WHAT DID THE TIMES COMPANY KNOW? Nothing, probably. The issue isn't why Alex Beam didn't write about racist remarks by top officials at Metro International. There are a million reasons why stories don't always make their way into print, and Beam's explanation in today's Globe seems perfectly reasonable. It's difficult to get past on-the-record denials when you have no personal knowledge as to whether the charges are true.

The issue, rather, is whether Beam might have gossiped about the allegations, and if that gossip might have wafted over to the corporate office before the Globe's owner, the New York Times Company, decided to buy 49 percent of Boston's Metro. On that, Beam is definitive: "I never wrote a word about this story, and before now I never discussed it with an editor or colleague."

Absent any proof, there is no reason to think that Times Company chair Arthur Sulzberger Jr. or Globe publisher Richard Gilman knew about Metro officials' yukking it up over racist jokes before Rory O'Connor broke the story on MediaChannel.org this past Monday.

Meanwhile, Herald publisher Pat Purcell is pushing his antitrust case, arguing that combining the Metro - a free weekday tab - with the Globe amounts to a violation of the federal Clayton Act, which prohibits certain types of anticompetitive deals. The Times Company had announced last week that it was buying nearly half of the local Metro for $16.5 million. (Globe coverage here; Herald coverage here.)

Media Log keeps getting asked why Purcell - whose Community Newspaper Company subsidiary owns about 100 papers in Eastern Massachusetts - can credibly accuse the Times Company of forming an illegal monopoly. It's really pretty simple: there are things that a distant number-two can do under the law that the number-one player can't. For instance, Apple can integrate hardware, operating-system software, and application software in such a way that would land Microsoft chairman Bill Gates in prison if he tried to do the same thing. That's because Apple doesn't come close to controlling the market for personal computers. So it is with the Times Company and Purcell's Herald Media, Inc.

On the other hand, it looks like Purcell is going to have to disavow his own media guide, from which the Globe quotes today: "Herald Media provides advertisers with the greatest reach of any print medium in the Greater Boston area." Whoops! (Note: I'm not quite sure what the Globe is quoting. I can't find that exact phrase in Herald Media's online media kit, a PDF of which is available here. However, the kit is filled with similar triumphalism.)

I still think the easiest solution for the Times Company would simply be to buy the remaining 51 percent of the local Metro. The resignation of Metro USA president Steve Nylund, the prime offender on the N-word matter, is completely phony, since he's remaining in a top position with Metro International. Since Purcell is challenging the deal on antitrust grounds anyway, the Times Company might as well go the whole hog and push its dubious new business partners out of the way.

ALL METRO, ALL THE TIME. An anti-Metro blog went live today. It's devoted to the musings of a disgruntled former female staff member. Since you should be uncomfortable with the notion of my linking to an anonymous blog, let me assure you: I know who this is, and I know a little bit about her background.

BEAM HIM UP. Rory O'Connor is back on the case - and today he writes that Globe columnist Alex Beam knew about the charges of racism at Metro International and chose not to write about them.

WHAT? STILL NO WMD? O.J. Simpson is still looking for the real killer, but the White House has quietly ended its search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Associated Press reports. If this were merely a post-election ploy, it would be outrageous. But, in fact, the previous US weapons inspector, David Kay, reached precisely the same conclusion a year ago. During the presidential campaign, not even Bush or Dick Cheney continued with the pretense that weapons would be found. So this is more a sour denouement than a scandalous new development.

Bush tells Barbara Walters:

I felt like we'd find weapons of mass destruction - like many here in the United States, many around the world. The United Nations thought he had weapons of mass destruction. So, therefore: one, we need to find out what went wrong in the intelligence gathering.… Saddam was dangerous and the world is safer without him in power.

It's true that the consensus of opinion was that Saddam Hussein was harboring WMD. What makes Bush unique was that he kicked UN weapons inspectors out of Iraq even as they were accelerating their work so that he could begin his misbegotten war. Doesn't look like Walters reminded him of that, though.

MEDIA SCANDALS COMPARED. Hilarious and sickening, all at once.

TRIBUTE TO BRUDNOY. WLVI-TV (Channel 56) will broadcast a half-hour tribute to the late radio talk-show host David Brudnoy this Sunday, January 16, at 8:30 a.m. Hosted by a longtime friend of Brudnoy's, Channel 56 political analyst Jon Keller, the program "will include excerpts of Brudnoy discussing political issues during guest appearances on Keller at Large, highlights of Brudnoy's speech at the 2003 charity roast of then-House Speaker Tom Finneran, and a 1997 interview of Brudnoy discussing his autobiography, Life Is Not a Rehearsal," according to an announcement the station sent out.

Says Keller in the announcement, "It's my hope that the legions of Brudnoy fans will be reminded of what they loved about him and enjoy this retrospective of the master at work."

Must viewing.

