MONDAY'S LETTERS: Sportswriters and Steroids, Bush/Rove and Ivins

By: E&P Staff In today's letters, a reader opines on sportswriters and the steroids scandal in professional sports, a decade-old charge of plagiarism against Molly Ivins shouldn't be ignored says a reader, and a reader thinks that Bush and Rove wouldn't have been savvy enough for a plot to throw the congressional elections.

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Steroids and Sportswriters

I was made aware of your 10/1/06 article on steroids and the media as a result of Adam Proteau's prominent mention of it in the current issue of The Hockey News. He nobly used it as an ethical measure, letting readers know writers may not cover stories for varied reasons, including self-interest. He further asked readers to let him know if they feel their publication is missing things they should be on top of.

In that regard, your article has served a future purpose in addition to its historical relevance. Of course, this issue is not simply related to sports, though it seems the investigative spirit is better rooted outside of this genre. I also noticed the media seemed to attack players like Canseco who broadcast the steroid issue, as if they had violated their fraternity rules much less that of the players (Jim Bouten revisited).

I wrote to the Sporting News recently asking how they can refer to Detroit Tigers' pitcher Zumaya throwing 103 mph after never having surpassed 93 in earlier years without questioning it. Elsewhere in the same issue, in regard to the Phillies' Ryan Howard, the writer at least raised the steroid shadow -- though ultimately discounting it, saying he is the first pure mega-power hitter of post steroid age (still idle speculation to me). Anyway, thank you for putting this forth.

Harvey Levine
Bronx, N.Y.

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Molly Ivins and 'Plagiarism'

You got through an article about left-wing press darling Molly Ivins without mentioning her admission to plagiarizing work by Florence King, a writer who used to work for National Review, yet. So taboo is this topic that many younger media types appear to be unaware of it.

This is relevant to E&P because of the play you have recently given to plagiarism charges against that favorite hate-figure of Democrats who work in journalism, Ann Coulter. As usual when dealing with the blue-state media, what a difference a (D) makes. I won't even go into the ethical get-out-of-jail free passes given to other violators of this type of activity -- Doris Kearns Goodwin and Nina Totenberg come immediately to mind -- owing to their having the "correct" political views.

There may be extenuating circumstances in all these cases (sometimes there are), but I can't imagine a conservative writer who had plagiarized material getting the kind of starry-eyed treatment that Ivins has always received from E&P, even prior to her illness. Seems to me I remember a very young man who was hounded out of a possible slot within the last year or two as a "conservative" pundit with the Washington Post because he had apparently plagiarized a column in college, and that E&P had not, in reporting the matter, found in itself the soul of forgiveness of human error. You won't exactly earn credibility with anyone other than zealous partisans by wimping out on criticizing liberal journalists, you know.

Mark Richard
Columbus, Ohio

[Editor's note, Ivins apologized to writer Florence King in a published letter in 1995, calling the unsourced passage a "mistake of excessive attribution" and denying that what she did rose to the level of "plagiarism."]

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Did Bush and Rove Throw the Election?

That's a fun theory, but the Bush administration continued its deaf-ear ways immediately after the election, pushing to reappoint Bolton and push through their NSA bill during the lame duck Congress (which is obviously not going to happen).

They're just extremely arrogant and rigid and have frequently gotten in their own way, i.e. they could have easily gotten basically everything they wanted if they worked with Congress.

I don't where the root is for the behavior -- I assume [it is] Dick Cheney. So, in my belief, yes, they are that stupid.

Seth Kaplan