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Mark, I was just afraid you weren't going to respond. Not much fun quarreling if people refuse to quarrel back (and by the way, I have to go and actually work for a while, so won't be able to do much more back and forth). You did not pile on the lib media as such; the other posts did and people in general love to tra***he Times./ But as for the rest of it: The appearance of a conflict of interest is just as bad as the conflict itself (and is certainly newsworthy). These people weren't meeting at an industry conference - they were *vacationing* together. And there is something very, very wrong (illegal or not) about any sort of enforcement officer discussing employment while on official business. As you know, I am a reporter. My employer, quite naturally, requires that I not discuss a job with the mayor while covering city government. (And no reporter should be socializing with John Kerry in the manner indicated.) Once I begin even thinking about a city job, I have to declare it and immediately switch to another beat. The NYT story really, didn't say that the friendship caused the wrecks, or anything like it. But it did say, basically, that, gee, it looks like the UP has some safety issues here and, golly, they sure get along well with the enforcers. It kind of reminds me of the famous saying by the Inquirer's greatest editor, in regards to conflicts of interest. I'm going to paraphrase Gene Roberts just slightly here. He said he didn't care if his reporters dated elephants, as long as they didn't cover the circus. i
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