonders, for the New York Times news department to judge its length to be "excessive"? Long enough to contain a single question asking voters whether they want to ban the use of racial quotas and preferences in state programs?

Pawns of the Strategists: One of the tackiest phenomena in American politics these days is the one in which the celebrity campaign consultant or political strategist acts as though he outranks the actual candidate or elected official. The New York Times plays into this today in an article that runs in the national section under the headline, "Gore and Bush Strategists Analyze Their Campaigns." In a section of the article referring to George W. Bush and his aide Karl Rove, the Times writes, "Mr. Rove said he wishes now that he had not let Mr. Bush skip the first debate in New Hampshire." It's hard to tell whether this language comes from Mr. Rove directly or from the Times, but tacky is exactly the word for it. The word "let" suggests Mr. Bush is some sort of infant who has to ask Mr. Rove for permission to control his own schedule, like a child asking a parent to let him stay up late and watch television. If Mr. Rove is actually going around saying this stuff, President Bush would be wise to cut him down to size, and the Times would be wise to seize on it as newsworthy in its own right. If the phrasing is the Times', it's just another example of the newspaper's attempt to portray the president as some kind of half-wit.

A headline in this morning's New York Times magazine blares that "The next mayor will inherit a city where the left is dead." Sound too good to be true? Sure enough, not only is the left still alive, it is still writing for the New York Times magazine, at least to judge by this Sunday's offerings. Indeed, it is a measure of just how entrenched is the leftism at the Times that the newspaper can set out to write an article declaring the left dead, interview and quote non-leftist policy experts like Fred Siegel and Myron Magnet, and still wind up with a characteristically misguided, inaccurate and at times just plain silly screed.

The lead anecdote concerns the Rev. Calvin Butts, who the article would have us believe is essentially a fan of Mayor Giuliani. Somehow the Times magazine neglects to mention that in May of 1998, Rev. Butts openly called the mayor a racist. "I don't believe that he likes black people, and I believe that there's something fundamentally wrong in the way we are disregarded, the way we are mistreated, and the way our communities are being devastated," Rev. Butts said at the time, according to a report in the Times. He added, "If these policies are not checked, and if the people who enjoy democratic liberties do not speak up and out, we could see ourselves moving toward a fascist state in New York." Even if Rev. Butts no longer takes such a hard line toward Mr. Giuliani, the Times magazine article would be stronger if it took this history into account.

Then the Times writes, "as the mayor's second and final term draws to a close (term limits preclude a threepeat), the city is about to be inherited by someone of a very different temperament." In fact, this term is not necessarily Mr. Giuliani's "final" term as mayor. The term limits provision in the city charter technically allows Mr. Giuliani to run for a third term if one full term or more has elapsed since he last held office; in other words, he will be eligible to run for mayor again after taking four years off.

Then, here's the way the Times article handles the controversy over the Brooklyn Museum's showing of a painting of the Virgin Mary smeared with elephant dung and festooned with photos of naked crotches: "He tried, notoriously, to defund the Brooklyn Museum of Art as punishment for showing an exhibition he deemed offensive." Well, it wasn't just the mayor that deemed the exhibition offensive, but Cardinal O'Connor and many of the city's Catholics, who reasonably wondered why their hard-earned tax dollars should be subsidizing this. The mayor's efforts to prevent such a subsidy may have been notorious among the not-so-dead left at the Times, but they were appreciated elsewhere in the city.

The Times article goes on to paraphrase a left-wing homelessness agitator who asserts that "polls show that 80 percent of New Yorkers would like the city to invest in more housing and services for the homeless." No specific poll is cited. Nor does the Times cite any results of polls in which New Yorkers were asked, say, "would you like the city to spend more on housing and services for the homeless, even if those homeless are able-bodied yet refuse to work, and even if spending that money means that your taxes will be higher and that the homeless will have less incentive to get jobs and become self-sufficient?"

The article goes on to say, "Giuliani hasn't killed compassion, but he has exposed its inadequacy as policy." This totally misses the point. Mr. Giuliani's point is that it is compassionate to make the poor work, because it gives them the tools to become self-sufficient. Giving the poor systematic and ongoing government handouts while asking nothing in return is not compassionate; it is actually harmful because it creates perverse incentives.

