An editorial in today's New York Times calls Hillary Clinton's $8 million book deal "an affront to common sense." The real "affront to common sense," though, is the Times' editorial position, which holds public servants to such an absurd standard that it prevents them from making any money, even honestly. The Times editorial cites no evidence that Mrs. Clinton has intervened in any government policy disputes in favor of the interests of her book publisher or its parent company. It cites no evidence that such interventions, if there are any, are inconsistent with Mrs. Clinton's treatment of other, similar companies. The whole fuss is about no real conflict of interest, but merely the appearance of a conflict. The fact of the deal has been disclosed to the public, so everyone is going to be watching very closely to make sure Mrs. Clinton doesn't do anything on Capitol Hill to help her publisher. The scrutiny if anything will probably redound negatively for the publisher's owner, Viacom, which, as a big New York employer, otherwise might reasonably be expected to get some help from Senator Clinton on policy matters. What's probably going on here is that the Times has been shamed into criticizing Mrs. Clinton because it was so unjustifiably harsh on Rep. Newt Gingrich for his book deal a few years ago. Rather than holding all politicians to unreasonably strict standards that amount to vows of poverty, the Times would do better just to admit it was wrong to criticize Mr. Gingrich at the time. Smartertimes.com has differences with Mrs. Clinton on policy matters such as the Middle East and health care, but no senator deserves to have to forgo an $8 million book deal as a condition of public service. It's an affront to common sense. If the Times thinks Mrs. Clinton is so easily corrupted, it shouldn't have endorsed her in the first place. Maybe the Times is afraid that if Mrs. Clinton starts making some serious money, eventually she will start to see the merits of tax cuts.

Avoiding the Recount: The New York Times still apparently hasn't gotten over Al Gore's loss in Florida, to judge by the long article labeled "Resisting the Recount" that runs on today's front page. The Times article reports that James A. Baker III and his aides "moved into the state party headquarters, which is named after the first president named Bush, and seized on the goal that would govern their actions in the courts and the political arena: To block a recount." The article later refers to the "single, shared goal of preventing recounts."

This is nonsense. The Bush team made no effort to "block a recount." In fact, a machine recount was mandated by Florida law because of the close margin of the original count. The Bush team made no effort to block that recount. What the Bush team was trying to prevent was standardless, chaotic manual re-recounts of ballots that had already been rejected by machine counts as spoiled because voters failed to follow the clear instructions they were given.

The Times article also refers in an odd manner to a potential intervention by the Florida State Legislature, saying that the Bush lawyers discovered language that "might allow the Legislature to, in effect, supersede the election and appoint its own slate of electors." But the Legislature wasn't trying to "supersede the election"; it was trying to prevent Gore and the Florida Supreme Court from superseding the election on the basis of flawed manual re-re-recounts of "dimpled" chads. The Times doesn't have to agree with this view of things, but it would be nice if the newspaper acknowledged the existence of other points of view regarding the recounts and the role of the legislature.

Rocky on Rockefellers: A front-page story in today's New York Times reports on the sale of Rockefeller Center. "The deal severs the Rockefellers' remaining links to the historic complex that bears the family's name. For the first time since the family built the center 70 years ago, in the midst of the Depression, the Rockefellers will have no involvement with the 10 landmarked office buildings, Radio City Music Hall or the Rainbow Room," the Times reports.

That overstates it and is not, strictly speaking, accurate. Rockefeller & Co., the firm that manages the family's investments, has offices at 30 Rockefeller Plaza and no apparent plans to move; that certainly qualifies as a "link" or an "involvement."

Today's New York Times offers a front-page obituary, a "Metro Matters" column and an editorial, all devoted to eulogizing Mayor Lindsay. The obituary went up on the Times Web site yesterday afternoon, and it referred to the Queens neighborhood of Forest Hills as "affluent" and "well-to-do." By the time the obit appeared in today's newspaper, the descriptions of Forest Hills had both been changed to "middle class." That's also the description used in the Metro Matters column.

The Metro Matters column also includes a reference to "the racist, anti-Semitic teachers' strike of 1968." That's an odd reference; the Ocean Hill-Brownsville strike itself wasn't racist or anti-Semitic; it was a protest against racism and anti-Semitism. The president of the United Federation of Teachers, Albert Shanker, would have bridled at the notion that the strike he led was racist and anti-Semitic.

The Times obituary further terms the rejection by city voters of a Civilian Complaint Review Board that had been proposed to hear charges against the police "a major blow" to "the cause of civil rights." How it advances civil rights to haul police officers before some extrajudicial complaint mechanism is left unexplained by the Times. What about the civil rights of police officers? What about the civil rights of all New Yorkers to live in a city made safe by the ability of police to do their jobs without the interference of an institution created to undermine their authority?

Acknowledgements: An article in the Circuits section of today's New York Times describes computer consultants who make house calls. One consultant works for authors who collaborated on a recent book. The article reports that in the book's acknowledgements, the computer consultant "is mentioned ahead of the authors' families." The truth is, many acknowledgement sections in books follow the convention of saving the final acknowledgement for family. It's like saving the best for last. It's just bizarre to use that order of acknowledgement, as the Times does, to suggest that the authors are somehow more appreciative of their computer consultant than they are of their families.

