It appears that the New York Times would prefer that its readers know as little as possible about Barack Obama’s abortion flip-flop, while still retaining the ability to claim, “yeah, we covered it.”

As a refresher, here is part of Thursday’s Associated Press report on this particular item in the ongoing Obama Flip-Flop festival, first noted at NewsBusters by John Stephenson:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama says “mental distress” should not qualify as a health exception for late term-abortions, a key distinction not embraced by many supporters of abortion rights.

In an interview this week with “Relevant,” a Christian magazine, Obama said prohibitions on late-term abortions must contain “a strict, well defined exception for the health of the mother.”

Obama then added: “Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.”

Although Obama’s latest position (at least the one he held Friday, unless he has since changed his mind again) is contrary to the official position of NARAL Pro-Choice America (the “NARAL” stands for National Abortion Rights Action League), AP noted that the organization defended Obama’s statement anyway.

But AP didn’t note an important contradiction that ABC’s Jan Crawford Greenburg caught at the network’s Legalities Blog (HT Writes Like She Talks). Obama’s new as-of-this-moment position also runs counter to Obama’s co-sponsorship of the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA):

Women today don’t have to show they are suffering from a “serious clinical mental health disease” or “mental illness” before getting an abortion post-viability, as Obama now says is appropriate.

And for 35 years—since Roe v. Wade—they’ve never had to show that.

So Obama, it seems to me, still is backing away from what the law says—and backing away from a proposed federal law (of which he is a co-sponsor) that envisions a much broader definition of mental health than the one he laid out this week.

Obama’s abortion flip-flop, and its conflict with his past stances, appear not to be among the “News That’s Fit to Print” at the New York Times.

The results of Times searches on “Obama abortion” and “Obama health” (both without quotes) show nothing mentioning the position change. A July 4 Times editorial criticizing the presumptive Democratic nominee on other flip-flops does not mention Thursday’s abortion shift.

Oh, there is one item referring to Obama’s new as-of-this-moment position. It doesn’t come up in the “Obama abortion” search results themselves, but is instead a Times blog reference that appears to the right of those results (”Rove Hits Obama on Abortion Issue“; item above Rove link at the search results page is from October 2007). In that post at the Times’s “The Caucus” blog, Michael Falcone waits until the eighth paragraph to mention Obama’s switcheroo.

Perhaps the Times is hoping that its readers (especially its print-only subscribers), many of whom regard “the right to choose” (i.e., the right to an abortion for any reason) as something close to a sacrament, won’t notice.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Note: This was originally published at Pajamas Media on Thursday under the title, “How the Times Mined for Controversy in WV.”

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On January 2, 2006, a coal mine explosion in Sago, West Virginia trapped 13 miners for nearly two days. Only one survived. In the aftermath, any doubt about the existence of an anti-George Bush agenda at New York Times disappeared.

In a January 5 editorial, the Times, sensing a pile-on opportunity, and without any tangible evidence, made it clear where it thought accountability for Sago resided:

….. the Bush administration’s cramming of important posts in the Department of the Interior with biased operatives from the coal, oil and gas industry is not reassuring about general safety in the mines.

Just as Hurricane Katrina forced Americans to look at the face of lingering poverty and racism, this mining tragedy should focus us all on another forgotten, mistreated corner of society. ….. The dozen dead miners deserve to be memorialized with fresh scrutiny of the state of mine safety regulation and a resurrection of political leadership willing to look beyond Big Coal to the interests of those who risk their lives in the mines.

There was only one problem with the paper’s narrative, and it took very little research to prove it: Up until Sago, by any objective measurement, mine safety had improved during the Bush administration’s four years of accountability, both in terms of fatalities and on-the-job injuries.

Most obviously, fatalities had fallen dramatically:

Notes:

• The 2005 total in the chart is one higher than shown at the original entry.
• I assume that Clinton administration accountability ended, and Bush administration accountability began, on January 1, 2002, because a new administration’s first budget, appointments, and full implementation of its priorities typically do not occur until after its first full year in office.

