Caveat lector

The Howler addendum: Mitch and Liz get it right!

Synopsis: A pair of scribes at the New York Times corrected the grumpmeister’s blunder.

Debate on Impeachment Begins...
Alison Mitchell and Lizette Alvarez, The New York Times, 12/11/98

MITCHELL/ALVAREZ (two paragraphs): Mr. Schippers, a former prosecutor, tried to raise fundamental questions about Mr. Clinton’s character, suggesting several times that he was not fit to be President.

He noted that Ms. Lewinsky, then a 22-year-old White House intern, had never spoken to Mr. Clinton before their first sexual encounter.

And we suppose, just for clarity, it may be good that the scribes had cleaned up after Schippers. Faithfully parroting GOP spin, Schippers said Mo had been twenty-one (as the transcripts in today’s Times make clear). But it might have been nice if Times readers were told that the crotchety counsel misspoke about this. Perhaps Schippers’ gong-show aspect would come more clear if scribes didn’t tidy his errors.

The Times did remark, on page one (Francis Clines), about Schippers’ most execrable performance. That was his astonishing statement, at the start of his speech, that there were other crimes Vile Bill had committed, but he just couldn’t say what they were. A man who would engage in discourse like this shouldn’t be anywhere near an impeachment proceeding. But is it surprising? That a guy who’d go out there and spin Mo-mo’s age would steal an old imbecile trick from Joe McCarthy?

Maybe if the scribes weren’t so danged polite, we could see the lack of quality here. A guy who who spins Miss Monica’s age should really be in a new line of work--writing op-eds for the Washington Times, to cite one obvious example.