Then the article claims in a tone of moral outrage that Mr. Giuliani "tried to privatize the public hospitals that poor New Yorkers count on even for basic medical care." Despite the article's claim, this shows nothing about the mayor's "insensitivity to poor New Yorkers." What should matter is how good is the medical care poor New Yorkers get, not whether the care is provided in a hospital that is run by the government. Such subtleties are lost on the Times.

The measure of how out-of-touch with New York the Times is is that it sends its magazine writer on a field trip to "Flatbush, a largely Caribbean neighborhood in central Brooklyn." The Times describes it as if it were some little-known and exotic nation in central Africa. Smartertimes.com is waiting for the next time the New York Times refers to the Upper West Side as "the Upper West Side, a largely white neighborhood in central Manhattan." Even with the description, the Times seems to fumble its way around Flatbush. To call it "largely Caribbean" is a vast oversimplification; there are lots of Jews there, and plenty of Koreans, as well. The Times goes on to assert that Canarsie is "immediately to the southeast of Flatbush," which is just false, according to the authoritative 1998 book "The Neighborhoods of Brooklyn." Canarsie is immediately to the southeast of a largely Caribbean neighborhood called East Flatbush, but East Flatbush is different from Flatbush. Again, a subtlety that seems to be lost on the Times.

Smartertimes.com is sorry to have to rattle on at this length and in such point-by-point detail about this magazine article, but it's actually an important story, by a big-name writer, about an important topic. And the errors and oddities just keep piling up.

One of the most hilarious clauses in the magazine article is this one: "Immigrants have been arriving in New York in very large numbers since 1965." Has the Times ever been to Ellis Island? Immigrants have been arriving in New York in very large numbers since the city was founded; while there have been variations in the immigration laws since then, it seems strange to not make any reference to the vast waves of pre-1965 immigration that most New Yorkers are familiar with.

In another attempt to portray Mr. Giuliani as callous toward the poor (an attempt right up with the swipe at the mayor for the sin of attempting to privatize hospitals), the Times notes that "The number of food pantries has actually increased, to 1,150 from 750." The Times actually tries to use this as evidence of rising hunger, or rising want, or the continued plight of the poor. But the number of food pantries tells nothing about the level of hunger in the city. The 1,150 food pantries could be consolidated into five and the same amount of food could be distributed. If the number of food pantries in the city had decreased under Mr. Giuliani, the Times would no doubt see it as evidence that his administration was cutting back on feeding the poor. As it is, the increase is seen as evidence that there are more poor.

The mayor just can't win. The article finally comes out and accuses him of having a "highhanded and heardhearted brand of politics." The Times accuses him of having "ignored the critical shortage of housing." This is silly; there wasn't as bad a housing shortage until the mayor came along and cleaned up the city and reduced the crime rate so much that there aren't enough apartments for all the people who now want to live here. Anyway, since when is it the mayor's job to provide housing for everyone? Isn't that a private sector issue?

While attacking the mayor for faults that are not his, the Times, typically, gives the mayor credit for achievements in areas in which he hasn't done enough. The Times refers, for instance, to "Giuliani's draconian line on the budget." That is absurd, given that the city's budget has gone from $21 billion in 1995 to $27 billion in 2001, including a hefty 7% increase in 1997, an election year. The Times also says the mayor "began to implement cuts in a wide range of taxes." It is true that he has tinkered with a wide range of taxes, but the overall reductions have been relatively paltry: a mere $2.5 billion estimated for 2001.

First Jewish Mayor: An obituary in today's New York Times of Abraham Beame states that he was "the city's first Jewish mayor." That's probably overstating it; Fiorello La Guardia, who was mayor from 1933 to 1945, had a Jewish mother, and many Jews claimed him as one of their own.

Innuendo Watch: This is from the lead editorial in today's New York Times: "A central player in all this, Mr. Rich's former wife, Denise, was in direct contact with the president."

Ill-Advised: The second New York Times editorial today is about Iraq. "The Bush administration's initial action on Iraq was an ill-advised decision to assist opposition groups inside Iraq, even though they have little chance of undermining Mr. Hussein," the Times writes. Refusing to help an opposition group because it has little chance of success is a kind of self-reinforcing, circular and defeatist illogic. If the opposition group had certain chances of success, it wouldn't need help. The same line of argument could have been used to argue against French intervention on behalf of the American revolutionaries and against American support for Solidarity in Poland. The Times doesn't even bother to seriously grapple with the rollback strategy in its editorial today, preferring to simply label it "ill-advised."

