LIBERTY BULL. Bush did two things in his 21-minute inaugural address that were noteworthy. First, he linked the war in Iraq - and possibly wars to come, since he never actually used the word "Iraq" - to an American mission of spreading liberty across the world. Second, he wrapped up his domestic agenda in that quest for liberty, casting proposals such as the privatization of Social Security in the gauzy haze of freedom.

It was a skillful performance, but that was to be expected. Anyone who still thinks that Bush is going to fumble his way through the prepared text of a major speech just hasn't been paying attention for the past four years.

To the extent that one speech can help shape the national conversation, it was also incredibly dangerous. The projection of American values is not just a neoconservative idea - it was a central tenet of the muscular liberalism of the pre-Vietnam Democratic Party as well. But the Bush administration's planning and execution to date has been so arrogant and inept that it is terrifying to contemplate what he's got in mind next. Iran, perhaps?

The key to Bush's address came early:

We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world....

So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.

Is that all? The problem with a goal this sweeping, as we've all seen, is that this president does not mean it as glittering rhetoric - he means it as something he actually intends to try to do. And though he said his march for freedom is "not primarily the task of arms," that has not exactly been the experience to date.

Here's how he tied it to his domestic agenda:

In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence. This is the broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act, and the G.I. Bill of Rights. And now we will extend this vision by reforming great institutions to serve the needs of our time. To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools, and build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance - preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.

Sounds good, doesn't it? Except that we already know what it means. It's the "retirement savings" part of this that seems closest to his heart. And what he intends to do is dismantle Social Security - a system whose finances will be solvent for decades to come if he just tweaks it a bit - in order to give us all a chance to gamble our retirement away on the stock market.

Despite Bush's narrow re-election victory and low approval ratings, he is treating his second term as a ratification of everything he's done to date, and as a mandate now to do more of the same. Even Tim Russert, usually more sycophant than cynic, criticized Bush for his already-notorious Washington Post interview of last weekend, in which Bush said that last November's election was all the accountability he needed for his preposterous Iraq policies.

What we can hope for, I suppose, is that Bush's hubris, already bursting at the seams, will trip him up as his second term gets under way, forcing him to be a very different sort of president than he might like. Second-term-itis ruined Richard Nixon, and it nearly destroyed Ronald Reagan's presidency as well. (I would invoke Bill Clinton, but I'm not sure that hitting on the interns comes under the category of second-term-itis.)

Unfortunately, unlike the situation with Nixon and Reagan, Congress isn't going to stop Bush. He can only stop himself.

PROPS TO GEORGE STEPH. Once a decade, I say something nice about ABC News analyst George Stephanopoulos. Today's the day. While over on CBS Bob Schieffer was puzzling over Bush's failure to mention Iraq by name, Stephanopoulos was holding up a copy of Natan Sharansky's The Case for Democracy, which Bush has reportedly found so inspirational that he invited the former Soviet dissident to the White House last fall.

Sharansky's book argues - as Bush did today - that the spread of democracy and liberty throughout the world will make us all safer.

It's hard to disagree. What I worry about is Bush's notion that he, personally, can make it happen - and that unilaterally invading a country is one of the ways of accomplishing it.

WHOLE LOTT OF LOVE. Two years ago, the Bushies got some well-deserved praise for pushing then-Senate Republican leader Trent Lott out of the way after he made his segregationist sympathies clear at a birthday party for Strom Thurmond.

So what was up with Lott's full-scale rehabilitation? It's not like he had been sent into exile. He's still a US senator from Mississippi. He has occasionally made himself useful, as in his opposition to the FCC's rush to deregulate media ownership even more than it already has been. But what has he done to deserve center stage at the inauguration?

Lott truly got to bask in the glow. He was just a few feet away when Bush denounced racism. He got to introduce and shake hands with Pastor Kirbyjon Caldwell, an African-American minister who gave the benediction. I mean, Bush let old Trent get himself cleaned up real nice. But why? I don't get it.

PROTESTS ON CABLE. C-SPAN 2 is carrying the ANSWER Coalition's CounterInaugural live.

LIBERTY IN THEORY AND PRACTICE. I'll have more to say about the president's just-finished inaugural speech in a bit. It was important because there were so few euphemisms: he told us exactly where he's going. Duck!