Negotiating With North Korea: In an editorial today on "Negotiating With North Korea," the New York Times urges President Clinton to make certain "that a visit to North Korea would not interfere with a possible final effort to produce a peace agreement in the Middle East." What a perfect quandary for Mr. Clinton and the Times editorialists to find themselves in at the end of the Clinton presidency. Mr. Clinton is hopping from appeasement effort to appeasement effort, and the Times' big worry is that one appeasement effort might interfere with another.

Actually, wait -- the Times editorial acknowledges that "dealing with Pyongyang has its perils, including the fact that a Clinton visit would lend prestige to the North Korean leader, one of the world's last Stalinist dictators and a brazen violator of his people's human rights." It's funny how the Times all of a sudden discovers this concern when it comes to the North Korean leader but ignores it when it comes to the leaders of Cuba, Communist China, the Palestine Liberation Organization and Syria.

Late Again: The New York Times waddles in this morning with a front-page photo of a woman rabbinical student in Israel, Haviva Ner-David. The photo accompanies a front-page article about "a small but steady revolution that is redefining the role of women in Orthodox Judaism." This is old news to readers of the Forward newspaper, which ran Ms. Ner-David's photograph on its front page on February 18, 2000, alongside an article by the newspaper's religion editor, E.J. Kessler, that was more nuanced and balanced than is the Times dispatch today.

Note: Technical difficulties prevented updates to the Smartertimes Web site for the past few days. The Saturday, Sunday and Monday issues are available for those who missed them.

The New York Times runs on the front of its metro section today an article reporting on a step toward a mayoral race by the Rev. Al Sharpton. The article offers an extraordinary insight into the way the Times treats racial demagoguery.

"Although he won strong support in his 1997 race for mayor, Mr. Sharpton is still viewed by some New Yorkers as a highly controversial figure," the Times article says. Talk about euphemism and careful hedging. It would be more accurate for the Times to say that Rev. Sharpton is a highly controversial figure, because he is viewed by some New Yorkers as having engaged in racial demagoguery.

"But in recent years, he has reached out to a wider political spectrum, and has won acclaim for his role in leading protests after the killing of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed man who was shot early last year by police officers who fired 41 bullets at him as he stood in the vestibule of his Bronx apartment building," the Times reports. Note the passive construction: "has won acclaim." "Has won acclaim" from whom? From the knee-jerk liberals at the Times, perhaps, but not from supporters of the police or from Mayor Giuliani, who saw Rev. Sharpton's protests as an attempt to fan anti-police sentiment and exploit racial divisiveness in the city.

The Times omits entirely Rev. Sharpton's role in the aftermath of the anti-Semitic Crown Heights riots, in which he railed against "diamond merchants." And it omits entirely his role denouncing "white interlopers" -- Jews -- who owned a record store in Harlem that was later burned to the ground in a fire that killed eight.

Finally, the Times quotes, without comment, Rev. Sharpton's comment, "How do we fight back with George Bush in the White House when we know that federal investigations will not be so easy to get?" This comment is newsworthy in itself, suggesting as it does that someone with Rev. Sharpton's track record now finds it "easy" to bring federal investigations down on New York City. But the New York Times doesn't seem interested in investigating politically motivated Justice Department investigations of the New York Police Department, only in rehabilitating Rev. Sharpton.

Stancik Watch: A story in the metro section of today's New York Times reports that the special commissioner of investigation for New York City Schools, Edward Stancik, "denied rumors in education circles that he would leave his job." The Times apparently finds this piece of news so important that it sees fit to report it again, on the education page of today's paper. The education page says "people familiar with Mr. Stancik's thinking said he would stay," and it further says that "At a news conference yesterday, Mr. Stancik denied that he was leaving." Well, if Mr. Stancik himself says he is staying, what's the need for the sentence referring to "people familiar with Mr. Stancik's thinking"? Given the Times's editorial voicing concern for those redwood trees in California, you'd think the editors would have seized an opportunity to save some paper here.

Temple Mount: A news story in the international section of today's New York Times offers this account of Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem: "The Palestinian uprising began in late September after Mr. Sharon made a heavily guarded visit to the plaza outside Al Aksa, the important mosque in the contested holy center of Jerusalem, to assert Israeli sovereignty over the area." The Times doesn't even mention that what it refers to as "the plaza outside Al Aksa" is also the top of the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site.

Note: Technical difficulties prevented updates to the Smartertimes Web site for the past few days. The Saturday, Sunday and Monday issues are available for those who missed them.

An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports that Hillary Clinton considered buying the home of the Washington bureau chief of the New York Times. "This afternoon, Mrs. Clinton toured the home of Michael Oreskes, the Washington bureau chief of The New York Times, and his wife, Geraldine Baum, a Washington correspondent for The Los Angeles Times. The house, a single-family home in the Cleveland Park neighborhood, is listed at $1.7 million. But a person familiar with the search said Mrs. Clinton had found its layout wrong for her needs."

