Michael Kinsley writes about the silly issues that keep coming between stem cell research and the chance of advancing medical science.

Here's a link to the New York Times' back-pedalling on their Iraq coverage. It's not as thorough as what they published when it turned out they'd gotten the Wen Ho Lee story wrong but it's a lot more than they ever corrected about their Whitewater stories.

The blogosphere is abuzz with news that The New York Times is about to publish an apology or perhaps a self-analysis that will say, in effect, that much of their earlier news coverage on Iraq was faulty; that their reporters — Judith Miller, in particular — were conned by some of the same sources that the Bush administration believed. Or perhaps they will say that they were conned by the Bush administration itself. Whatever, they will state that a number of past stories were faulty and perhaps too willing to believe insiders who were making the case for war.

They did something of the sort with their coverage of the accusations against Wen Ho Lee and while many thought the self-flagellation did not go far enough, it is rare that any newspaper admits anything beyond minor, one-time errors. No other paper (and certainly no TV news source) ever comes out and says, "We got this whole story wrong." This is not because they never err.

I received e-mails from Wayne DeWald, Matt Killeen, Paul Balze, Kevin Kozoriz, Ed Coyote and Fred Jacobs, all suggesting that when Ritchie Petrie moved back to New Rochelle, he listed his name as "R. Petrie." Then Alan Brady called Directory Assistance, got that number…and connected with the old Petrie house. That's possible, I guess, but it still seems like a bit of a stretch.

Richard Bensam wrote me to say, in part…

…my favorite part of the show was the one you seem to like the least: the choices for what had become of the various characters all seemed sensible and appropriate to me. I preferred seeing that they hadn't been caught in a figurative time bubble; that they had progressed even while we weren't watching them. The only thing I missed there was some mention of where Rob's career had gone.

To judge from the Petrie's spacious Manhattan home, I imagine he may have written and/or directed at least one very successful film and possibly several, and/or created some successful TV shows…in other words, that he was still an analog of Carl Reiner.

But the image of Rob Petrie as the old man who is computer-literate and amuses himself playing with desktop animation programs is so right, so contrary to lazy stereotypes, that it won me over completely.

Hmm. If Rob Petrie's career had somehow paralleled the real life of Carl Reiner, he would have moved to Hollywood in the sixties and Laura would now be singing in jazz clubs. Ritchie would also have become a prominent actor and director.

Actually, it would have been interesting if they'd picked up on the bit in the last original episode where Rob made a deal with Alan Brady whereby Alan would star in a sitcom based on Rob's life. On the other hand, Brady — being a variety show star in the sixties — would probably have been off TV within a few years and never had another successful series…and maybe I'm taking this too far.

I believe the notion that Rob is now playing with computer animation was based on a current interest of Mr. Van Dyke's. Perhaps the idea of Laura running ballet classes was based on something Mary Tyler Moore has either done or told Carl she'd toyed with attempting. Or maybe it was just an excuse to get her into a leotard and show America that she's still in pretty good shape. I can also imagine Reiner deciding to not make the Petries seem like senior citizens: Rob's into computers, Laura's surrounded by young people. That may have been because he wanted to keep them young or because he had to assure the network that the special wouldn't be 60 minutes of old folks sitting around, longing for The Good Old Days.

Craig D. Smith points out another lapse of logic in that Dick Van Dyke Show reunion special. Ritchie Petrie moved back to New Rochelle, bought his old childhood home back from the folks his parents had sold it to, moved in…and not only decorated the living room exactly as it was in the sixties but somehow GOT THE SAME PHONE NUMBER THEY USED TO HAVE. At the beginning, when Alan Brady calls for Rob, Ritchie answers in that house. How did he manage that?

I posted two very different views of the Iraq situation the other day. Here's another from Mark Steyn, who has always been very pro-war and now, in this piece, seems to want to speed up the elections over there.

Longtime comic book fans will be dismayed to hear that one of our great writers, Bob Haney, is currently in a nursing facility following a massive stroke that has left him unable to speak or even (apparently) recognize his friends. I was told about this a few days ago but I hesitated to post it because I didn't know if his family would want it publicized. Someone however has appended the information to this otherwise lovely piece about Bob and his retirement to San Felipe, Baja, Mexico. Bob, who is well known to readers for his work on Teen Titans, The Brave and the Bold, Blackhawk, The Unknown Soldier and so many others moved there a few years ago to enjoy his senior years. For the last few San Diego Cons, he has occasionally shown up unannounced (he claimed to not even have a phone for a time there) and I always enjoyed talking to him and squeezing him into panels as a last-minute add.

A friend at DC Comics says they're keeping in contact. If Bob shows the slightest ability to appreciate fan mail, I'll get an address and post it here so we can deluge him. But at the moment, I'm told, it doesn't look good.

For about two weeks, the Internet has been full of "reviews" of Michael Moore's new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. Some have praised it. Others have dismissed it as inaccurate tripe. A surprising percentage of folks in both camps have not seen the movie but they know what they think of George W. Bush and/or Michael Moore. Because of that, they are able to not only formulate opinions of the film but to set them in concrete.