Interesting, though, that in a speech in which he invoked the word "liberty" repeatedly, there was damn little of it in front of the Capitol. In just the last few moments, I saw a police officer lead away a woman who was flashing the peace sign with both hands, and a group of officers forcing other demonstrators to take down their banner. I could only make out the word "war."

I thought the authorities were on hand to provide security - not to protect the star attraction at this choreographed spectacle from the inconveniences of the First Amendment.

ENTER REHNQUIST. A truly moving moment: the elderly chief justice, suffering from thyroid cancer, just made his way to the stand, walking with some difficulty and assistance, although he managed the last stretch by himself. The tracheotomy tube is clearly visible, but other than that he looks like himself, right down to the robe with the Gilbert & Sullivan stripes.

RATHER PECULIAR. Within 30 seconds of my scanning around the tube, I heard Doris Kearns Goodwin (on NBC) and Jeff Greenfield (on CNN) voice lame bromides about bipartisanship. The hell with that. I know where I want to be: CBS, where Dan Rather is anchoring his first big event since we learned he'd taken back his apology over the National Guard documents.

He's got as his sidekick the ancient and obscure Republican operative Ed Rollins, which may be a sign of just how low the Dan's stock has fallen. Bob Schieffer's in the booth, too.

Bush and Cheney are both outside now, waiting for the proceedings to begin. The sunlight doesn't seem to be bothering Cheney. But he does appear to be looking furtively about - perhaps for a man with a hammer and a wooden stake?

Trent Lott is speaking. Why? Is Bush going to come out for segregation?

BLOGGING BUSH'S BASH. There's been a change of plan. I've returned to Media Log Central, and will be blogging the inauguration through most of the day. Only Hunter Thompson could do this hideous spectacle justice, but I'll do what I can.

A little while ago, during my drive back to the compound, I heard right-wing talk-show host Mike Gallagher interview Tod Brilliant, of Not One Damn Dime Day, which is urging a consumer boycott today to protest the war in Iraq.

Gallagher was amazingly polite - he's never going to be able to play with Rush and O'Reilly if he keeps this up - but his manners were exceeded only by his cluelessness. He asked Brilliant whether Not One Damn Dime's real goal was to find a way to make money on the Internet. After Brilliant assured him that was not the case, Gallagher followed up by asking whether Not One Damn Dime was "against capitalism." Really.

All this was interspersed with the clumsiest on-air sponsor announcements I've heard in quite a while - three times in 10 minutes, Gallagher had to interrupt Brilliant to read ads.

Gallagher also let Brilliant pull a fast one. Brilliant claimed that because John Kerry favored the war, Not One Damn Dime would have called for a day of protest even if Kerry had been elected president. I, uh, think not. (Maybe Brilliant, a Nader supporter, would have staged his own one-person boycott.) But Gallagher said nothing. Probably thinking about the next sponsor.

By the way, Gallagher, Ramblin' Gamblin' Bill Bennett, Hugh Hewitt, and an assortment of other right-wingers can be heard locally on WTTT Radio (AM 1150), which is apparently devoted to the proposition that Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and the like just aren't right-wing enough, damn it!

WHAT'S A FEW MILLION? There's the Bush-whacking that he deserves, and there's the Bush-whacking that takes place because liberals can be just as stupid as conservatives. In the latter category: prolonged moaning over the $40 million cost of Bush's inauguration, as though he ought to take it all and donate it to tsunami relief. (Where money doesn't seem to be a problem, by the way.)

So where's the context? Here's the context. Cost of Bush's 2001 inauguration: $40 million; cost of Clinton's 1997 inauguration: just a shade under $30 million - down from the $33 million he spent in 1993. (By the way, the CNBC.com story I cite refers to Bush's spending this year as a "record," even though it appears to be basically the same as four years ago.)

Yes, Clinton spent a bit less, but not that much less. And of course you've got to adjust for the fact that Republicans drink better-quality booze.

NEW IN THIS WEEK'S PHOENIX. Google, the company everyone loves, knows more about you than you might realize. Also, how the Internet drove coverage of Metro International's bad behavior.

I'm on an assignment that keeps me away from my computer most of the time, so blogging is likely to be light for at least the next day or so.