Well, good for the Times for disclosing this awkward situation. But why should Mrs. Clinton settle for merely the bureau chief's house in Cleveland Park? Smartertimes.com suggests that the senator-elect go all the way and have the newspaper's Washington bureau converted into living quarters for herself.

Note: Technical difficulties prevented updates to the Smartertimes Web site for the past few days. The Saturday, Sunday and Monday issues are available for those who missed them.

A story in the national section of today's New York Times runs under the headline "San Francisco Paper Struggles With the Printed Word." The article mocks the San Francisco Examiner for having developed "such a reputation for missteps that it has become sport in the city's cafes, not to mention San Francisco's other newspapers, to pick up The Examiner and play spot the mistakes."

Hello? The same can be said of the New York Times, which is developing quite a reputation for missteps of its own. The Times article mocks the Examiner for misspelling the name of the Examiner's own managing editor, but the Times recently ran a correction for having misspelled the name of its own owning family, the Sulzbergers.

The Times also criticizes the Examiner for "an odd choice of front-page stories," giving as the sole example an article reprinted from the Baltimore Sun about whether dodge ball should be banned from schools in Cecil County, Md. The truth is, the dodge ball story was a fabulous scoop with all sorts of resonance for those concerned about youths going soft in an age of overprotection and excessive emphasis on manufactured self-esteem. The Sun article played this for all it was worth, noting that "dodge-ball policy debates abound nationwide," quoting the director of the "National Amateur Dodge Ball Association" and archly quoting the language of the proposed ban on physical education activities "requiring human targets." The Sun's dodge-ball story, it just so happens, was written by a reporter that the New York Times itself tried unsuccessfully to hire last year.

The New York Times mocks the Examiner for its "misspellings," but the Times itself is rife with misspellings, as the Times' own executive editor told his colleagues in a speech at a retreat earlier this year, and as Smartertimes.com frequently points out. And the Examiner has a much smaller budget and fewer editors than the New York Times does.

A front-page "Man in the News" profile of Colin Powell in today's New York Times reports that "Although he wrote in his memoirs that he knew the Vietnam War was pointless, he completed two tours of combat duty."

Here's what General Powell actually wrote in his memoirs about his feelings leaving Vietnam after his first tour there: "In spite of my misgivings, I was leaving the country still a true believer. I had experienced disappointment, not disillusionment. I remained convinced that it was right to help South Vietnam remain independent, and right to draw the line against communism anywhere in the world. The ends were justified, even if the means were flawed."

Though later in the memoir General Powell is even more ambivalent about the war, it's inaccurate to portray him as having completed two combat tours "although" he knew the war was pointless. After the first tour, he still had a pretty good idea of the war's point, as his memoirs make clear.

Missing Mario: The City section of today's New York Times serves up a long and loving profile of Mario Cuomo, written in a way that gives readers the sense that the Times actually misses the governor. The article paraphrases Mr. Cuomo, unchallenged, claiming that Governor Pataki is interested only in helping the rich. And it concludes with a quote from an anonymous stranger, who, the Times claims, grabbed Mr. Cuomo's arm after a recent speaking engagement and whispered, "My only regret is that you're not running for president."

Lost in Russia: The lead article in the Sunday Styles section of today's New York Times is about Americans who seek wives in Russia. The article twice refers to a Russian city known as "St. Petersberg." Elsewhere in the article, the Times spells the city's name correctly, as St. Petersburg. Any off-the-shelf spell-checking software could catch this, never mind all the high-paid copy editors over at the World's Supposedly Greatest Newspaper.

"George P. Schultz": An article in the national section about what General Powell will mean for the State Department and American foreign policy refers to "former Secretary of State George P. Schultz." Again, this is just inexcusable sloppiness. The Times goes through the effort of including Mr. Shultz's middle initial, but it can't seem to grasp the fact that he spells his name without a "c." What is it with the Times that it can't spell names correctly?

In an editorial, today's New York Times writes, "The idea of using public money for vouchers in religious schools is on shaky ground, not only in the court of public opinion but also in the courts of law."

The editorial fails to take into account the views of Brent Staples, a member of the Times' own editorial board, who wrote recently that "the courts are beginning to smile on the concept of public funding for religious institutions," and that "The argument that millions of children must have their lives snuffed out by failing schools and incompetent teachers just to keep impregnable the wall between church and state has worn thin in millions of homes, including my own."

Where did Mr. Staples write this? Well, in the New York Times. Not in an editorial, though, but buried about two thirds of the way down in a book review in the November 26, 2000 New York Times. While the argument against school vouchers may have "worn thin" in the home of Mr. Staples and in "millions of homes," the New York Times is still clinging to it, as the editorial today demonstrates. We guess the Times -- not Mr. Staples, but the Times as an institution -- must just be in favor of making sure that millions of children "have their lives snuffed out by failing schools and incompetent teachers just to keep impregnable the wall between church and state."

Shameful Chapter: An article in the national section of today's New York Times reports on the release of a Palestinian Arab who had been held in Florida under the provisions of the 1996 anti-terrorism law.