What was especially annoying was that anyone at the Times could have obtained this information from the web site of the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) in minutes. But the paper apparently had little interest in letting the facts get in the way of an opportunistic rant.

Make that two opportunistic rants. The next day, apparently frustrated that the fatality figures contradicted their attempted meme, and by the center-right blogswarm that shouted it down, a second Times editorial, apparently coordinated with the AFL-CIO, complained about alleged Bush budget cuts at MSHA:

But in accounting for the deaths, inspectors should look as well into the budget cutbacks and staff attrition that have marked the Bush administration’s management of its own ranks in the Mine Safety and Health Administration. The latest budget imposes a $4.9 million cut for the safety agency, according to Congressional critics who estimate that the agency has suffered a reduction of 170 positions in the past five years.

The claim that the agency’s budget had affected safety also didn’t hold up to more than a few minutes of scrutiny:

Note: The chart was copied from a since-updated version of this page at the MSHA web site. The original post at BizzyBlog had summary data from 1995 and 2001-2004.

Specifically:

• EU Rota showed that spending had increased from about $250 million in fiscal 2002 to about $285 million in fiscal 2005, before being reduced to 2006’s planned amount of roughly $280 million. Even with the 2006 reduction, the increase from 2002 was 12% in 4 years, and was about equal to inflation during that time period.
• The 170-person drop in headcount the Times and the AFL-CIO complained about represented a reduction of only 7.2% over a 5-year period.
• But there were both fewer coal mines in 2005 than there were in 2001, meaning that, as long as safety was holding up and inspection procedures weren’t being compromised, having fewer people would be justified.
• The coal mine fatality rate per 200,000 hours worked went down almost 50% from 2001 to 2005, and the all-injury rate decreased 23% (the all-injury rate fell another 10% during 2006-2007).
• There was no noticeable let-up in any of the inspection-related statistics, indicating that much of the headcount reduction must have appropriately taken place in Washington instead of out in the field.

The Times simply had no justification, other than pleasing its Bush-deranged readership, for going after the administration before the Sago investigations even began. The paper’s industry-crony accusation was especially odious. Staffing safety-related positions with conscientious and industry-knowledgeable people usually leads to greater safety because of increased co-operation instead of confrontation.

Congress and the administration responded to Sago by passing the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response (MINER) Act. As would be expected after a tragedy, it included tougher enforcement and new procedures. Many other measures MSHA has taken beyond the scope of the MINER Act are at the bottom half of this MSHA page.

After two relatively unsatisfactory years, it appears that 2008 may end up being the safest year on record for all US mines (including coal and metal/non-metal; picture is from this PDF file obtained at MSHA’s site):

If that pleasant result occurs, don’t expect to find news of it in the Times.

From Fort Collins, Colorado:

June 28, 2008

Man hurt in bike crash says it saved his life

It was a typical bike ride home from swimming with his family when Bernie Birnbaum suddenly found himself plunging head-first into the pavement.

“I was going 20 miles an hour when I crashed,” said Birnbaum, a family physician at the Fort Collins Residency Program who was recently elected to the board of directors of the Health District of Northern Larimer County.

Birnbaum, who rides just about every day except “when it’s really dark or snowy,” was within a quarter-mile of his home June 21 when he turned off the Mason Street Trail on to the Spring Creek Trail.

As he rode off the edge of the curb, his front tire fell off the bike, sending him head over handle bars to the ground.

He broke two vertebrae, chipped his front teeth and fractured a rib, but the immediate impact, the top front portion of his head, was cushioned by the helmet he wears every time he hops on a bicycle.

Birnbaum was hospitalized for three days and is now wearing a back brace to stabilize his two fractured vertebrae. He isn’t expected to need surgery and will be back to work in about a week, but he won’t be able to participate in his typical summer activities.

In reality, he said, the helmet, which he purchased for about $30, saved his life.

“I’d either be dead or I’d have severe brain injury,” Birnbaum said. “The reality is I’m not seriously injured. I mean, I am, but I’ll get better. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.