A journalist friend from the midwest wrote:

I, too, covered the Dust Bowl for the New York Times. My Oklahoma/Texas Panhandle Dust Bowl was in the late 70's so it predated the ones that have been discovered since.

"In my opinion, the Times does not make Dust Bowls like they used to.

To which I replied:

You know, it's so easy to do a couple of searches in Lexis-Nexis and find this stuff - you wonder why the armies of NYTimes copy editors and fact-checkers don't do it and save themselves some embarrassment.

Well, I don't really wonder. They still think they are above mere fact-checking, because they are the New York Times! This is the same newspaper that wrote a staff editorial - not an op-ed - not too long ago, containing a line about how Bush added the humanitarian/democracy promotion reason for the Iraq War later, after the WMD rationale didn't pan out. Again, 2 minutes of googling would have turned up Bush's 2002 speech before the UN - not exactly an obscure local event - in which he elucidated all the reasons, including the humanitarian one. To wit:

The United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people; they've suffered too long in silent captivity. Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause, and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it; the security of all nations requires it. Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest, and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder. The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq.

. . . . If we fail to act in the face of danger, the people of Iraq will continue to live in brutal submission. . . . If we meet our responsibilities, if we overcome this danger, we can arrive at a very different future. The people of Iraq can shake off their captivity. They can one day join a democratic Afghanistan and a democratic Palestine, inspiring reforms throughout the Muslim world. These nations can show by their example that honest government, and respect for women, and the great Islamic tradition of learning can triumph in the Middle East and beyond. And we will show that the promise of the United Nations can be fulfilled in our time.

That's just one example - he said the same thing in many speeches.

Now I have to find that NYTimes op-ed. I remember reading it in the print edition, within the last year. But unlike the Times, I don't have Lexis-Nexis.

PS If you live in NYC and come to dinner with Michael Totten on Monday, and if you get the reference in the title of this post - I will buy you a drink. And I understand this restaurant has very inventive cocktails.