Columnists are certainly entitled to their views. They are free to speculate and suppose. They can draw--or suggest--connections that go beyond just-the-facts reporting. But Safire's recent work--unburdened by factchecking, unchallenged by editors--shows he is more intent on manipulating than interpreting the available information.

-- David Corn, on William Safire's columns on Iraq/Al Qaida connections

"An opinion may be wrongheaded," Safire told me by e-mail last week, "but it is never wrong. A belief or a conviction, no matter how illogical, crackbrained or infuriating, is an idea subject to vigorous dispute but is not an assertion subject to editorial or legal correction." ....

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who would have made an excellent editorial page editor if he could have put up with the meetings, once said that "everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

-- NYT public editor responds

Standards For Opinion Writers: The spirit behind Corn's words came to mind when I read a column by Zev Chafets earlier concerning how "Clarke makes [the 9/11 Commission] political." The opinion piece, as I was led to say in an email to its author, went further than opinion ... it was akin to a pro-Bush smear job. It mischaracterized what Richard Clarke said, ignored the ugly actions of the Bush camp, and in general put everything in a pro-Bush light that the facts does not bear out. This includes coverage in his own paper. Chafets' sarcastic comments about the Commission itself aren't just unpleasant, but misleading.

As with other columnists, this cannot be just shrugged off as opinion. It is opinion based on misleading and even false facts. As my now deceased senator said, they can have their opinion, but not their own facts. When they try, I am especially upset disgusted, and, yes, I do think editorial correction in some light is necessary. If not, the worth and integrity of the page drops in my estimation. I fully accept that the line is hazy, "facts" are not always clear things, but I am not just talking about weak or even fraudulent implication, which is still opinion. I mean argument, especially weakly backed up implication, based on basically bad facts. And not just one bad fact, several. Opinions are not free from any standards ... I'm not talking about legal action, which even here would likely run into First Amendment problems. I'm talking about ethical and editorial standards. I'm talking about the basic respect I have for the writers.

I have nothing but disdain for stuff such as the linked column. You might disagree, but I hope the above discussion raise questions in general that do not just apply to a particular individual, but in general.

[C-SPAN re-aired an interesting Booknotes, originally aired right before Gulf War II, on an excellent book entitled The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with America’s Military by Dana Priest. This seems a fitting place to mention the fact; the transcript and actual video can be found here.]