LETTERS
Letters How to Make the Front Page In “How To Make The Front Page” [October], author Joseph Nocera advises publicity-hungry politicians never to let the facts get in the way, a principle...
...We were also wrong to suggest that The Plain Dealu’s Washington bureau was biased in favor of Metzenbaum...
...1 will take their point of view with respect to these matters, rather than any private party’s point ofview...
...TOM BETHELL Washington, D.C...
...Especially since Kinsley, as a member of The New Republic management, does not work a fixed set of hours, the value of the time and thought that went into his Washington Monthlji article is lost to readers of The...
...Totn Bethell is a Washington editor of Harper’s and a contributing editor of The Washington Monthly...
...I shall try to make my point more plainly as 1 believe Kinsley has failed to grasp it...
...The editor replies: We were right about the advances but wrong about the front page...
...Howard Metzenbaum, DOhio, regularly packages propaganda on hearings he is to conduct, sends it to “the friendly crew who work in the Washington bureau of The Cleveland Plain Dealer” and thus is assured of a front-pagestory on Sunday...
...1 suggest, as a subscriber to both, that he might not be able to do so...
...Kinsley suggests that this is not a conflict but a “confluence” of interest...
...Nocera says Sen...
...How would you feel ifthe position was held by a Republican-appointed Chamber of Commerce type, who had persuaded the Senate to confirm him because he promised to do a good job of defending Ex-lmbank and the Commerce Department against suits by environmentalists, but then, once in office...
...The f a c t t h a t his p r e v i o u s - o r e v e n concurrent-behavior comports with his openly expressed opinions is reassuring, not objectionable...
...Admit that the duties of this office are indeed hard to reconcile if the officeholder has strong ideological inclinations...
...Just as when newspaper reporters write books on topics they have already covered, Kinsley’s article mekes me wonder why I didn’t get the full value of his work in the publication that employs him full time and to which 1 pay an ever increasing price...
...Like Kinsley...
...He makes no attempt to hide his sympathies...
...At one point Moorman said: “1 view, for example, my role as assistant attorney general to be to represent, let’s say, the Environmental Protection Agency...
...1 see no reason why a declared environmentalist such as Moorman should not be brought in to uphold government rules and regulations that are intended to protect the environment...
...In the first place, high government jobs carry with them specific functions, and it is not intended that some ofthese functions beslighted or ignored in accordance with the ideology of the officeholder...
...New Republic, and some other author writing on some other worthy topic was shut out of the November issue of The Washington Mont hh...
...This is completely contrary to the facts...
...Robert H. Snyder is the Washington bureau chief q/ The Plain Dealer...
...He used to advance that cause at the Sierra Club, now he does it at the Justice Department...
...Wouldn’t that bea dastardly turn of events...
...Obviously, Nocera has taken his own advice and in this instancedid not let the facts get in the way of his writing...
...Incidentally, it did not emerge at Moorman’s Senate confirmation hearing that his job would ever involve working against environmentalists...
...That is his job...
...But the point about Moorman’s job-and 1 stress that this is as much the fault of thejob description as it is Moorman’s-is that it also entails defending a commerce-oriented government agency, Ex-lmbank, agairist attacks by environmentalists...
...Letters How to Make the Front Page In “How To Make The Front Page” [October], author Joseph Nocera advises publicity-hungry politicians never to let the facts get in the way, a principle Nocera himself seems devoted to...
...Kinsley...
...In his article Craze,” Michael 4 IRA R. ALLEN Silver Spring, Maryland “The Conflict-of-Interest Kinsley alludes to a recent article by me in Harper’s, in which I had suggested that James Moorman, the Assistant Attorney General for the Lands and Natural Resources Division, had an “ideological” conflict of interest because, as an ardent environmentalist, he appeared to be reluctant to undertake an effective defense of another agency of the government, the Export-Import Bank, which had been sued by an environmental group...
...Not only is there no pattern of Metzenbaum getting page-one advances on hearings, it has not happened even once...
...And that was the exclusive impression of his ‘‘role’’ that the senators received...
...Come now, Mr...
...Conflict-of-Interest Craze Michael Kinsley, in his thought-provoking article on conflicts-of-interest [“The Conflicto f - I n t e r e s t C r a z e , ” November], a s k s sarcastically, “How can I possibly serve two competing liberal magazines at the same time...
...ROBERT H. SNYDER Washington, D.C...
...Kinsley writes...
...A conflict of interest, perhaps...
...neglected to enforce EPA regulations because of his pro-business ideology...
...Its record under Robert Snyder simply does not support such a statement and we apologize to the bureau...
...Moorman believes in a cause...
Vol. 10 • December 1978 • No. 9
