HOWELL RAINES’ MASSIVE EMBARRASSMENT: Mickey Kaus says the New York Times is racist in its treatment of Tiger Woods. Andrew Sullivan says the Times is facing internal revolt. And Fritz Schranck has started a “New York Times Insincerity Watch” feature, noting that the Times continues to profit from coverage of what it editorially regards as gender apartheid. After all, if (as the NYT suggests) Tiger Woods has a moral duty to boycott Augusta National at considerable cost to himself, what about the Times?

Schranck also compares this effort with great newspaper crusades of the past and finds it wanting:

The Washington Post kept alive the coverage of the Watergate break-in and the Nixon Administration during the 1972 presidential campaign.

The Los Angeles Times deserves credit for its extended treatment of the Rodney King beating case and its aftermath.

And now?

The New York Times devotes pages of ink and thousands of pixels on a membership controversy involving one of the most exclusive private country clubs on this green earth.

Compared to the issues previously deemed worthy of a sustained journalistic attack, this latest little tempest just doesn’t resonate with the awesome scope of its potential impact on social policy, now does it?

If Raines wanted to launch a big crusade, worthy of the Times — and one that would even hurt Republicans — he could devote the New York Times’ vast reportorial resources to unravelling the web of Saudi financial influence in Washington. Instead, he’s worried about golf.