TODAY'S OBLIGATORY METRO ITEM. Rory O'Connor's got yet another follow-up at MediaChannel.org. But he's a day behind - the two Metro International officials who've been accused of making racial slurs have resigned, though one, weirdly, is moving to a new position "without operational responsibilities," according to the Globe. (Quick synopsis: the New York Times Company, which owns the Globe, announced last week that it would buy 49 percent of Boston's Metro, a free weekday tabloid, for $16.5 million. Herald publisher Pat Purcell is fighting the deal on anti-competitive grounds.)

The Herald goes nuts again. If there's news, it's in this Greg Gatlin story, which quotes an antitrust lawyer named Conrad Shumadine to the effect that Purcell's legal complaint against the New York Times Company might have legs. Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, adds that he believes the Herald has "a serious case."

MEA CULPA, MR. JOBS. Apple fans say I didn't know what I was talking about when I questioned the wisdom of the new $500 Mac Mini, which comes without keyboard, mouse, or monitor. Read comments here.

My argument was that the all-in-one $800 eMac struck me as a better deal. But my critics point to this Hiawatha Bray column in yesterday's Globe, which reports that you can buy the peripherals for just a little more than $100. (Note to self: Never weigh in on a tech item without checking to see what Bray has written.)

Also, Apple is marketing the Mini to PC owners who've already got the needed peripherals stuffed in the closet somewhere. "If you already own a monitor, keyboard and mouse, you can get up and running in minutes," the company says.

So maybe the Mini will be a hit.

NEW IN THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX. The CBS report documents the latest in a long string of media misdeeds. You can bet it won't be the last.

AM I MISSING SOMETHING? I know that Apple's new Mac Mini is: a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse. It sells for about $500, which is supposed to place Apple squarely in the midst of the low-priced computer wars. But as this New York Times article points out, the all-in-one eMac can already be had for as little as $800. Can you really buy a monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse for much less than the $300 difference? I don't think so. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if you wound up spending more.

Both the Mini and the eMac are built around the speedy but not-quite-up-to-date G4 microprocessor. Granted, I haven't done spec-to-spec comparisons - maybe the Mini really is a better value. But at first glance, it looks like the cheap Mac of choice is still the eMac.

METRO AND THE INTERNET. To read the Boston Herald's World War III-style coverage of allegations of racism and sexism at Metro International on Tuesday, you'd think the tab had been the first to discover Rory O'Connor's exposé at MediaChannel.org.

Yesterday, O'Connor posted a tick-tock of what really happened, noting that Media Log was among the first, on Monday, to get this story further out into the open and to push for an answer from the New York Times Company. (The Times Company had purchased a 49 percent share of Boston's Metro for $16.5 million the previous week.) By Monday evening, Media Log had posted the complete text of statements from the Times Company and from Metro International. All this was amplified by the media world's online water cooler, Jim Romenesko's site at Poynter.org.

Noting that neither the Times Company nor Metro would comment for his original story, O'Connor writes, "The arrogance of the two 'communications' companies in refusing to communicate with the public about the tasteless, racist comments made by top Metro executives could not continue, however, due to the awesome, unchecked power of blogs and the Internet."

The war over the Metro continues today. In the Herald, which is trying to scotch the deal on anti-competitive grounds, John Strahinich and Greg Gatlin report on further allegations about the company. Herald columnist Howard Manly calls for a boycott (sub. req.), which he has also done in his capacity as president of the Boston Association of Black Journalists. The Herald editorial page observes, "The fish rots from the head." Gee, shouldn't that be attributed to Michael Dukakis?

Perhaps the most interesting comment of the day, though, comes from Rem Rieder, editor of the American Journalism Review, who tells the Boston Globe's Mark Jurkowitz that if he were an official of the Times Company, "I think I'd be thinking seriously about walking away."

Well, yes, that's one possible response. What Rieder leaves hanging is that the Times Company could move in the other direction, buying the remaining 51 percent of the local Metro and cleaning house. There's a certain logic to this. If the Times Company sticks with the 49 percent deal, it lacks the control it needs at what may be a troubled operation, as well as the leverage it wants in meeting the concerns of leaders in the African-American community. If it walks away, as Rieder suggests, the Metro is left staggering at a time when the parent company's North American operations are reportedly in some financial trouble. But if the Times Company buys the whole thing, it gets to control the Metro's destiny and just might be able to make it a more appealing paper besides.

I have no idea whether that would pass antitrust muster. Maybe it wouldn't - or shouldn't. But there's no doubt that would be Herald publisher Pat Purcell's biggest nightmare.

TIMES COMPANY, METRO RESPOND. Here is a statement from the New York Times Company and the Boston Globe regarding Rory O'Connor's article on MediaChannel.org about alleged racism and sexism at Metro International:

The New York Times Company and The Boston Globe have received reports of inappropriate comments on the part of Metro USA and are discussing these allegations with Metro USA's management. The Times Company is committed to fair treatment of all employees based on respect, accountability and standards of excellence.