The article reports that the released man, 43, "was born in Israeli-occupied Gaza." This is either false or a distortion; while Israel occupied Gaza briefly in 1956, it quickly retreated and didn't take Gaza again until 1967.

The Times reports that the released man was involved with "the Islamic Concern Project, whose activities included sending money to orphans in occupied Palestine." Never mind the use of the politically charged phrase "occupied Palestine," to refer to Israel or to the West Bank and Gaza, which is a violation of Times style. The Times doesn't bother to mention to its readers that the "orphans" helped by these Islamic relief groups are often orphans by virtue of the fact that their fathers blew themselves up in suicide bombing attacks on Israeli civilian targets. This doesn't necessarily make the "orphans" less worthy of assistance or mean that the released man belongs in jail, but it does seem like it would bear mentioning in an article that refers so sympathetically to "sending money to orphans in occupied Palestine."

Finally, the article neglects to mention what the Times itself reported on November 13, 1995 under the headline "Professor Talked of Understanding But Now Reveals Ties to Terrorists" -- that Ramadan Abdullah Shallah went from being a part-time professor at the University of South Florida to being the head of Islamic Jihad, a blood-drenched terrorist group. Again, this doesn't prove anything about the activities of the man whose release is the subject of the Times article and who was a former adjunct professor at the same university as Mr. Shallah. But omitting any mention of the genuine Islamic Jihad connections at the University of South Florida just skews the Times article in the direction of Rep. David Bonior, who called the detention of the Palestinian Arab "a shameful chapter in our nation's history."

Selective Quotation: An article in the national section of today's New York Times quotes the speaker of the House as saying "I support across the board tax relief because I believe it is one of the fairest ways to cut taxes." The article conveniently omits the introductory phrase in the speaker's statement, which went, "Despite inaccurate news accounts in the New York Times and the Washington Post, I support across-the-board tax relief because I believe it is one of fairest ways to cut taxes."

Freedom's Toll: A front-page dispatch in today's New York Times about the plight of Russia's doctors runs with the label "Freedom's Toll." But, as the article itself makes clear, the series would be more accurately slugged "Communism's Toll" or "Socialism's Toll." The article quotes one private doctor as saying, "When everything else took the capitalist road of development, and medicine was left on the socialist road, we got an imbalance that is killing medicine."

Lost in Massachusetts: An obituary in today's New York Times of Moses Abramovitz says that he is survived by his son Joel of "Newtown, Mass." It's likely the Times means to refer to the Boston suburb of Newton, Mass. (only one "w"); there is no incorporated town known as Newtown, Mass., though there is an area of Barnstable, Mass., that goes by that name. Internet phone directories list a Joel Abramovitz in Newton.

A story in the Weekend section of today's New York Times reports on the contemporary art scene in Brooklyn. "Getting to Williamsburg is a cinch: one stop on the L train out of Manhattan to Bedford Avenue," the Times reports.

This is a great example of the assumptions the Times makes about its readers. Clearly, this sentence or article isn't edited for readers who already live in Williamsburg and don't need to take the L to get there. It isn't edited for readers in the Westchester, Long Island or New Jersey suburbs, for whom the L train from Manhattan probably wouldn't be the best way of getting to Williamsburg, and for whom the trip might not be such a "cinch." It isn't edited for readers who rely on a car and driver or on an armored motorcade with motorcycle outriders and boats in the water to get them around the New York metropolitan area, and who wouldn't be caught dead on the L train unless all the chauffeurs had the day off.

Hastert Complains: Speaker Hastert issued a press release today complaining that the Times front-page story today mischaracterized his comments about a tax cut. "Despite inaccurate news accounts in the New York Times and the Washington Post, I support across-the-board tax relief because I believe it is one of fairest ways to cut taxes. I also believe that across-the-board tax relief may help the economy avoid a recession," the speaker said.

Health Care Economics: The New York Times today prints on the front page, above the fold, an article reporting that "Millions of American women who have been paying for birth-control pills out of their own pockets may have a claim for insurance coverage, under a ruling by the Equal Opportunity Commission." The story seems totally oblivious to health care economics, or to economics, period. You can't get something for nothing, even if the Equal Opportunity Commission orders it. If the government forces insurance companies to cover birth control pills, the insurance companies will pass the costs on to businesses in the form of increased premiums. And the businesses will either stop offering the insurance or pass the premium increases along to workers in the form of reduced wages or to their own customers in the form of increased prices. A reader has to wade all the way to nearly the end of the Times story to find quotes from spokesmen from the Health Insurance Association of America and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce making these points. But it would have made just as much sense to refer to these consequences in the first sentence of the story, rather than, as the Times did, emphasizing only the supposed beneficial effect of the ruling on "Millions of American women." The article might just as well have begun, "Millions of Americans will get smaller raises next year" or "Millions more Americans will find themselves without health insurance next year."

Dan 'Coates': What is it with the New York Times that it can't spell names correctly? A story in today's Times about the Bush cabinet reports that "former Senator Dan Coates of Indiana has been considered the leading candidate for secretary of defense." The correct spelling is Coats, without an "e."