We are now starting to get articles by people who seem to have actually viewed the film, if not before deciding what they think of it then at least before writing about it. Here's Frank Rich on what he thinks of the film. I think he saw it. I think he generally likes it. I think I am not going to go see it and unlike so many, I'm actually going to let that little omission stop me from expressing my view of it.

A number of folks have asked questions about the stage configuration at the play I saw last night, and the questions have convinced me I didn't explain it very well. So I drew the above diagram. Got it now, everyone?

Eric Alterman discusses how many hawkish Republicans have big problems with how the Bush administration has handled things in Iraq.

In the meantime, National Review has offered up a four-part article by two military men who make the case that the situation over there can be turned into a smashing success. Here's part one, here's part two, here's part three and here's part four.

The New York Times ran an editorial the other day that essentially lambasted the Bush administration for believing the Iraq-related info and predictions of Ahmad Chalabi. The editorial is probably on-target except for one teensy detail. Nowhere in it is there some line like…

We know that Bush was taken in by Chalabi because so were we. A spectacular amount of disinformation on Iraq has appeared in the Times because Chalabi fed stories to our reporters and we foolishly printed them. This is not the first time we've fallen for leaks from a supposed insider. We allowed ourselves to be planted with our Whitewater coverage, which was filled to overflowing with bogus "facts" from Clinton's enemies. We did it again with our coverage of the wrongly-accused "spy," Wen Ho Lee. And now we've again let someone eager to feed false information to the world use the Times as his conduit. Remember when we used to stand for something?

Aside from that little omission, it's fine.

At a lovely luncheon this afternoon, the Pacific Pioneer Broadcasters paid tribute to Mickey Rooney…so this afternoon, I reached my fill of jokes about people being short and often-married. In what turned out to be a very nice event, The Mick was honored by a dozen or so of his friends including Ann Rutherford, Margaret O'Brien, Frank Gorshin, A.C. Lyles, Gene Reynolds, Fayard Nicholas (the surviving member of The Nicholas Brothers), Hal Kanter, Johnny Grant and Red Buttons. I keep seeing Red Buttons speak at local functions and parties and I am amazed how incredibly funny and even topical he is. I wish someone like Jay Leno or David Letterman had the guts to let an 83 year old man come out and do stand-up because the man is an absolute treasure and I think he'd score with all ages.

Mickey was pretty good, too. The last two times I've seen him speak, he was rambling and lacking in coherence and he seemed to be imitating the Dana Carvey parody of him. This afternoon, he was crisp and sincere and told a couple of lovely stories that might have been a wee bit exaggerated (like the one about Mr. Walt Disney naming a certain mouse after him) but they entertained a crowd that loved and respected him dearly. He spoke warmly of his friends and of his spouse, Jan, with whom he currently tours in a one-man/one-wife show. They're playing the Cinegrill in Hollywood in June — a fact that did not go unmentioned. I think it's terrific that at age 84, he's still performing, and that so many turned out to honor him.

Here's an e-mail that I thought was worth answering in public…

I've enjoyed your blog, and your other work, for some time and I just wanted to ask, how long ago was your article about how difficult things are in the comic book industry written? I ask, not because I'm a wannabe creator myself, but because I'm a wannabe consumer. I've been hearing for years about how bad things are in the industry and well, has there been any sign of recovery at all? And if not, is the day approaching when comics simply won't exist anymore? This is something to be frightened of. I know I should be more frightened about the War on Terror, but honestly, what are we fighting for?

Maybe we can get Halliburton into the comic book business. No, forget I said that. The answer to your question is that my piece was written a few years ago and the business is slowly recovering in some ways and not in others. I suspect that if tomorrow a law was passed that said comic books could not be made into movies or TV shows, about two-thirds of the business would go under because so much of comic book publishing is now in the nature of loss leaders for movie/TV deals. From my own perspective, I don't think I'll say the comic book publishing business is healthy until I see some actual profit in just publishing comic books..

I don't believe there's a danger of the form ceasing to exist. There will always be folks who want to create comics and those who want to read them, and those two groups will always find a way to get together. Certainly though, the "comic book industry" has changed and will continue to change. When you go to a comic book convention these days, there's usually a lot in that hall that has to do with movies and animation and gaming and other media. Comics have become less insular and the very definition of the word is changing. Once upon a time, comics were things that were printed on paper. Now, it's becoming a style of art and story in almost any medium, much as "manga" and "anime" have evolved into more expansive terms that denote a genre more than a specific product.

The old business model for comic book publishing has become obsolete, as all business models eventually do. It's evolving more into graphic novels and to conveying comic-book-style material in other media. In the future, I think most publishers of comic books will think of themselves as multi-media companies that market concepts and a style in a variety of formats, one of which will sometimes resemble what you and I now think of as a comic book. Some of them are already halfway there.