And here is a statement from Ken Frydman, on behalf of Metro International:

On two occasions two years ago, officers of Metro International made public statements quoting other people who had made racially disparaging remarks. In neither case was the Metro employee expressing his own views and sentiments or those of Metro International.

In one case, a Metro officer, speaking at an internal conference, was asked to translate aloud into English a joke that had been handed to him by another Metro employee. As he concentrated on translating the joke to a foreign language, the Metro officer realized, to his dismay, that he had unintentionally made an offensive racial reference. The Metro officer, Steve Nylund, was rebuked by Metro's CEO for reading the joke and Mr. Nylund has since expressed his deep regret at having been led to make a comment that does not reflect his views and that he finds offensive. "The comment was made unintentionally during my translation," Nylund said. "Nevertheless, I deeply regret having offended anyone and I apologize."

The Metro employee who forwarded the offensive joke to Mr. Nylund is no longer with the company.

In the other case, a Metro officer, in a public attempt at self-deprecation, opened an internal meeting by citing an offensive salutation attributed to a German official. That salutation included a racially offensive word, which the officer awkwardly and inappropriately repeated by way of illustrating his contention that his countrymen were inept at public speaking. The Metro officer was reprimanded by a senior Metro officer and has expressed his regret at repeating a word he personally finds offensive.

While these isolated remarks do not in any way reflect the views of the company, Metro nevertheless apologizes for them. Neither incident should be viewed as a commentary on the commitment to diversity and tolerance of Metro International.

As to the false charges about the gender and racial makeup of Metro's workforce, Metro International categorically denies recently published allegations that a culture of racism and sexism exists at Metro. The company has a commitment to hiring and promoting without regard to race, religion, sex, or creed; employees who violate Metro's diversity policy are subject to severe penalties. Metro employs senior executives of many ethnicities and cultures as well as women in such senior positions as Publisher and Senior Vice President for Business Development. In addition, in The United States, Metro employs African-American, Asian-American and Hispanic employees in senior editorial and business positions, including Production Director and Marketing Director.

As the world's leading free daily newspaper group, Metro (www.metro.lu) publishes 42 newspaper editions in 16 languages that reach more than 14.5 million daily readers and 32 million weekly readers in 63 major cities throughout 17 countries covering Europe, North and South America and Asia.

MEDIA LOG ON THE AIR. I'll be talking about the CBS report tonight between 8 and 9 on The Paul Sullivan Show, on WBZ Radio (AM 1030). Yes, 'BZ is owned by CBS parent Viacom.

THE HILARIOUS COLONEL HACKWORTH. The following is my absolute favorite part of the CBS report. It appears on pages 96 and 97:

Colonel David H. Hackworth was interviewed by Rather as an expert to evaluate the documents that Mapes obtained from Lieutenant Colonel Burkett. Colonel Hackworth is a retired Army officer who has been a columnist, commentator and reporter for various news organizations. Mapes said that she asked Colonel Hackworth to "look at the back and forth" in the Killian documents because he had worked in the Pentagon and knew about Pentagon politics. Even though Colonel Hackworth was never in the TexANG, did not know Lieutenant Colonel Killian or any of the other relevant individuals, had no personal knowledge of President Bush's service in the TexANG and had no personal knowledge regarding the Killian documents, he reached some highly critical conclusions in his interview regarding President Bush's TexANG service based solely on the purported authenticity of the Killian documents and his general knowledge of the military.

First, Colonel Hackworth concluded that the documents were "genuine." He reached this conclusion by relating his own experience at the Pentagon during the Vietnam War when he was running the "Army input system for ... basic training." Colonel Hackworth said that, while in that post, he received and refused requests by members of Congress and generals to assign certain men to particular units and wrote "cover my own butt" memoranda in many cases to document his refusals. Colonel Hackworth then concluded that Lieutenant Colonel Killian was "in the same kind of pickle that I found myself in" and proceeded to discuss what Lieutenant Colonel Killian was thinking at the time he wrote the memoranda. Rather asked Colonel Hackworth whether there was any doubt in his mind that the documents were real, and Colonel Hackworth replied, "Having been down that road before I would say that these are genuine documents."

Second, Colonel Hackworth concluded that, by not taking his physical, then-Lieutenant Bush was "insubordinate" and would have been treated more harshly had he been "an unconnected Lieutenant." Third, Colonel Hackworth stated repeatedly throughout his interview that then-Lieutenant Bush was "AWOL" and that a person would have to reach that conclusion when reviewing the documents "unless you're the village idiot." Colonel Hackworth appeared to be referring to the fact that he had seen no evidence that President Bush was "present for duty" once he left for Alabama in 1972, although he did not articulate clearly how he reached his conclusion. Finally, Colonel Hackworth concluded that "the bottom line here is - is the abuse of power." He said that "[I]t's how people up at the top can ... lean on the little people."