A front-page "Man in the News" profile of President-elect Bush that runs in this morning's New York Times says, "Indeed, it is hard to see how Mr. Bush can claim any mandate at all." It may be hard for the Times news staff to see Mr. Bush's mandate, but they are being more blind than even the Times editorial writers, who endorsed Al Gore.

The Times editorial today says Mr. Bush reached the White House "without a numerical mandate," ignoring the numerical mandate that attends the majority of electoral votes, which, when the electors gather, now seems almost guaranteed to go to Mr. Bush. That numerical mandate is the only one that matters under the Constitution. The Times editorial at least says, "We believe that the vast majority of Americans are ready to be led by Mr. Bush." Apparently that "vast majority of Americans" does not include the ones that were responsible for that line in today's front-page story about how "it is hard to see how Mr. Bush can claim any mandate at all."

A news analysis in today's New York Times goes so far as to say that the Supreme Court's "muddled, if decisive, ruling on Tuesday night gave Mr. Bush his long-sought victory, yet denied him clear, unclouded title to the Oval Office."

Well, Mr. President-elect, get ready for four years of this. The New York Times has decided you can't claim any mandate at all and your title to the Oval Office is clouded.

Defending Hillary: The New York Times this morning runs a news story critical of Senator-elect Clinton's effort to sell a book about her experiences as first lady. "Some government watchdog groups suggested that such a large payment might create the appearance of a sweetheart deal or make her beholden to a publisher," the Times reports.

Oh, come on. This line of criticism was ridiculous when the left used it against Rep. Newt Gingrich when he sold a book. And it's ridiculous now that the same "watchdog groups" are using it against Mrs. Clinton. The Gingrich book and the Hillary book aren't, by all appearances, sham efforts that were devised for the purpose of making bulk sales to lobbying groups with business before Congress. They are genuine trade efforts designed to sell to individual consumers who want to read what the politicians have to say. If the Times or the watchdog groups can find an instance of Mr. Gingrich or Mrs. Clinton using their political power to intervene improperly on behalf of their book publisher's commercial interests, that might be a story. But the mere "appearance" of a conflict is the sort of ridiculous nitpicking standard that drives good people out of public service.

The "Reckonings" column on the op-ed page of today's New York Times unleashes a nasty attack on three conservative Washington think tanks: the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute and the Cato Institute.

"Since the policy recommendations that come out of Heritage, or the Cato Institute, or even the American Enterprise Institute are so predictable, what purpose do these organizations serve? Good question," the Times column says.

Well, the same question could be asked about the "Reckonings" column, which is pretty predictable itself. But if the three tanks in question are so useless, why do Times political and policy reporters often quote experts who are based at them? Are they wasting their readers' time? Why does the Times print op-ed pieces written by their scholars? If the AEI is so useless, why do even Democratic politicians like Senator Lieberman participate in its events on military reform, and why do even Democratic politicians like Rep. Richard Gephardt participate in its events on tax reform? Experts at Heritage and AEI provided the intellectual underpinnings for the Clinton administration's major domestic policy achievement, welfare reform. AEI's foreign policy thinkers such as Michael Ledeen, Richard Perle and David Wurmser are provocatively challenging the conventional wisdom in Washington when it comes to dealing with dictators like Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat.

The "Reckonings" column uses the phrase "ideologue" as if it were a dirty word, but what's wrong with having strongly held beliefs?

World Criminal Court: The New York Times comes in today with an editorial backing the idea of American participation in a world criminal court. The Times claims the court would further American interests, but it remains unclear to Smartertimes.com how American interests are furthered by allowing Americans to be hauled before a court operated by representatives of a bunch of tyrannies.

Pollard: In an article about the possibility of America freeing Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard, the New York Times today reports that Hillary Clinton "endorsed an improvement in Mr. Pollard's confinement conditions, but did not support releasing him." This gives the wrong impression. Mrs. Clinton's position was that she didn't have access to the classified information to decide for herself whether Pollard should be freed. It's true, she "did not support releasing him"; but she also did not support keeping him in jail. She just said she didn't have enough information to decide for herself. The Times makes it sounds like Mrs. Clinton wants Pollard to rot in prison forever, which may be true, but which isn't what the first lady and her spokesmen were saying during the Senate campaign.

The New York Times demonstrates once again this morning that, when it comes to the question of welfare, its own views are determinedly unreformed.

The Times runs in its national section today an article under the headline "Studies Dispute Some Assumptions on Welfare Overhaul."

The article quotes a law professor, Matthew Diller, as saying, "The public is notoriously ambivalent about issues relating to poverty and welfare. Americans both want people to leave the welfare rolls and want to prevent hardship, particularly among children."

Then the Times goes on to say, in its own voice, in a news article: "And because welfare polices are compromises that try to accommodate these conflicting goals, researchers agree that an economic downturn will change the politics of welfare anew."

There you have it, the Times view of welfare and poverty encapsulated in one succinct turn of phrase: the idea that wanting people to leave the welfare rolls and wanting to prevent hardship are "conflicting goals." That, of course, is nonsense. It is a failed idea that has ruined the lives of millions of poor people and wrecked dozens of inner cities, an idea that has been abandoned even by the Democratic Party's standard-bearer, President Bill "End Welfare As We Know It" Clinton.