The Times View of Jimmy Carter: Here's a gem from a book review in today's New York Times, about a memoir by Jimmy Carter: "the boy whose story it tells grew up to be not just president of the United States but one of the great Americans of our time." This is probably overstating it; in any event, the article doesn't make a coherent case that Mr. Carter is "one of the great Americans of our time," it just asserts it, as if any reasonable Times reader would agree.

The metro section of today's New York Times carries an article that runs under the headline, "State's Poorest Facing Loss of U.S. Aid." The article reports that 71,400 families "risk losing their federal welfare benefits at the end of this year," when the five-year time limit associated with the 1996 federal welfare reform kicks in.

The article claims in its fourth paragraph that these families "are likely to suffer from mental illness or substance abuse problems. About 15 percent are considered to have a disability that keeps them from working. That is twice the share of disabled people in the overall welfare caseload."

You have to read way down into the story to find out that the federal government "will make exceptions for some of those welfare recipients who cannot work because of a disability." And you have to read way, way, down into the story to find out that state and county officials "will try to transfer some" of those about to lose benefits "to other federal aid programs, like those that offer disability benefits." And, also, that the state and county officials "will go after child support payments from absent fathers more aggressively."

The Times spins this story in two important ways: first with that big headline, "State's Poorest Facing Loss of U.S. Aid," and then again with the assertion in the article that "advocates for the poor say the numbers of people facing the deadline gives cause for concern." An alarmist representative of a "poor people's advocacy group" is duly quoted. The overall effect is to frame this as an impending disaster.

Of course, there's no quote in the Times from a non-governmental expert or advocacy group that was in favor of welfare reform, or that represents working taxpayers. Such an expert might have made the point that it's about time the government got tougher on deadbeat dads, and that it is a shame that it has taken almost five years for such a crackdown. Such an expert also might have expressed hope that the time limit will actually force some of these welfare recipients into jobs, which are the best way out of poverty. And such an expert also might have voiced a bit of concern about how these welfare recipients facing a cutoff to their benefits are all of a sudden going to be discovering "disabilities" that make them eligible for aid indefinitely. Not that there aren't genuinely mentally and physically disabled persons out there who are deserving of assistance. But it will engender some skepticism among the taxpaying public -- if not at the New York Times -- if the number of such disabled persons skyrockets the month that the time limits on the Temporary Aid to Needy Families program (the program formerly known as Aid to Families With Dependent Children) kick in.

Defending Hillary: Smartertimes.com defended Senator Clinton from the objections the New York Times editorialists had to her book deal. This morning, the Times editorialists again want to hold Mrs. Clinton to an unreasonable standard. "We strongly urge her not to undertake any soft-money fund-raising," the Times says in its lead editorial this morning. This sort of silliness should enrage the Times' core audience of liberal Upper West Side public-television types, because it would mean that while Senator Trent Lott and Rep. Tom DeLay are out raising soft money for conservative causes and candidates, the Times wants Mrs. Clinton, presumably, to stay at home and bake cookies. The justification, according to the Times, for such a policy of unilateral disarmament is "the growing urgency for her, at the start of her Senate career, to separate herself from the unrestrained fund-raising practices identified with her husband." Again, punishing a woman politician for her husband's misdeeds seems like a stay-home-and-bake-cookies approach inconsistent with the Times' professed belief in the rights of women to have independent careers. There's nothing inherently corrupt about raising money to be spent on political speech in a democracy. It's corrupt to raise money from Chinese Communist agents in return for softening restrictions on arms transfers, but there's nothing inherently corrupt about raising money from Americans who want to speak out on issues they care about.

One-Sided on the Estate Tax: Today's New York Times runs an article about Bush aide John DiIulio Jr.'s opposition to the estate tax. The article quotes five sources who favor the estate tax and one who opposes it. It's an amazingly one-sided dispatch.

Here's a beauty from this morning's New York Times, the newspaper that mercilessly pounces whenever President Bush or Dan Quayle commits a malapropism: A profile of John DiIulio Jr. in the national section reports on his "detailing a sheath of articles he published emphasizing churches over prisons." A "sheath" is something you stick a knife in. The word the Times wants is "sheaf."