Rather thought Colonel Hackworth was a "strong and valuable expert witness." Mapes also believed that Colonel Hackworth was important for the Segment and included excerpts of his interview in early drafts of the September 8 Segment script. These excerpts were ultimately cut from the final script by Heyward and West.

Note the report authors' deadpan humor in the last graf.

Here's a link to the PDF of the full Hackworth interview, although I'll confess that I haven't read it and don't intend to - it's 38 pages long, and I'm going to trust that the investigators found the best laugh lines.

THE N-WORD AND THE METRO. I'll be humping on the CBS report for the next couple of days. But I just got word of an astounding, sickening story about Metro International, the parent company of Boston's Metro.

Last week the New York Times Company bought a 49 percent share of the local Metro for $16.5 million. The Times Company-owned Boston Globe will partner with the Metro on content, advertising, and promotion. Boston Herald publisher Pat Purcell announced he will fight the deal on antitrust grounds.

Today Rory O'Connor reports on a pervasive culture of racism and sexism at Metro International so rancid that top executives apparently think nothing of telling foul jokes peppered with the N-word at company get-togethers.

I'm not picking this up from some unvetted corner of the Internet. O'Connor's article is online at MediaChannel.org, a respected website. I know both O'Connor and his principal source, John Wilpers, who's a former editor of Boston's Metro and who tells O'Connor he was an eyewitness.

O'Connor reports that Times Company spokeswoman Catherine Mathis would not put him through to company chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. or to Globe publisher Richard Gilman. But I have no doubt that both men will be revolted to learn what their new business partners have been up to. They should respond. Immediately. [Update: And so they have. Click here.]

MORE ON THE BULGE. Jon Garfunkel has assembled a useful overview of everything we know about the Bush bulge. A couple of quibbles.

1. He writes in reference to this: "The rage against the media meme has become a knee-jerk reaction by every armchair critic, and now it comes from Dan Kennedy. He's channeling more cynicism than media analysis." It's not that I disagree; it's that I have absolutely no idea of what he's saying. Sounds good, though!

2. He uses the word blogosphere three times in one post. He may not realize I'm grading him, but I take off 10 points for every mention.

I'm sure Garfunkel and I agree on this: the bulge is real, it's never been properly explained by the White House, and we're not going to know what it was or is unless the mainstream media start demanding an answer. Maybe not even then.

WATCHING THE PAT HEALYS. Late in November, after news got out that Patrick Healy was leaving the Boston Globe for the New York Times, I linked to what I thought was his first piece for the Times. As it turned out, it was a different Pat Healy. And apparently there are not just two, but three or four, so care must be taken.

Still, I am reliably informed that this piece from last Thursday was the former Globe reporter's first for the Times.

OMBUD FODDER. Normally I wouldn't torment someone for misspelling a name. But I can't resist pointing out that Boston Globe columnist Cathy Young misspells two today (Democratic strategist Mary Anne Marsh and blogger Ana Marie Cox) in a column right above (in the print edition, that is) ombudsman Christine Chinlund's annual roundup of corrections.

Writes Chinlund: "There were 98 corrections of misspellings [in 2004], although the paper does not attempt to correct all misspellings or grammatical errors." Well, Young's certainly got '05 off to a rip-roaring start.

Chinlund also reports that editor Martin Baron has begun checking randomly selected stories, in which sources are called to see whether they believe the story was accurate. This is a notion that was promoted by the Shorenstein Center's Alex Jones, among others, following the Jayson Blair scandal of 2003. It's an excellent idea.

Still nothing on Mallard Fillmore.

ATTACK POODLE. The Department of Education wants us to believe that Armstrong Williams was the only journalist who was bribed with taxpayer dollars to talk up No Child Left Behind. Perhaps that is technically accurate; but as Josh Marshall notes, in general terms that's not even remotely true. The Bush administration has been paying off commentators from Day One. It's time to find out who else is on the take.

How pernicious is this? Remember last spring, when Secretary of Education Rod Paige called the National Education Association a "terrorist organization"? Look at what Williams wrote in his syndicated column, headlined "The Education Cosa Nostra":

[T]he remark was right (even if it wasn't politically correct).

The two largest unions, the AFT [American Federation of Teachers] and NEA [National Education Association], hold public education system hostage. They are fundamentally opposed to any education reform-like vouchers or the No Child Left Behind Act - that seeks to hold public schools accountable for their failures. They attack such reforms because they know that these plans would mean the likely defections of public school personnel to privatized systems and the birth of competing collective bargaining entities. For the teacher's unions, the idea of competition can only mean giving up leverage and money.

Think about what is going on here. Williams was taking secret payments of a quarter-million dollars of our money in order to defend publicly the very public official who was paying him off. And we were supposed to think Williams was on the level.