As should be obvious to anyone who has ever talked to someone trapped in the perverse incentives of welfare, or who has ever thought seriously about it, or who has been paying attention to the policy debate surrounding welfare reform, getting persons off welfare and preventing hardship are not conflicting goals. Being on welfare is a hardship. Getting a job and getting off welfare is the path out of hardship.

It wouldn't bother Smartertimes.com so much if the Times disagreed with this, or if the Times quoted experts who disagreed with it. What is frustrating, and inconsistent with journalistic conventions, is the newspaper's refusal to even air the opinions of those who disagree with the Times' failed Great Society vision of the welfare state. Today's Times article quotes not a single expert who questions the party line that getting people off welfare equals creating hardship.

Professor Diller, by the way, once sued Governor Mario Cuomo of New York for being too supposedly stingy with aid to the poor. That's the mindset of the Times' go-to experts on welfare reform. Not even the bleeding-heart liberal Democrat Mr. Cuomo was generous enough for them.

The Times article also quotes an Urban Institute study purporting to show that "About one-third of the women who are no longer on welfare say they have had to cut the size of meals or skip meals in the past year because they did not have enough food, and about half report that either often, or sometimes, they do not have money for more food when it runs out." This suggests that persons in America are starving because of welfare reform. In fact, the welfare reform left the food stamps program mostly unaffected. And an Urban Institute study by the scholar quoted in the Times blames the food problems mainly on a lack of budgeting skills by single mothers and on the single-parent family structure, not on a lack of resources or on welfare reform itself. The Times article leaves out these findings, leaving readers with the false impression that persons are starving because of welfare reform.

'Blow to Minorities': An article on the front page of the business section of today's New York Times runs under the headline "Deregulation Called Blow to Minorities." The headline is almost humorous; the Times manages to detect a "blow to minorities" in almost any news development.

The other day, the newspaper detected discrimination against minorities in the fact that public schools are cutting back on physical education classes.

"These studies confirm that small minority and women-owned businesses are encountering difficulties in participating in the new economy," the article quotes the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission as saying.

The Times article and the studies document the supposed damage to minorities as a result of deregulation, but they say nothing about the benefits that minorities, and all Americans, have reaped in the form of cheaper cellular phones, better reception and greater choice. It's enough to make a reader suspect that the Times opposes deregulation.

And it's just patronizing -- and false -- to claim that women or minorities or small businessmen are having difficulty participating in the "new economy." Has the FCC chairman ever heard of Jerry Yang of Yahoo? Or of Cedric Muhammad at Blackelectorate.com? Or of the president of Time Warner? Or of the Oxygen network?

A news story in the national section of today's New York Times reports on an appearance by the Senate majority leader, Trent Lott, yesterday on the CBS News program "Face The Nation." The Times reports: "Mr. Lott said he thought Mr. Bush should seek large tax-rate reductions to keep the economy growing." This is a distortion of the actual exchange. Here's a transcript:

Moderator: If I hear the news coming out of the Bush camp is they're not ready to back off this enormous tax cut that candidate Bush has proposed. Do you think anything like that is possible with a Senate divided 50-50?

Lott: Actually, I do. First of all, I think that there will be the money there to reach that goal. I think that, looking at the economy and how it is reacting, some of the problems we have now, including the fact that we have an energy problem looming in this country. But all things considered, I think that a fair, across-the-board tax cut would be positive to keep the economy growing. Now, will it be every word or, you know, the absolute total amount? Certainly, that has to work through the process. But I think that there will be a major tax bill next year. Look, a lot of the taxes we did this year were bipartisan. The votes on a marriage penalty tax, eliminating the telephone tax, the death tax had Democratic votes for every one of them. We can do that.

Contrary to what the Times says, Mr. Lott wasn't commenting on what Bush "should" do; he was commenting on what will be possible in the Senate. And "large" wasn't Mr. Lott's characterization of the tax cut. "Large" is a characterization injected by a press that, for whatever reason, seems unable to understand that compared to the size of the projected federal budget surpluses or compared to the size of the tax cuts proposed by Steve Forbes during the Republican primary, the Bush tax cut plan is not "large."

Members of the Tribe: In a news article in the national section of today's New York Times, the newspaper describes a Gore lawyer, Laurence Tribe, as "perhaps the most well-known constitutional scholar in the nation, writing several books, notably 'American Constitutional Law,' which is considered the closest thing to a definitive treatise on the Constitution." "Considered" by whom? By the Times? Have they ever heard of the Federalist Papers?

Republican Racists: An article in the business section of this morning's New York Times contains the following quote from a passenger on a cruise sponsored by the Nation magazine: "It is such a relief to be able to sit at a dinner table and know that you are not going to hear a sexist joke or a racist remark about the wait staff. There are so many Republicans out there. You just don't know where they'll turn up." This assumption that Republicans are racist and sexist is apparently so unremarkable that the Times just passes it along unchallenged.

Decline in Executions: An article in the national section of this morning's New York Times runs under the headline "Federal Study Finds Decline in Executions."