METRO MARKET WATCH. There appears to be a lull in the Metro wars today, so I thought I'd take a closer look at what is likely to be the most enduring issue: the matter of whether the New York Times Company's acquisition of a 49 percent share of Boston's Metro constitutes a violation of antitrust laws.

Let me hasten to add that you won't find out the answer to that question here. Rather, I want to show that the Greater Boston newspaper market is a lot more complicated than either the Globe or the Herald has portrayed it so far.

According to reports, Herald publisher Pat Purcell, who has taken his antitrust complaint to the Justice Department, is defining the market as comprising three daily papers: the Globe, the Herald, and the Metro. Let's look at the latest figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Because the Metro publishes only on weekdays, I'm only going to look at Monday-through-Friday numbers

• Globe: 451,471
• Herald: 240,759
• Metro: 180,000 (est.)

Under this formulation, the Globe controls 52 percent of the market; the Herald, 28 percent; and the Metro, 20 percent. Purcell notes that allowing the deal to move forward will give the Times Company 72 percent, which, he argues, violate guidelines governing anti-competitive behavior.

In fact, though, Purcell could paint the picture in broader strokes. If you consider the entire Eastern Massachusetts market, the Times Company also owns the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, whose weekday circulation is 103,113. Purcell's Community Newspaper subsidiary owns four daily papers with a total weekday circulation of 50,608: the MetroWest Daily News (Framingham), the Daily News Tribune (Waltham); the Daily News Transcript (Dedham); and the Milford Daily News. That gives Purcell's Herald Media a total daily circulation of 291,367.

(Note: the ABC report for the MetroWest Daily News appears to combine the other three dailies, but that's not entirely clear. Nevertheless, the 291,367 figure matches up closely with a total daily circulation figure that appears on page 12 of Herald Media's online media kit. PDF file here. So if I'm off, it's not by much.)

Let's run the numbers again. Under this formulation, the Times Company's weekday circulation (the Globe, the T&G, and the Metro) would be 734,584, or 72 percent of the total daily newspaper market. Herald Media would control 28 percent (the Herald plus the four suburban dailies). With that exercise, the numbers look exactly the same.

But wait. In statements filed with ABC, Purcell says that the paid circulation of his weekly papers is 233,679. On the Herald Media website, he claims a weekly circulation of 517,242. The lower figure would appear to be for his paid, community-based weeklies (there are 89, though some are free); the higher number apparently includes all of his weekly holdings, which also comprise 21 shoppers and specialty publications.

How do Purcell's weekly papers affect his antitrust argument? It's hard to say. To be sure, it's an apples-and-oranges comparison, but when you factor in the weeklies as part of Purcell's holdings, there's no question that the Times Company - though still dominant - doesn't look quite as fearsome. The weeklies are a big business for Purcell, with considerable economies of scale in terms of shared expenses and the cross-selling of advertising.

Now let's go a little deeper. In their public statements about the Metro deal, Times Company spokeswoman Catherine Mathis and Globe publisher Richard Gilman have referred to Greater Boston as the most competitive newspaper market in the country. Whether that's technically accurate or not, it is certainly true that there are more options here than in many parts of the country. Here, for instance, are a few ABC figures for other daily newspaper groups in Eastern Massachusetts:

• Ottaway Newspapers: the Standard-Times (New Bedford) and the Cape Cod Times; total weekday circulation, 85,313.
• South of Boston Media Group: the Patriot Ledger (Quincy) and the Enterprise (Brockton); total weekday circulation, 92,228.
• Eagle-Tribune Publishing: the Eagle-Tribune (Lawrence), the Salem News, the Daily News (Newburyport), and the Gloucester Daily Times; total weekday circulation, 105,524.
• MediaNews Group: the Sun (Lowell) and the Sentinel & Enterprise (Fitchburg); total weekday circulation, 67,151.

There are small, independently owned dailies sprinkled across Eastern Massachusetts as well. One, the Daily Evening Item (Lynn), whose circulation is 14,764, is a content partner with Herald Media through the paper's affiliation with Purcell's TownOnline.com. And some of the aforementioned newspaper owners are formidable. Ottaway, for instance, is part of the Dow Jones empire, which publishes the Wall Street Journal, in some ways the New York Times' archnemesis. MediaNews is a national chain headed by the colorful, notorious Dean Singleton. His flagship paper, the Denver Post, is edited by former Globe managing editor Greg Moore.