Last June, Williams attacked John Kerry on behalf of his secret benefactors at the Education Department - sleaze defined. And here's another Williams attack on the NEA, in which he once again invokes the oh-so-lucrative No Child Left Behind law. I'm going to copy and paste the whole thing, not because it's worth reading in full but because I can: I don't think anyone is going to claim copyright violation for my reproducing a column that you and I helped pay for. Please note the wonderful headline that someone slapped on it - perhaps Williams himself!

The Big Education Sell Out

May 24, 2004

The National Education Association is the nation's largest professional employee organization, representing 2.7 million elementary and secondary teachers. Their professed goal is to make public schools great for every child. The real goal is to increase their own bargaining power by ripping to shreds any education reform that seeks to hold public schools accountable to their failures.

I don't think there is any doubt about this. For example, their most recent anti-voucher edict, it's called "Strategic Plan and Budget, Fiscal Years: 2002-2004, starts out by saying, the NEA's goal is to "focus the energy and resources of our 2.7 million members toward the promotion of public confidence in public education." So, in other words, their top priority is not the oft professed goal of "making public schools great for every child," but rather massaging the perception of public education. It goes on to say, "the success of students is inextricably tied to the success of teachers ... who serve them...." In other words, protecting the perception of public education is inextricably linked to keeping the teachers from being perceived as failing. This is important because it reminds us that the organization exists to advocate for the teachers who pay their dues, not the children. At least one way that the NEA has accomplish this is by sparing public teachers any close scrutiny. They are fundamentally opposed to any education reform-like vouchers or the No Child Left Behind Act - that seeks to hold public schools accountable for their failures.

Of course there is no academic reason why this should necessarily be so. Private school students routinely test better than their public school counterparts. At least part of the success of private school students should be attributed to the fact that private school educators are held highly accountable for their job performance. They have no long-term job security, work only on year-to-year contracts and are held accountable by annual job evaluations. In public schools, by contrast, powerful teachers unions have secured long term tenure for the teachers, thus removing a powerful mechanism for immediate accountability.

Sparing public schools teachers the rigors of accountability only makes sense from a business perspective. The two largest unions, the AFT and NEA, realize that vouchers would mean fewer teachers, fewer membership dues, the likely defections by public school personnel to privatized systems that have traditionally resisted centralized unionization, and the birth of competing collective bargaining entities. For the teacher's unions, the idea of competition can only mean giving up leverage. Since the job of unions is to accumulate leverage and membership dues, the teacher's unions have declared war not just on vouchers, but any meaningful education reform that seeks to hold public school teachers accountable for failing to properly educate our children.

For example, the unions have attacked President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)with the kind of ferocity that only a genuine threat (to the perception of public education) could pose. The NCLB initiative holds entire schools accountable when subsets of students - defined by income, race, etc. - lag behind in test scores. The act would withhold large amounts of federal funding to those educational institutions that are failing to properly educate their students.

Not surprisingly, the NEA's 108th Congress Legislative Program formally announced that they "oppose federally mandated parental option or choice in education programs." In case anyone missed the point, during the 2003 NEA convention delegates approved business item 11, which directs NEA officials not to use the title "No Child Left Behind" Act. In other words the level of opposition is so great that union representatives are barred from even raising the words "No Child Left Behind" to consciousness for examination.

By deciding that the very words "No Child Left Behind" do not deserve to be heard, the NEA goes beyond regulating education reform, and seeks to regulate the dialogue itself. Of course, genuine reform is never accomplished this way. More not less discussion facilitates learning. The best way to discredit bad ideas and combat distortions about education reform is to raise them to consciousness for public examination. By restricting the dialogue on this important issues, the NEA attacks a symptom, rather than the problem of underachieving public schools.

Of course this should not come as a surprise to anyone who has read their literature. Remember, their stated goal is to protect the "perception" of public education. The NEA's budget is constructed accordingly. Far and away, the majority of their money is funneled into improving government relations and corralling new members. According to their 2002-2004 budget summary, the NEA dedicated $13,532 million to "governance and policy," $19,582 million to "government relations," and $14,114 million to "state affiliate relations." By contrast, they spent $2,699 million on "Student achievement." Get it? The NEA isn't using their money to help our kids, or to make our schools better. They're using it to increase their own collective bargaining strength-that's their real mission-by doing everything they can to prevent public schools from being held accountable.

On a political front, the NEA is engaged in a full court legislative press. Last year, they lined the Democrats coffers with $20 million in donations, second only to the American Federation of State/City/municipal employees. Receiving a large part of your campaign money directly from the teacher's unions means the Democrats are obliged to repay the debt in some form. Maybe that's why the same Democratic representatives who send their own children to private school, are up in arms each session crying about how extending that same right to the poor would destroy the public education system.

Meanwhile our public schools are deteriorating, our children are being demoralized before they even have a chance, and our supposed leaders are refusing to even discuss the real problem. This is a crime. This is a shame. This needs to change now.

Try to wrap your mind around the hypocrisy of that next-to-last paragraph, in which Williams ripped the Democrats for accepting publicly reported campaign donations from the NEA while at the same time he was furtively stuffing his pockets with cash from the DOE.