Bad Example: Today's New York Times lead editorial uses the case of Michael Milken as an argument for further restrictions on the First Amendment rights of Americans to donate to political campaigns. "Campaign finance reform, while not rendering bad presidential judgments obsolete, would help address the root problem involved in this and so many of the Clinton administration's other scandals -- unequal access to the White House. Like those of Michael Milken and others championed by wealthy Democratic contributors, Marc Rich's pardon application was sent directly to the White House and did not go through the usual Justice Department channels." Despite the "unequal access," Milken did not get a pardon. So why impose new restrictions on free speech rights in order to solve a nonexistent problem?

The Times editorial goes on to declare: "The White House is not an alternative judicial venue for fugitives." In fact, it is. That is one of the main uses of the presidential pardon power, a power that is included in the Constitution. President Carter used that power to pardon a sheaf of Vietnam-era draft-dodgers who fled to Canada, and somehow, Smartertimes.com doesn't recall a huge outcry from the Times editorialists against his action. More evidence that what the Times has against Marc Rich is not that he is a fugitive but that he is a member of that most despised class to Times editorial writers, the non-Sulzberger rich.

'Calender Year': A graphic that runs alongside a New York Times metro section article about the mayor's management report refers to the "Calender year." The word the Times wants is spelled "calendar," with an "a." A "calender," according to Webster's Second, is a machine used to press paper or cloth, or a member of an order of wandering dervishes among the Sufis.

Here is Andrew Ferguson, writing in the January 22, 2001, issue of the Weekly Standard: "With the new President Bush in the White House, we're going to see the reemergence of all kinds of things we haven't seen since -- well, since the old President Bush was in the White House. . . . Say hello to homelessness, for instance: We are about to see a horrifying deterioration in the plight of our nation's street people. We haven't heard much -- anything, really -- about the homeless since, oh, roughly January 20, 1993. As it happens, the number of people living on steam grates has remained pretty much constant from the middle 1980s, when they filled the airwaves and graced the cover of countless magazines, to the present day, when they are all but forgotten. They are about to be remembered."

Sure enough, here's the top-of-the-front page headline from this morning's New York Times: "Homeless Shelters in New York Fill to Highest Level Since 80's; Increase Reflects National Trend, Official Says."

Mr. Ferguson, just to mark the point, was writing not so much about poverty but about journalistic behavior with a Republican in the White House. The intellectual flabbiness of the Times approach may be seen by the fact that the Times article, following the lead of a city official, attributes the increase in families seeking shelter to "sharply rising housing costs in an economic boom."

That little quote is worth unpacking. For one thing, according to the Times, we're not in an economic boom -- a story on the other side of today's Times front page declares "Slowing Economy Forces Governors to Trim Budgets." For another thing, it's funny how for the Times and its homelessness experts, virtually any economic condition causes homelessness. If there's an "economic boom," that causes homelessness, according to today's article. But you can bet that if there were an economic downturn, that would cause homelessness, too. Then there's the Times claim of "sharply rising housing costs." That is directly contradicted by another front-page New York Times article, the one on January 16, 2001, which reported, "Manhattan's skyrocketing apartment rental market has turned around and started drifting back toward earth. For the first time in seven years, many landlords are reducing prices and some are even offering to pay broker fees, allowing tenants to save thousands of dollars."

Stalking Sharon: One could predict that Ariel Sharon would get hostile treatment from the New York Times, but this morning is just breathtaking. A front-page headline instructs the newly elected Israeli leader that he "Must Act Quickly to Build Coalition and Prove Legitimacy." The article below that headline asserts that Mr. Sharon has a "tiny power base."

"Prove Legitimacy"? "Tiny power base"? The man just won a free, democratic election by a 25 percent margin, which the Times elsewhere today describes as "the largest in Israeli history."

Today's New York Times also repeats the one-sided claim that "months of violence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip erupted after Mr. Sharon inspected Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem." The Times article, datelined Tripoli, fails to mention that the site Mr. Sharon visited is also a Jewish holy site, the Temple Mount. Mr. Sharon didn't even go inside the Islamic holy sites, he just walked around on the plaza outside them.

Lost in D.C.: The national section of today's New York Times includes a map of the area around the White House. The map runs alongside a story about a shooting near the White House. The map strangely labels the Department of the Treasury as the "Department of the Treasury Museum."

Smartertimes.com's favorite Bush administration official so far is Michael Powell. Here's how the Federal Communications Commission's chairman, son of General Colin Powell, responded to a question yesterday about the "digital divide" between those who can afford new technology and those who can't: "I think there is a Mercedes divide. I'd like to have one; I can't afford one. I'm not meaning to be completely flip about this. I think it's an important social issue. But it shouldn't be used to justify the notion of essentially the socialization of the deployment of the infrastructure."

