Karen Hughes

LAT reporter Paul Richter this morning reports that Karen Hughes is resigning her position at the State Department and returning to her home state of Texas. In reporting that, however, most of Richter's words are about Hughes' failures, as Richter perceives them, and America's image overseas, which Richter describes as bad and getting worse. Reading Richter's piece, it's hard not to conclude that he took the Hughes resignation as an opportunity to take a few swipes at the Bush administration, something that seems compulsive at the LAT.

Damning with faint praise

The LAT's lead front page story today concerns the reduction in civilian deaths in Iraq in the last 60 days. The LAT acknowledges that "the surge" may have contributed to the decrease but highlights other factors, one of which, the LAT says, is that the sectarian fighting has accomplished it's goal: the separation of Sunnis and Shias. According to that analysis, it seems the "civil war" is over.

Anonymous sources

Despite promises to curtail it, the LAT published this morning a front page Halloween scare story based on anonymous sources about the danger of an unintentional clash between U.S. and Iranian forces in Iraq, and the potential danger that such a clash could escalate into full fledged war. It could be a true story, but then it could be a figment of a reporter's imagination. The sources might be high level people with knowledge of the subject. Then again, they could be clerks or secretaries or mid-level people anxious to get in the newspaper. If the newspaper had named its sources, readers could evaluate the sources and decide whether or not to believe the story. The LAT would surely argue that they should be trusted. If the newspaper did not have a bias, that might be possible.

Choices are easy for LAT

In testimony before the Senate judiciary panel, the nominee for attorney general, Michael Mukasey, said that if water-boarding is torture then it is illegal, but he also said he didn't know if it's torture. Seems reasonable. He's a judge who sits behind a desk most of the time. What could he know about water-boarding. That doesn't bother LAT editorial writers though, who also mostly sit around. They think they're experts on water-boarding -- after all, they've read all the blogs. Mukasey was right to withhold judgement until he learns more about the subject, perhaps by observing it.

LAT on Christian right

The LAT editorializes this morning, arguing that the Christian right is shooting itself in the foot by insisting that it can only support anti-abortion presidential candidates. You wonder what the purpose of this editorial was. Was the LAT trying to help these Christians by giving them good advice? Nah. The LAT says it's pleased that these Christians are taking that position. Maybe the LAT sees the Christian right as an easy target, like President Bush and Blackwater.

O. C. Register found a smoking gun, sort of

In an editorial today, the Orange County Register says it found something in court documents of a case involving Quest Communications that suggests the government may have pressured Quest to provide customer call records to the NSA before 9/11. The problem is, the "something" was a mere allegation which the government denied. The Register admits it may mean nothing. So why base an editorial on it?

The Register is anxious to prove that the Bush administration violated the law or the constitution when it authorized the NSA's electronic surveillance program and claims that Americans' telephone calls and e-mail messages may have been intercepted without a warrant. But no American has thus far said his or her calls or messages have been intercepted. Until that happens and is proven to have happened, the Register and others are tilting at windmills.

LAT sop to Turks

Apparently to take the pressure off the lunatic congressional Democrats, who propose to stick their collective finger in the collective eye of our allies the Turks, the LAT this morning chastises President Bush and General Petraeus for not doing more to help Turkey wipe out the PKK in northern Iraq. The LAT wants the U.S. to join Turkey in a military adventure under a NATO umbrella aimed at eliminating the PKK. In other words, go ahead with the finger but put some American lives at risk so the Turks won't get mad. Makes sense if it's not your life and you have no qualms about risking others for a political purpose.