IT'S SPREADING. Gawker.com has picked up on Mallard Fillmore. I still haven't seen a letter about this to the Globe, though, even though the worthless strip has frequently been the object of reader anger in the past. I think this Monday is Globe ombudsman Christine Chinlund's week to write. Don't let us down, Chris!

More seriously: I've gotten a few e-mails telling me that Mallard Fillmore is objectionable to liberals in precisely the same way that Doonesbury is to conservatives. (One similarity: neither is funny.) But the whole point is that you can't make the case anymore - not after this.

BOUGHT AND PAID FOR. I was running around earlier today and didn't have a chance to weigh in on the revelation that the meter was running every time conservative commentator Armstrong Williams said something nice about the No Child Left Behind law.

A little while ago I saw him on CNN Headline News saying that he can understand why people would think he was on the take if they don't know all the facts. Of course! It's like assuming Alberto Gonzales supported torture just because he wrote memos supporting torture. We shouldn't be too quick to jump to conclusions.

And as one of Josh Marshall's readers suggests about Williams, there are more facts to be known. Like: who else?

IMUS STEPS IN IT AGAIN. Don Imus has taken time out from his busy schedule of making fun of black people (click here and here) in order to make fun of Jews. Belief.net carries this UPI story about Imus making a reference to "thieving Jews," and then apologizing by saying the phrase was "redundant." Nice!

When the Anti-Defamation League complained, Imus reportedly replied, "Leave me alone, Jesus, God. Go after people who are actually doing something wrong."

Hey, I-man - you actually did something wrong.

The story, which appears to have originated with the New York Post, has already made it as far as the Jerusalem Post. I think we can accurately guess what the "two words" were.

I used to listen to Imus quite a bit, and no, I don't think he's racist or anti-Semitic. But there's no question he plays with race, ethnicity, and religion in ways that slide right up to the line, and that often cross over it. He's got to cut it out.

Speaking of dubious humor, Eric Alterman today picks up on Mallard Fillmore - and finds a new link. The meme is spreading. I hope.

HE OPINES. HE WHINES! Check out Corey Pein's letter to Romenesko, which he's also posted on his own website. Pein's letter has already started to draw responses, and I suspect there will be quite a bit more tomorrow.

NEW IN THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX. Internet speculation about Bush's and Cheney's health poses a media dilemma. Also in this week's column: Mike Barnicle's Herald stint sours; what the sale of Slate means for online media; and Arthur Sulzberger Jr. changes his mind.

RATHERGATE REVIEWED. There is a slight conceptual problem with Corey Pein's piece in the new Columbia Journalism Review, which is supposed to be a counterintuitive critique of the bloggers who helped to expose the CBS National Guard documents as frauds. The problem is pretty easy to define: the bloggers were right. The documents were frauds.

Now, look, I realize it wasn't quite that simple. Pein rightly exposes the pro-Bush agenda of many of those involved. And he observes that none of them could actually prove the principal contention: that documents CBS presented as being more than 30 years old had actually been produced on a modern computer using Microsoft Word's default settings. In fact, at the time that this story was unfolding, there were anti-Bush bloggers who presented dauntingly learned analyses showing that the documents could only have been produced by a 1970s-vintage electric typewriter.

Even so, the MS Word theory continues to be the most plausible explanation for how those documents came into being. And though Pein notes that some cable shows got carried away (we're supposed to be surprised about Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough?), mainstream media outlets like the Washington Post and the Dallas Morning News used the bloggers' speculation exactly as they should have: to dig and get at the truth.

If the media failed, it was in letting CBS's lapses freak them out so that nobody wanted to do any more reporting on George W. Bush's iffy service in the National Guard. The Boston Globe, to name one news organization, had been reporting on Bush's missing months since 2000, and its work has never been questioned.

Instead of exposing Bush, Dan Rather and company wound up immunizing him.

SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION. Tim O'Shea interviews the proprietor of this blog for a website called PopThought.com. The subject: Little People, my book on the culture of dwarfism.

WHAT OFFENSIVE CARTOON? The Special Ethnic Offensiveness edition of Mallard Fillmore has been removed from JewishWorldReview.com. I'll try to remember to see whether it pops up here.

KERRY VERSUS ROMNEY IN '08? It will never happen, of course. Mitt Romney may be plenty conservative for Massachusetts, but he's not nearly right-wing enough for the national Republican Party. John Kerry had the misfortune to lose as the standard-bearer for a party that rarely gives candidates a second chance, even one who came as close as Kerry did.

Still, here we are, three years and 10 months before the next presidential election, and Kerry and Romney are two of the most-mentioned White House possibilities for 2008.

Kerry's week started off with this Newsweek story by Evan Thomas, which does nothing to dispel the notion that he wants to run again. The Herald's Jack Meyers pushed that on Monday under the headline "Mag: Kerry Seems Ready for '08 Run." And today's Globe reports on Kerry's 13-day trip to the Middle East, with reporter Rick Klein calling it a chance "to maintain a high profile after his losing presidential campaign."

