Race Ipsa Loquitur
USA
Today and the Washington Post lead with the dust-up over the expulsion by
Iraq of some American members of a weapons inspection team. The Los Angeles
Times leads with more bad news about the IRS. The New York Times
metro edition leads with President Clinton stumping in NYC with the Democratic
mayoral candidate and then in New Jersey with the Democratic gubernatorial
candidate. The NYT national edition leads with a story you could be
excused for not worrying about--White House and Congressional plans for
spending all those future federal budget surpluses. The Times front has
a truly spectacular color shot of runners in the NYC marathon going over the
Verrazano-Narrows bridge in the rain.
Both the USAT and WP accounts of the Iraq situation emphasize
that congressional Democrats and Republicans and the White House are all on the
same page: if the U.N. can't negotiate Iraq into reversing itself, then it's
ass-kicking time. The NYT front-page piece on this quotes the
explanation proffered for Iraq's behavior by the Australian head of the weapons
inspection team: namely, that Iraq is probably still in the biological and
chemical weapons business.
The LAT lead reports that an IRS internal audit found that the IRS's
focus on disseminating as much information as possible to taxpayers via phone
has resulted in serious breaches of confidentiality. A team of the agency's
auditors operated a sting this year that established that callers could easily
obtain income data on other taxpayers using only name, address and Social
Security Number. The auditors tried this in 109 calls and got improper
information in 96 of them.
Yesterday the NYT charted its own course and ignored Jiang's oblique
remark at Harvard about "mistakes" his government has made. But today in its
front-page piece on what Jiang accomplished with his U.S. trip (a lot: he got
planes and nuke equipment, and looked good here and back home), the
Times plays catch up, now likewise seeing the remark as significant.
A Wall Street Journal "Politics and Policy" piece
makes the point that cultural exchange between the U.S. and China is wreaking
bigger changes back there than could ever be arrived at via summitry. In the
past decade, the Journal reports, China has sent a quarter of a million
students to study in the U.S. The 100,000 or so who have returned have brought
back "impressions of an open society, a thriving market economy, the rule of
law and the role of minority rights."
The NYT front reports that a growing number of scientists and policy
makers now say it will be difficult if not impossible to avoid doubling the
amount of heat-trapping gasses in the atmosphere before the greenhouse problem
is brought under control, which could mean anywhere from a three- to
eight-degree increase in the earth's temperature.
The USAT front section cover story states that a new poll of
teenagers shows that 57 percent of them say they've dated someone of another
race or ethnic group. This up from just 17 percent in 1980. And another 30
percent who haven't dated inter-racially say they have no objection to doing
so.
That LAT IRS story contains the following explanation: "Outside
experts warn, however, that business conducted over the telephone is generally
less secure than by mail." For this, we needed an outside expert?
