becausevy no life, i read the "new york times" columnist bill keller's blog where he confessed that somethingem illegals. the short-handed phrase is now considered a slur. why is that? keller's cohort says the anti-immigration size uses that phrase. see what they did there? they said anti-immigration. isn't that a slur? they call you anti-immigration even if you are a prolegal immigration. i love immigrants. some say too much? i frown on law-making but time erases that stance with sinister slur. then he obsesss over new phrases from illegal immigrant from undocumented to mid-status household and grabs a gimmick of offering too much information. he is not illegal, he just overstayed his visa. he is not illegal, he just entered illegal. or what about he is not a drunk driving, he just drives drunk. so now on i don't call him a wimpy editor but a dude who naturalizes the truth. bob, because you are the liberal representative here, why does the lefty to manipulate the language to hide facts? is that a loaded question? >> bob: it's aggressive question. i think undocumented workers is a much better

he's bill keller. this is overheard. >> smith: bill keller, welcome. nice to be here. >> smith: very nice to see you. may, may we start broad and talk about the newspaper business? >> keller: you starr wherever you want. >> smith: okay, good. so circulation across the industry is down. revenues are down. competition is greater than ever. would you just end the suspense for all of us and tell uu how thissmovie ends? i think we're all, we're all a little worried about what we're seeing and we hope it's going to be better than it is now. >> keller: well, i mean, i should preface this is, by saying i'm a chronic optimist and, and, and . >> smith: that's no fun. >> keller: i know. i know. and i'm particularly an optimist about my own paper. i mean, the one statistic you didn't recite is thaa readership is phenomenally up if you count the online accesssto news. >> smith: right3 >> keller: i mean the times at its peak sold nnarly two million sunday paaers, and a million and a half during the week. it's well down from that. >> smith: right. >> keller: but we ha

i decided only bill keller would have decided.he was out of the country at the time that story happened and of course the executive editor would usually make the call but since he was gone i did. c-span: who decides what the hid linus? >> guest: the headline writers brought a couple of headlines to me and all i remember just approving one of them but i saw the headline before it. c-span: the reporter has nothing to say about the headlines? >> guest: almost never. occasionally i will ask a reporter on the story to look at the head line and make sure it's accurate. occasionally a head like to push a story further than the new -- nuance. c-span: i know you don't have any control of the columnists but do they still write their own head lying? >> guest: they do i believe the right both the had land and the band that sometimes runs in the middle. i think they all come up with their own. c-span: let me ask you a touchy question i suspect. last sunday when we were recording the store was a nice review on the book and the times review sect

bill keller, the executive editor of the times kept harassing me the entire time i was away saying you have to come back to the times. we will go have lunch. we had lunch and he said why don't you think about things that he would like to do at times if you were to return. and one of the things i have always liked was to have this feature on the op-ed page called op charts. because i was doing charting for the newspapers i could never do op charts. couldn't cross that fence. i always wanted to. i figured they were doing it with real answers. why not have someone on the staff to do charles op charts at was the genesis of the idea. c-span: how did you get into being a graphics specialist? >> guest: complete happenstance. i mean, in college -- my aspirations and thai school was the i wanted to be the governor of louisiana. and from louisianan. i met the governor when i was a junior in high school. it was edwin headwords at that time. it was right after he said you know, his famous quote the only way i could not be reelected if i'm caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl. i mean, he ha

it was not just in bill keller, who considers himself a democrat and a liberal, and he wrote a columnt i can't believe i'm a member of the hawk club, and then the story about packer who supported the war based on what they said grounded in the solidarity with the iraqi resistance. it was a very seductive vision with the left liberal intellectuals that you were going to be on the right side -- it was the spanish civil war. and hitchens was one of the first people to use the world islamic faction. and how much sort of truck does this still have? >> i want to say first what a fan i was of his writing. i remember reading his minority reports in the nation, and it was a lightning strike moment that sets your head spinning. his argumentarguments, they are for liberals and progressives. and how can we help improve a lot of owe pressed people. one of the problems that i have with what he wrote was the relish with he began to speak of killing people. that's something that i could not stomach and i found it to be beneath him, you want to commit suicide for your faith i'm here to help, and he ex