Romney's ambitions, meanwhile, have been the subject of speculation for some time, although it's pretty hard to figure out what his platform would be. There have been no major scandals on his watch, but his resolute failure to come to grips with the one he inherited - the Big Dig - has got to start catching up with him at some point, don't you think? Well, he can always talk about the Olympics.

Anyway, Globe columnist Joan Vennochi today looks ahead to a Romney presidential campaign, making much of this unfortunate Romney quote: "From now on, it's me, me, me." From now on? It kind of reminds me of that classic Pat Oliphant cartoon of Richard Nixon telling Barry Goldwater, "This time, no more Mr. Nice Guy!"

GLOBE LITE. A few months ago I wrote this piece for Bostonia magazine, which is partly about the phenomenon of metro dailies starting their own dumbed-down free tabloids aimed at young people. Now the New York Times Company has bought one for the Globe. Today both the Times and the Globe report that the Times Company has purchased a 49 percent share of Boston's Metro, which will soon start featuring some Globe content.

The Metro - an outpost of a Swedish conglomerate - has a circulation of some 180,000 readers in Boston. (The 300,000 figure reported by the Times is the number of actual readers the Metro claims to reach. Apparently the company has people who stand on subways with little calculators watching for commuters who pick up abandoned copies and start leafing through them.)

The big loser in this is the Herald, a quick 50-cent read that, since the Metro's 2001 founding, has found itself competing with a quick free read.

ONE STEP BEYOND. Several, actually. Do you see a problem with today's Mallard Fillmore cartoon? (Scroll to bottom.) No, no, not that. I already know it sucks. I'm talking about the depiction of the sleazy, culture-trashing "TV executive" as a cigar-chomping guy with a hook nose, thick lips, a bald pate, and curly hair around the sides.

I'll let you be the judge. I'll also let you enjoy the irony of its being posted at JewishWorldReview.com, a conservative website.

Here's a New Year's resolution for the Globe: drop Mallard Fillmore.

Somehow I don't think we've heard the last of this. I hope not.

FRANKS TALK. I started fact-checking Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby's annual column on "liberal hate speech" this morning, but stopped after I satisfied myself that he had not taken Walter Cronkite or Bill Moyers out of context. Oh, my. What were they thinking?

Still, I couldn't help but be struck by how pallid Jacoby's examples were compared to, say, George W. Bush's attaboy to the guy at one of his campaign rallies who accused John Kerry of faking his war wounds, or Dick Cheney's insinuation that a vote for Kerry was a vote for Osama bin Laden.

But never mind. Here's what I really wish Jacoby hadn't left out. At one point he criticizes liberal Republican Colin Powell for saying that Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith was running a "Gestapo office." Jeff! Why didn't you also quote conservative Republican Tommy Franks, who called Feith "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth"?

Talk about lost opportunities.

DISSECTOR SIGHTING. The New York Times has a nice profile today of Danny Schechter on the occasion of his new documentary, (WMD) Weapons of Mass Deception. Is Danny really 62? I think that may be a typo. I quote Danny in my story this week on podcasting (below). In case you haven't discovered his blog, here it is.

MEDIA LOG ON CNN. I'll be appearing on CNN's Reliable Sources this Sunday at 11:30 a.m. with bloggers Andrew Sullivan and Ana Marie Cox.

NEW IN THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX. A look at podcasting - downloadable radio for your iPod or other MP3 player - that promises to be one of the big media trends of 2005, and that could pose the most significant threat to commercial radio since the advent of television.

THE WORST BUSH. Tom "Don't Call Me Thomas" Frank has a useful corrective to nostalgia for George H.W. Bush on the New Republic's website. But Frank gets carried away, arguing - believe it or not - that Bush the father was actually a worse president than the current occupant of the White House.

It's too bad Frank's piece is available only to subscribers (click here to read it if you're a paying customer), because Frank's thesis deserves better than hit-or-miss summary. Although let me take a simplistic swipe anyway: anyone who tries to argue that Bush I was worse than Bush II because the former pushed a constitutional amendment to ban flag-burning, as Frank does, really needs to take another look at Alberto Gonzales's torture memos. At the very least.

Frank also omits entirely one of Bush I's signal accomplishments: the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, evidence that Bush's Yankee Republican impulses were not entirely dead. I don't doubt that someone will e-mail me that Bush had little to do with the ADA. I don't care. He supported it and he signed it. Bush II has given the ADA lip service, but today's Republican Party would just as soon get rid of it. Indeed, in 2001 our only president nominated to a federal judgeship a man who'd said the ADA was "not needed."