How does the New York Times react when someone makes an intelligent point that challenges the liberal orthodoxy? Naturally, reporting the matter in its business section today, the newspaper wheels out its liberal sources to explain to its readers what Mr. Powell has said wrong. One representative calls Powell's remarks "insensitive and elitist." Another says Mr. Powell "seems to have become isolated from the realities of life for most Americans."

Later in the article, Mr. Powell is quoted as saying, "I think there is a lot of garbage on television. There are a lot of things children should not watch. But I don't believe that government should be your nanny." Does the Times react to that quote by trotting out two experts from a Christian conservative group -- or Senator Lieberman, for that matter -- to condemn Mr. Powell's remarks as insensitive and to argue that the government does have a role to play in limiting sex and violence on television? Of course not.

'Americans for Peace': An article in today's New York Times about reaction by American Jewish groups to the election of Ariel Sharon identifies one group as "Americans for Peace." The correct name of the group is "Americans for Peace Now."

Late Again: The New York Times this morning runs an editorial on President Reagan's 90th birthday. The birthday was yesterday, and common sense would have dictated running the editorial then, rather than waddling in behind the curve.

Conflict of Interest: An article in the metro section of today's New York Times reports, "William C. Thompson Jr., the president of the Board of Education, said yesterday that he would resign from the board within two months to comply with an ethics ruling that bars him from raising money for his campaign for city comptroller." The story never says who made this "ethics ruling," and what logic, if any, it was based on. If it were really unethical for politicians to raise campaign funds while they hold office, the entire Congress would have to resign immediately.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman comes through today with a dispatch from Doha, Qatar. The column is an attack on the democratic resistance to Saddam Hussein based on the opinions Mr. Friedman picks up on a visit to a non-democratic country. And it is an attack on sanctions for failing to achieve a goal they were not intended to achieve.

Mr. Friedman quotes an Arab diplomat as saying that since the Gulf War, "public opinion in the Arab world has moved 180 degrees," and reports, "many here would agree." And Mr. Friedman declares, "the Arab street no longer accepts the logic of sanctions." Mr. Friedman declares that the Iraqi opposition groups "are viewed as corrupt outsiders who would be rejected by the Iraqi body politic in the unlikely event they ever did oust Saddam."

Well, who are the Qataris, of all people, to be casting aspersions on the brave effort of Iraqis to oust Saddam Hussein and bring democracy and freedom to Iraq? Here is an excerpt from the latest Freedom House report on Qatar: "Qataris cannot change their government democratically. Political parties are illegal, and there are no organized opposition groups. The emir holds absolute power, though he consults with leading members of society on policy issues and works to reach consensus with the appointed Majlis.. . . Workers may not form unions or bargain collectively. . . .In 1995, Crown Prince Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, long recognized as the real power in the country, deposed his father in a palace coup while the emir vacationed in Switzerland. . . . political demonstrations are prohibited."

This is the country where the New York Times diplomatic columnist shows up to get a reading that he suggests American policymakers should defer to. And of course, Mr. Friedman neglects to inform his readers of these facts on the ground in Qatar.

Mr. Friedman claims "All you hear and read in the media here is that the sanctions are starving the Iraqi people -- which is true." It's not true. Saddam is the one starving the Iraqi people. Iraq is selling as much or more oil now than it was before the Gulf War started, under a U.N. "oil-for-food" program. Saddam has money left over to build himself new palaces and to give $10,000 "martyr payments" to the families of Palestinian Arabs killed in attacks on Israel.

Finally, the "logic of sanctions," as described by Mr. Friedman -- "that if you squeeze Iraq long enough the Iraqi people will oust Saddam" -- has never been the logic of them. Clinton administration officials and U.N. officials have described the sanctions as designed to "keep Saddam in a box" or to prevent him from ever threatening neighboring countries with weapons of mass destruction. They were not designed to cause his removal.

Mirandizing Terrorists: The bombings of America's embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killed 224 people. The lead editorial in this morning's New York Times is a defense of the Miranda rights of the accused terrorists.

Hooked on Siegel: Speaking of civil liberties, the Times is so addicted to quotes from Norman Siegel, the man who is now running for public advocate and who was the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, that it uses him as a source today in its subway column, identifying him simply as "a civil liberties lawyer."