NOW They Tell Us

New York Times coverage shows independence (at last)

By Chris Daly


THE MOST IMPORTANT THING about the special report on Page 1 of the Sunday New York Times (Sept. 9) was that it existed at all. Taking up the bulk of the front page space “above the fold,” the report was an effort to supply readers with a comprehensive assessment of the situation in Iraq, just ahead of the long-awaited report by Gen. David Patreus.
What’s significant about the Times’ report is that it was the product of independent, on-the-ground reporting. It was not a summary of things that were said by experts or other people. It was first-hand.

Whether the report was correct in every particular is another question. Whether the conclusion is justified by the facts is open to dispute.

But that is precisely the point. Those of us who cannot go to Baghdad and see for ourselves are entirely dependent on those who are there on the ground. In a time of war, what could be more valuable to those reader/citizens who must ultimately decide what to do in Iraq?

The story also reflects the institutional heft of The New York Times. The page 1 piece bears two bylines, but that fact barely suggests the commitment behind the story. Inside, there is an italicized “credit box” listing 16 other people who contributed to the report, including military affairs specialist Michael Gordon and quite a few whose names appear to be Iraqi. Add to that the number of artists, photographers, videographers, and cartographers who created the accompanying visual package. Add to that the teams of editors who doubtless pored over the whole thing. There were probably no fewer than 40 people involved.

And it was hardly a “day” story. That is, this piece was not a reaction to events that occurred on Saturday. It was the results of weeks of sustained reporting targeted toward this final result. It was undertaken at the newspaper’s initiative.

Still, the report raises a question: Where was this kind of tough, skeptical, independent reporting before the war?
Or in the first couple of years of the invasion and occupation of Iraq?
After the passage of this much time, World War II was over.

A RUNAWAY PRESIDENT?

REMEMBER THE OTHER FOUNDERS, TOO


The Federalist Papers Tell Only Half the Story

Real Rebels – Like Jefferson, Henry, Paine – Get Short Shrift


Adam Cohen had a fine and important piece in the Times this week. It took the form of a signed editorial (which is its own subject – an odd hybrid of the signed op-ed piece and the institutional, unsigned editorial).

In it, Cohen argues that “the founders,” in writing the Constitution, carved out a substantial role for Congress in declaring war, in raising armies and navies, and in waging war. In the current context, he was supplying historical ammunition to those who want to rein in the current chief executive and hasten the U.S. exit from the tragedy in Iraq. As good as his editorial was, it could have been stronger.

Trouble was, it was based on a misconception, which led him to a weak conclusion.

Here’s why: when invoking “the founders,” it is important to remember that there were a whole lot more founders than the Big Three (Hamilton, Madison, and Jay) who wrote the collection of arguments we know as The Federalist Papers. As you can discover in Chapter 2 of my book, the authors of the Federalist Papers were a small segment of the much larger group of “founders.” Granted, they were articulate and forceful. But the arguments collected in the Federalist Papers were just one school of thought, and they were among the founders who were most comfortable with executive power.

Almost always, the other founders are overlooked.

The Federalist Papers were written during the crucial debate over whether to ratify the Constitution. They were written when Hamilton began to worry that ratification might fail because of the popularity of the arguments being put forward by the critics of the draft constitution. Those critics, known as anti-federalists, were even more skeptical of executive power than the federalists. They saw executive power as inherently aggressive and grasping. They believed that any individual, unless checked, would seek to gather power and aggrandize himself.

As it happened, Jefferson was out of the country during this critical period (serving as America’s minister to France), so he did not reply directly to Hamilton, et. al. But plenty of other anti-federalists did reply. Their arguments appeared in dozens of newspapers, and they too have been collected. They appear in a book that is not nearly as well read (or widely assigned in schools) as The Federalist Papers but deserves to be better known. It is called (no surprise), The Anti-Federalist Papers. Amazon has several versions for sale, and you can find several good sources on-line by searching for “anti-federalist.”
See, for example, the argument put forth by the pseudonymous “Brutus” about the dangers of a standing army, in which the argument is made that it should take a 2/3 vote of Congress to even raise an army unless we are actually attacked by a foreign power. Such a provision in the Constitution would make it far more difficult for a president to launch into foreign misadventures like invading Iraq.

In general, when contemporary authors want to invoke the authority of “the founders,” they should do more than grab their trusty old copy of the (one-sided) Federalist Papers.