Labor Pains
The WTO continues to dominate, leading at USA Today ,
the Washington Post , and the Los Angeles
Times . The New York Times
off-leads the story, going instead with the official start Thursday of Northern
Ireland's new home-rule, power-sharing government, a story nobody else fronts.
The new Cabinet met in Belfast yesterday for the first time and the
Times quotes one attendee as enthused about the personal relationships
he saw there between former Protestant and Catholics foes. The only discordant
note was sounded by the two hard-line Protestant Cabinet members, who boycotted
the meeting and held a press conference ominously urging people not to "get
carried away about new dawns and new days having arrived in Northern
Ireland."
The WP lead details much local ferment about the way the Seattle police handled the
anti-WTO demonstrators and the NYT inside has an excellent up-close on
some of the self-proclaimed anarchists thought to have been responsible for
much of the violence and destruction on Seattle's streets. But the general
thrust of the WTO reporting is that with the discord outside the trade meeting
pretty much subsiding, there was a chance to focus finally on the discord
inside. The LAT refers to the meeting as a potential "fiasco." The most
divisive policy point is centered on President Clinton's suggestion earlier in
the week that countries failing to meet basic labor standards might be subject
to WTO sanctions. The coverage reports that this was rejected by business
leaders, and many delegates from the European Union and developing countries,
who view such standards as thinly veiled protectionism. The NYT quotes a
trade minister from Pakistan as threatening to "explode the meeting" if the
proposal goes forward. To further confuse things, the LAT and NYT
quote Clinton administration players as saying that the official U.S. WTO
negotiation position does not include the sanction idea.
The WP reports that just prior to leaving Seattle, President Clinton
signed a bill banning extreme conditions of child labor, citing as he did so
the examples of Brazil, Pakistan, and Guatemala. But the paper doesn't explain
how any bill Clinton could sign could affect conditions overseas. The
LAT does: What Clinton signed was a U.N.-sanctioned international
treaty. This too, the paper adds, was a cause of upset, with developing nation
delegates pointing out that the U.S. has been generally laggard in endorsing
other international labor codes.
Everybody fronts last night's GOP presidential candidates' debate (not the
right word, since, as the papers point out, there was no candidate-to-candidate
questioning), the first one to include George W. Bush. The coverage views the
evening as focusing most of its energy on testing Bush, especially on taxes and
foreign policy. Verdict: No major gaffes. But both the WP and NYT
seem most charmed by John McCain--they get a kick out of reporting on his
answer to the question, "Would you reappoint Alan Greenspan?" If the Fed
chairman were to die, McCain said, "I would do like they did in the movie
Weekend at Bernie's . I would prop him up and put a pair of dark
glasses on him."
A difference of style is on display for readers of the NYT and
WP stories about Bill Bradley's responses to Al Gore's recent
characterizations of the Bradley platform. The Times story is slugged,
"BRADLEY REBUTS GORE ON HEALTH CARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY," while the Post
opts for "GORE LIES REPEATEDLY, BRADLEY SAYS."
The Wall Street Journal flags high in its front-page business
news box word that the Justice Department has hired a Wall Street investment
banker as a financial adviser in the Microsoft case. Despite DOJ protestations
otherwise, the paper sees this as a signal that the government might be
contemplating a sweeping restructuring of Microsoft. At the very least, the
paper suggests, the company is viewing the move as opening round saber-rattling
going into the settlement talks.
Rabbi Michael Lerner, briefly a Friend of Hillary early in the first Clinton
administration, is featured on the LAT op-ed page making the stretchiest
pitch yet for the WTO protesters. They are, explains Lerner, fighting the "same
battle that Jews will celebrate by lighting candles for eight days, starting
tonight." Another ex-Clintonite, Dick Morris, explains to the WP 's
"Reliable Source" that "Hillary's Senate campaign is Bill Clinton's 'I'm sorry'
gift. This is his marital comeback strategy. If she runs for Senate, she'll
need him to raise money. If she runs, she'll lose. If she loses, she'll need
him. But if she wins, she'll divorce him."