The article reports that the decline is what "some experts believe is one sign of a new sense of caution and skepticism about the death penalty among both politicians and the public."

The article quotes a death-penalty critic as saying, "I think what we are starting to see is a new hesitancy and skepticism on the part of jurors in giving out the death penalty, and a new, more cautious rhetoric by politicians."

But there are plenty of other possible explanations for the declines in executions and in death sentences. The declines could be the result of the deterrent effect of executions that have already taken place. They could be the result of the decline in murders that is the result of the strong economy, better policing and the fact that more criminals are now locked up in prison where it is more difficult for them to commit new crimes. The Times article doesn't consider any of these alternative explanations. The only explanation that the Times considers for the decline in executions and death sentences is a supposed change in public attitude toward the death penalty.

The Sunday Styles section of today's New York Times features, on page 3 of the section, a comic strip. This would be unremarkable -- most other American newspapers have comics -- but this is the New York Times, where comics have long been a no-no.

In fact, by starting this comic, which runs with the title "The Strip" and which has made its debut in the past month or so, the New York Times is abandoning a longtime practice that was carefully guarded by its previous publisher, Arthur Ochs "Punch" Sulzberger, who ran the paper from 1963 to 1992.

In an interview with the Economist magazine in 1991, Mr. Sulzberger vowed that there would be "no comics, no horoscopes, no handicapping of horses" so long as he was in charge.

In a 1999 memoir, Max Frankel, who was executive editor of the New York Times from 1986 to 1994, recalls that Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. -- Punch's son who succeeded his father as publisher -- asked his editors to consider which comics the Times might pick up if the Daily News folded. "Stumped by Arthur's inquiry, I punted to Punch, who set me right with a typically wise and witty response," Mr. Frankel writes.

Frankel quotes Punch Sulzberger as writing, "I am very much from Missouri when it comes to introducing them in the New York Times. . . .We should nurture and strengthen the perception of the Times as a serious paper. . . . I am a comics reader from way back . . . .But I would have great reservations about importing or starting our own strips. . . . Suppose all these comics and an editor cost us $500,000 per year. Is that where we would best be spending it? There must be a million ideas to capture new readers and still keep us in the news business -- a business for which we are known and in which we excel."

The Times' new comic strip is just another example of how Punch Sulzberger's son has discarded his own father's wise preference for serious news.

Riding the Dog: An article in today's New York Times magazine quotes the chairman of security for the Air Line Pilots Association describing disruptive airline passengers. He says, "Remember, these aren't nice people. They're the kick-the-dog, beat-the-wife, Greyhound Bus types that don't belong in the air." Well, excuse me, but the Times might want to think twice before besmirching all Greyhound Bus riders by printing this quote unchallenged. The Greyhound Bus isn't exactly the preferred means of transportation for Smartertimes.com executives, but one once did a serviceable job of getting the Smartertimes.com editor from Albuquerque to Cimarron, New Mexico, in a pinch. And how dare the Times magazine suggest that the Smartertimes.com editor isn't nice? Anyway, the Times is trying to define its audience, and if the ads in the magazine are any indication, it is succeeding -- check out the ad today that advertises, "The World's Most Expensive Perfume, From $560." Not for "Greyhound Bus types," that.

Chad Chatter: The "On Language" column in today's New York Times magazine discusses the derivation of the word chad. The column fails to mention an explanation reported in the November 22 Wall Street Journal, which says that after the Korean War, a certain Mr. Chadless "invented a keypunch that didnÕt make a mess." The Journal reports that by a process lexicographers call "back formation," "techies in the brave new Chadless world began referring to any punched paper dot as . . . a chad." Smartertimes.com doesn't vouch for the accuracy of this derivation, but it seems like the Times should at least mention it as a possibility.

Old News: An article in the New York Times magazine today on money laundering in Nauru bears a funny resemblance to an article in the December issue of Mother Jones magazine on money laundering in the Bahamas. Sections in the two articles about Citibank's private banking business are eerily similar. The Mother Jones article lists Citibank's clients as the family of Nigeria's Sani Abacha; dictator Omar Bongo of Gabon, and Raul Salinas of Mexico. The New York Times article mentions Abacha, Bongo and Salinas. Neither article prints a response from Citibank. Both articles also mention an anti-money-laundering bill offered by Rep. Jim Leach. Smartertimes.com isn't suggesting the Times copied the Mother Jones article or did anything improper, just noting the coincidence.

Today's New York Times prints an editorial, "Cutting Luna," arguing against the "destruction" of any old-growth redwood tree.

"Their great age, their great mass, the fragility of their habitat, the declivity of the soils they anchor, the biological delicacy of the streams they overshadow -- all these things make their cutting indecent," the Times editorial writes, asserting that there is "desecration inherent in cutting 1,000-year-old trees for our short-lived, shortsighted uses."

