Asking the Tough Questions   

It’s better to do it before the shooting starts.

For a while there, the conservative commentariat was using the New York Times as its very own pinata.

The Times' sin, according to the multicount indictment, was that it was editorializing against the looming war against Iraq--on page one.

"Not since William Randolph Hearst famously cabled his correspondent in Cuba, 'You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war,' has a newspaper so blatantly devoted its front pages to editorializing about a coming American war as has Howell Raines' New York Times," thundered columnist Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post.

The Weekly Standard had a similar take: "There's nothing subtle about the opposition of the New York Times to President Bush's plan to depose Saddam Hussein in Iraq. This bias colors not just editorials but practically every news story on the subject."

To be sure, the Times gave its critics a huge opening when it kidnapped Henry Kissinger into the camp of Republicans staunchly opposed to an assault on Saddam and Co. While Kissinger, in an op-ed, raised questions about the way Bush II was proceeding, he made it clear that he thought an invasion was justifiable--a point the Times ultimately conceded in an editors' note.

When the contretemps first developed, though, Executive Editor Raines wouldn't comment. That's too bad, and too typical. The Times is sometimes inclined to stonewall when questions arise about its reporting--a stance the paper would no doubt view with alarm if engaged in by, say, a government official. The world would be a better place if our very best newspaper took the lead in promptly addressing such issues head-on.

As for Raines, it's interesting that so much of the Times-bashing focused on him personally. The right didn't seem all that put out with him when he was running the Times' editorial pages and pummeling Bill Clinton unmercifully over his personal transgressions.

But beyond the Kissinger faux pas, it seems to me, the Times was doing exactly what a news organization should. For one thing, a page-one story about GOP defections on Iraq is a no-brainer. But equally significant is aggressive reporting on the military and geopolitical ramifications of the coming conflict.

Remember, for months the Bush administration, with its visceral penchant for secrecy and unilateralism, wasn't very forthcoming about what was up. But all signals pointed toward an all-out assault without consultation with Congress and American allies. And where was the hard evidence that Saddam had nukes? People were basically pleading with the administration to "make the case."

Kosovo and Afghanistan have raised the specter of virtually casualty-free war, at least where Americans are concerned. Iraq threatens to be something quite different. Similarly, the diplomatic cost of going it alone could be steep, particularly in the Middle East. And while it's nice to imagine life without Saddam, who would run Iraq? Would it be a virtual American protectorate for the foreseeable future? Talk about nation-building.

In a veritable information vacuum, it would be irresponsible for a news organization not to move aggressively to fill in the blanks.

In the entirely understandable and defensible rush of patriotism after September 11, it can be uncomfortable to question the wisdom of the commander in chief. Maybe that accounts for the deafening silence from much of the Democratic Party.

But the highest form of patriotism is to head off rash action by making sure everything has been thought through, that all avenues have been explored. Bush I alumni such as Brent Scowcroft and James Baker, lawmakers including Sens. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., and John Kerry, D-Mass., whose combat credentials give them protective cover, deserve high praise for their contributions to the debate. And so do news organizations like the New York Times that seriously explored the situation.

Some of the best journalism in my memory was the work of the young reporters in Vietnam, David Halberstam and Neil Sheehan and Malcolm Browne and Peter Arnett, whose efforts are chronicled in William Prochnau's terrific book, "Once Upon a Distant War." Their on-the-scene reporting gave the lie to the rose-colored optimism of the Five O'Clock Follies.

But by that time we were in too deep.

As Raines, after breaking his silence, said on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," "In this kind of reporting, one of the lessons of Vietnam is that it's important to ask the questions at the front end of the war, not afterwards."

A point well taken.