But Frank reserves the bulk of his essay for Iraq, tying himself into knots in attempting to show that Bush I's largely successful intervention to liberate Kuwait was, in fact, a bigger disaster than Bush II's current war. Frank builds his case mainly around Bush I's outspoken support for Iraq's Kurds and Shiites to rebel against Saddam Hussein in 1991, which led to slaughter after Bush refused to back up his words with force. He writes:

[W]hat is worse: telling the world that you are sure about WMD when you are only pretty sure - or telling a group of people that you support their efforts to rebel and then standing by as they get killed? Killing thousands in an attempt bring democracy to a brutal dictatorship - or allowing many thousands more to be killed in the name of holding together a coalition and maintaining regional stability by preserving a brutal dictatorship? If we are ashamed of the actions Dubya has taken in our name, why are we not even more ashamed of the actions Poppy took in our name?

Oh, come now. Bush I engaged in amoral realpolitik, and for that he deserves some criticism. But was it a bad thing that the Kurds and the Shiites rebelled? Did anyone really think we were going to rush in and support them? There was every reason to think the rebellion might have succeeded; it failed, as Frank himself notes, because the Iraqi army turned its guns on the rebels rather than on Saddam. Tragic as it was, these things happen, and it's hardly a reason that Bush I shouldn't have encouraged a coup. Bush II, on the other hand, is merely responsible for the single worst foreign-policy debacle since Vietnam, maybe even including Vietnam. Bush I's cynicism enhanced our alliances with the world community. Bush II's idealism has destroyed those alliances.

Frank does concede that he's got a difficult case to make. At one point he writes of Bush II:

Perhaps torturing prisoners at Abu Ghraib wasn't such a brilliant idea. Perhaps deceiving the public on the grounds for war and squandering the nation's credibility for at least a generation will be judged to have been impulsive. And perhaps we'd be better off not having gone into Iraq, even if it meant that Saddam held power still. America would probably be financially healthier and less hated abroad, 1,300 Americans would still be alive, and 10,000 more would have been spared devastating injuries.

Well, duh.

Here is Frank's mistake. He starts out criticizing pundits like Thomas Friedman and Fareed Zakaria for building up Bush I as a way of tearing down Bush II. In the end, though, Frank does just the opposite, building up Bush II as a way of making the case against Bush I. He does it sort of half-heartedly; he acknowledges that Bush II has some shortcomings, to put it mildly. But there you go.

It's really pretty simple. Both Bushes, father and son, were and are lousy presidents. But the son is worse - much worse. Is there really any doubt about that?

SUFFER THE CHILDREN? There are no victims of the earthquake more heartbreaking than the children. The lead photo in this morning's New York Times is particularly wrenching: it depicts an Indian mother wailing over the bodies of dead children, some of them hers.

But it would appear that the sheer emotion of this tragedy has clouded the Times' news judgment. Consider the headline: "Toll in Undersea Earthquake Passes 25,000; a Third of the Dead Are Said to Be Children." Now, granted, the tone of the headline is just-the-facts. But by emphasizing that a third of those killed were children, the clear message is that they were disproportionately the victims of this awful tragedy.

The main story, by Seth Mydans, adds to that impression in the second paragraph:

The toll from the disaster - with more than 25,000 dead and many unaccounted for - came into sharper relief on a day when it seemed increasingly clear that at least a third of the dead were children, according to estimates by aid officials.

Mydans's seventh paragraph expands on this - but contains an odd kicker:

The realization began to emerge Tuesday that the dead included an exceptionally high number of children who, aid officials suggested, were least able to grab onto trees or boats when the deadly waves smashed through villages and over beaches. Children make up at least half the population of Asia.

What? Let's back up for a moment. You don't have to be a math whiz to realize that if a third of the victims are children, but if at least half of all Asians are children, then, if anything, the victims of the earthquake were disproportionately adults.

Does this distinction matter? Not very much, perhaps. Journalists are struggling to make sense of these terrible events, and it's inevitable that some hyperbole is going to creep into their coverage. But editors back in the home office, at least, ought to be able to stop and think before putting together a front page that can't hold up its own internal logic.

TALK SOUP. Bob Garfield either wasn't thinking, or has a finely honed sense of irony. Actually, listeners already know he's dripping with irony. So the question is whether or not he was thinking.

I was listening to the podcast of NPR's On the Media while driving to work this morning when I heard Garfield's report on the media's overreliance on a few much-quoted experts, like congressional analyst Norman Ornstein and consumer advocate Gene Kimmelman.

So far, so good. But who was Garfield's main talking head? Why, it was Robert Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University, and no slouch himself in the talking-head department. Indeed, a search of just "major papers" on Lexis-Nexis for the past 12 months reveals that Thompson was trotted out for a quote 289 times.

Thompson is used as often as he is because he's accessible, and he always has something interesting to say. As they say in the trade, he gives good phone. In fact, I called upon him as recently as last week, for a piece I was writing on FCC chairman Michael Powell.

Still, there was something perversely amusing about listening to Thompson talk with Garfield about the need for journalists to expand their rolodexes beyond the usual suspects.