The editor of Smartertimes.com has spent a fair amount of time among the redwoods of Northern California and finds them inspiring, beautiful and worth preserving. But the truth is, plenty of them are already preserved. California alone has the Armstrong Redwoods State Reserve, the Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Del Norte Coast Redwoods State Park, Grizzly Creek Redwoods State Park, Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park, Humboldt Redwoods State Park, Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, Mailliard Redwoods State Reserve, Navarro River Redwoods State Park, Portola Redwoods State Park, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park and Smithe Redwoods State Reserve, which, according to the California State Parks, encompass a total of 109,327 acres. The federally run Redwood National Park is another 75, 392 acres, and Muir Woods National Monument is another 554 acres. As the Times editorial points out, the taxpayers spent $480 million last year to buy another 10,000 acres of redwoods.

With this much redwood acreage already under strict protection, it is not as if the trees are in danger of extinction as a species. Any human who wants to go see them has no shortage of choices. So why does the Times oppose cutting down even a single additional tree, even on private land?

"Their great age"? Well, granite is older than redwood, but you don't see the Times editorializing against quarrying to create material for high-end kitchen counters.

"Their great mass"? Well, again, a vein of granite has plenty of mass. And if you want to talk about biomass, the young trees that the New York Times Company killed to produce the total press run of this morning's edition of its newspaper probably have a total mass far greater than that of a single old-growth redwood.

"The fragility of their habitat"? In fact, redwood habitat is characterized not by fragility but by durability. The trees withstand fires, earthquakes and tremendous extremes of wetness and dryness.

"The declivity of the soils they anchor"? Some of the biggest old-growth redwoods stand not on steep hillsides but in flat valleys. A walk through Muir Woods or the Armstrong grove would confirm that.

"The biological delicacy of the streams they overshadow"? Does the Times really think the streams overshadowed by redwoods are more biologically delicate than the streams overshadowed by the trees cut down to produce the Times? It must be something in the water.

What remains in the Times editorial is a kind of animism untempered by any concern for the property rights of someone who might own land with a redwood on it, and apparently untainted by the knowledge that when a redwood tree falls, eventually another one grows back in its place. In the end, the Times' argument for not cutting down any more redwoods rests mainly on aesthetics. And that is a tenuous position for the newspaper that in an editorial on August 29 came out in favor of a new city law that would ban discrimination on the basis of appearance.

The Popular Vote: Another editorial in today's Times says, "If Mr. Gore does carry Florida after the hand counts, Mr. Bush should concede, since the vice president would then have won both the national electoral vote and the popular vote." The Constitution makes clear that the popular vote has nothing to do with it. The Times says that candidates who follow its advice on these matters will be displaying "statesmanship," but in fact what they will be doing is disregarding the Constitution.

The New York Times today continues its love affair with those Communist spies, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.

It does this by reprinting an obituary of the Rosenbergs' prison rabbi, Irving Koslowe. The obituary was already printed in yesterday's New York Times, but apparently the Times considers the rabbi such an important figure that his obituary deserves to be published for two days running. In fact, it will be a wonder if the Times decides to exercise some restraint and not publish the obituary for a third time in tomorrow's paper, just for good measure.

Today's version of the obituary is slightly different from the one that ran yesterday. Today's includes an additional six paragraphs of information about the rabbi taken from an interview with one of the Rosenbergs' sons, Michael Meeropol, and from a book co-authored by Mr. Meeropol.

The Times notes parenthetically that "In news reports of the cold war era, the Rosenbergs were often portrayed as godless communists." But it quotes Koslowe as having told Mr. Meeropol, "I found them responsive at all times and respectful. I read some material about the fact that they had a disdain for religion. From my contact with them that was not apparent at all."

This is interesting to Cold War history buffs like the editor of Smartertimes.com, but in a larger sense, the Times account is misleading and irrelevant. Whatever the Rosenbergs' private attitude was toward prison Judaism, the fact is they were atomic spies for a regime -- the Soviet Union -- that was one of the cruelest offenders ever known against the freedom of religion. The magnitude of the evil wrought by the Soviet regime for which the Rosenbergs spied dwarfs whatever respectfulness the Times is able to conjure up as part of its continuing efforts to rehabilitate the Rosenbergs.

Remote Location: An article in the Weekend section of today's New York Times reports on the naming of David Marwell as director of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York. The article reports that "Despite its rather remote location, the museum has become a popular destination for school groups."

"Rather remote location?" This is ridiculous. The museum is located in Battery Park City. It's not remote to the residents of Battery Park City or of Lower Manhattan. It's not remote to the thousands of tourists who visit Battery Park to take ferries to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. It's not remote to residents of Brooklyn Heights who can get there by taking the 4 train one stop to Bowling Green. It's not remote for anyone who works on Wall Street. The museum is a short stop from the Bowling Green station on the 4 subway line, which runs up and down the East Side of Manhattan. The museum, in fact, is not even remotely remote. What city is the Times living in?

Buy a Yacht: Mark this sentence, a gem, from New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman's offering today: "Indeed, when we wake up 20 years from now and find that the Atlantic Ocean is just outside Washington, D.C., because the polar icecaps are melting, we may look back at this pivotal election."

Indeed. A checkable prediction. Try to remember 20 years from now to measure just how close the Atlantic Ocean -- not the mighty Potomac, mind you, the Atlantic Ocean -- is to flooding the White House. And either Mr. Friedman or Smartertimes.com will have a good "I told you so."