There's no question that the Times Company is the dominant media organization in New England, never mind Eastern Massachusetts. In addition to the Globe and the T&G, it owns a piece of New England Sports Network through its part-ownership of the Red Sox. The Globe is also a content partner with New England Cable News. Adding the local Metro to its portfolio will make the strong stronger.

Nevertheless, we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this is far more complex than the tale of Boston's two dailies.

MONEY SHOT. There's pseudo-news and real news in John Strahinich's Metro update in today's Boston Herald, which is accompanied by the characteristically restrained front-page headline "GLOBE PARTNER PEDDLES PORN."

The pseudo-news is that a Swedish company that televises nudie films owns a 28 percent share of Metro International - which, in turn, is the parent company of Boston's Metro newspaper. The New York Times Company, which owns the Boston Globe, plans to buy a 49 percent share of the local Metro.

Europeans tend to have a more enlightened view about all things sexual than Americans do, although I suppose it's noteworthy that the Swedish company's fare is racy enough to have raised the hackles of the Norwegians some 10 years ago. Come on, folks, just change the channel.

Still, there's big news farther down in Strahinich's story: Partners HealthCare and Brandeis University are reportedly rethinking whether to advertise in the Metro following reports of vicious racist jokes in the upper reaches of Metro International management. Partners is the parent company of Mass General Hospital and Brigham and Women's. Strahinich writes:

"We'd have to evaluate the situation, obviously, if we decide to do additional advertising in the Metro," said Partners spokeswoman Petra Langer. "It's obviously disturbing."

Added Brandeis spokesman Dennis Nealon: "Brandeis would not want to advertise in a venue that would be connected to this kind of behavior."

This is obviously a potential deal-breaker, and is the sort of thing that could persuade the Times Company to walk away from the $16.5 million deal - or to move ahead and buy the remaining 51 percent so that they don't have to do business with Metro International. Strahinich quotes an internal e-mail from Globe publisher Richard Gilman to the effect that things could change between now and the closing date.

BARRING A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS, TODAY'S FINAL POST ON METRO. Rory O'Connor has posted his latest.

JOHN WILPERS WRITES. The former editor of Boston's Metro, who was Rory O'Connor's principal source, sends this to Media Log. This is unedited - if you've been following the story, you'll get it. If not, you'll need to catch up.

As you can imagine, I've been following the dust-up over the Metro racism business since it finally came out. I noticed a comment or two on your blog suggesting that I did nothing when the event happened, that I should have walked out, and that I waited two years to "break" the story after I'd been "fired." ...

The morning after the event, I approached a Metro corporate exec suggesting that Steve apologize, much as I had approached an exec at AOL when I worked there when a speaker had made similarly offensive remarks about women. My appeal and others caused the AOL exec to force the speaker to apologize to the same corporate gathering the next morning. Now THERE was a corporate culture that "got it."

My similar suggestion (and I cited the AOL example) to the Metro exec, obviously, was not taken. I was not about to walk out of the dinner (as one blogger suggested) and jeopardize my job in what would have been a futile attempt to change a company whose culture was so sick as to not even realize the impact of the joke.

As to one blogger's suggestion that I waited two years and for the NYT-Metro deal to come out about this, I was interviewed by both Rory O'Connor and Alex Beam at least a year ago and haven't spoken to them since other than to get a call last week from O'Connor warning me that he was finally writing the story.

And, finally, I was not fired by Metro. They changed both Philly and Boston to bureaus with all or most editorial decision-making transferred to the NYC office. There is no more editor-in-chief of either the Philly or Boston Metro, just a news editor.

Now I'm the editor-in-chief of the Washington Examiner, a new attempt to redefine metro newspaper publishing by distributing a substantive (64 pages) daily newspaper free to homes in and around metropolitican areas, starting with Washington D.C. and San Francisco. We made our announcement Wednesday.

Wilpers and I actually competed with each other in the early 1980s. He was the editor of a few Boston-area weeklies, among them the Winchester Star. I was the editor of the Woburn Daily Times Chronicle's Winchester edition. You never know.

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.