A story in last Thursday's New York Times reported that President Bush intends to nominate John P. Walters to the directorship of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. By past experience and present dedication to the issue in question, Walters -- a WEEKLY STANDARD contributor whom several staffers at this magazine are privileged to call a friend -- is matchlessly qualified for the job. He happens also to be uncommonly decent and honest. If this piece of news proves true, the president will have chosen his "drug czar" well.
Unfortunately, however, too much else in the Times story about Walters is malicious. Reporter Christopher Marquis leaves unsuspecting readers with the impression that Walters is a remorseless zealot, a "law-and-order conservative" whose advocacy of "severe prison sentences for violent felons" and other such apparently bizarre ideas has "raised the concerns of some that he will not focus enough on treatment and prevention."
The concerns of some . . . Who, you ask? In nearly 1,000 overheated words, Marquis manages to cite only a single worried man. And that man is: retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, the Clinton administration appointee whom John Walters would replace in the drug czar's office -- and whose feckless service in that post Walters has several times subjected to gentlemanly but devastatingly accurate criticism.
It is most unusual for an outgoing, cabinet-rank federal official to campaign against his successor like this. McCaffrey should be ashamed of himself. And the Times should be ashamed for abetting him.