Selective moral outrage at the NYTimes
Last week, I joked about Bill Kristol’s honest error in misattributing a Michael Medved quote about Huckabee to me. The unhinged Left treated the mistake like the next Watergate. Kristol Derangement Syndrome has reached full-blown status: From the NYT ombudsman Clark Hoyt’s column yesterday:
Of the nearly 700 messages I have received since Kristol’s selection was announced — more than half of them before he ever wrote a word for The Times — exactly one praised the choice.
Rosenthal’s mail has been particularly rough. “That rotten, traiterous [sic] piece of filth should be hung by the ankles from a lamp post and beaten by the mob rather than gaining a pulpit at ANY self-respecting news organization,” said one message. “You should be ashamed. Apparently you are only out for money and therefore an equally traiterous [sic] whore deserving the same treatment.”
While he disavows KDS, Hoyt goes on to whine about Kristol’s hiring–zeroing on comments he made on Fox News arguing that “the attorney general has an absolute obligation to consider prosecution” of The New York Times for publishing an article that revealed a classified government program to sift the international banking transactions of thousands of Americans in a search for terrorists. The same blabbermouth story that Hoyt’s predecessor admitted shouldn’t have been published.
Hoyt writes:
…Kristol’s leap to prosecution smacked of intimidation and disregard for both the First Amendment and the role of a free press in monitoring a government that has a long history of throwing the cloak of national security and classification over its activities.
As Scott Johnson at Power Line notes:
The Times is of course a serial offender against the espionage laws of the United States; its story blowing the Treasury/CIA financial monitoring program to track terrorists was its second time around the horn in destroying an invaluable counterterroism tool. The first time around the Times blew the NSA terrorist eavesdropping program.
As a commenter wielding only the power of the pen, it’s a bit hard to see how Kristol would be intimidating in this context. It may puncture the self-image of the Times and its readers to learn that it is not a law unto itself, exempt from the normal operation of the espionage laws that otherwise apply to the citizens of the United States. The people of the United States have the right to protect some information from disclosure to our enemies, as they have done in the espionage laws, and the managing editor of the New York Times is not the highest authority in the land on the subject.
Hoyt adds this snort-worthy jab at Kristol:
This is not a person I would have rewarded with a regular spot in front of arguably the most elite audience in the nation.
Yes, “elite” readers such as the rabid nutballs who can’t bother to spell-check their diatribes against “traiterous” conservatives.
Nearly 700 messages like that one voicing outrage at Kristol’s presence on the NYT op-ed page.
You’d think he was, I dunno, Walter Duranty or something.
See what others have said
Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.
Trackbacks
- Black Shards, In Your Eyes, Blinding » Is the Times A-Changing?
- PoliGazette » Is the Times A-Changing?
- Michelle Malkin » Hey, Linda Greenhouse: Come clean
- Michelle Malkin » Hey, New York Times, check your hyperlinks
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Categories: New York Times
Doug Ross @ Journal
» Barney Frank on the Rule of Law
Doug Ross @ Journal
» Stupak: the Sanctity of Life is Important to Us, Which is Why We Will Slash Care for Old People and Further Enslave Children to Massive DeficitsLegal Insurrection
» David Frum Says We're To BlameStop The ACLU
» Dan Benishek: the alternative to Bart Sell-out Stupak
I thought these types were all about peace, nonviolence and freedom of speech?
/sarc
YOU must be non-violent and not speak – WE have freedom to speak and be violent if we so choose!(leftist mantra)
Commenting on the suggestion from a liberal reader that Kristol (essentially) be lynched for his views, the “ombudsman” (!) writes:
One wonders how far out of touch with liberal thought one would have to be in order to be genuinely surprised at left-wing calls for violence against people who exercise free speech.
Good morning all, dont mean to be off topic but i have to mention Code Pink’s bad day in Little Havana over the weekend. I’m sure a link is available to all those who are interested .(it’s a great monday morning giggle)
I don’t like Mr. Kristol one bit, but by God I’ll gladly defend him from this ignorant lynch mob.
What a coincidence!
On Saturday, we received mailings from both NYTimes and Boston Globe soliciting subscriptions.
My first brilliant idea was to use their own postage-paid reply envelopes to tell them politely and clearly why I will not bother to look at their papers, let alone pay for them.
Then, I thought a bit, and figured, naaah, why bother.
But now, with this post, Michelle, I think I’ll cut and paste a bit of the ombudsman’s comments to brief notes to the Times and the Globe (if it’s OK with you), to illustrate for them just how nasty and out of touch they are, and just why their circulations are in a downward spiral.
I doubt the Times would be mailing out “75% off” subscription solicitations if they weren’t in trouble…and such deserved trouble couldn’t happen to nicer papers.
You spew arrogance, insults, and traitorous c**p long enough, you get whacked in the face with the 2×4 of plummeting subscriptions.
You reap what you sow.
700 messages, huh? That’s pretty amazing that they got every single subscriber of the NYT to write in like that.
Yep … as in a bottomless pit of hypocritical assininity …
This story and reference to the award winning lies of Walter Duranty simply validates the fact that the NYT has been a lying self-aggrandizing rag for its entire existence …
“self-respecting news organization”
If the liberal mind wasn’t so sick and twisted it would be funny. Liberals actually think the NYT…AKA (Treason Times) is a “news” organization? And as for the vicious comments, well never forget how these people function. It’s no coincidence these people are not the least bit interested in fighting terrorists.
Has anybody shown this clown the NYT stock price? Being out for the money might not be so bad a thing. Heaven forbid that you get more than one side to the issues.
Actually, the New York Times reminds me a little of my mother’s pancakes when I was young. They were so thin they only had one side.
If a tree falls and nobody is around it makes no sound. When the NY Slimes does its liberal thing ignore them.
I love the comment about ‘the most elite audience in the nation’, therein lies a giant clue to their self-importance and the phrase ‘the public widely sees the war as a mistake, but Kristol remains its aggressive, unapologetic champion’, the assumption from this is that Kristol is a lone voice in supporting the war. The arrogance of these editors!
Fixed.
The New York Times, didn’t that used to be a newspaper?
I was amazed when I first heard a couple weeks ago that Bill Kristol would be writing for the NYT. It seems to me the editors are facing up to the reality that their never-ending, far left BDS rants are responsible for their declining circulation and they are trying too give the appearance of non-biased objectivity to their rag. Even Maureen Dowd has toned down her columns recently, to the point she even appears sane at times. This is all too-little, too-late for me to ever consider them anything but a propaganda arm of the Democrats.
LMAOROF still LMAOROF still LMAOROF tear’s in eyes, ouch! hit the table still LMAOROF
I do not always agree with Bill Kristol’s views (I found his defense of the Clintons on yesterday’s Fox News Sunday very irritating!), but the NYT could have done much worse than to hire him for their “elite” [+ist] publication – they could have hired that Brooks woman from Britain’s The Guardian
newspaperrag!But that irate writer was correct on one thing, the NYT bottom line is out for money – with a bottom line low as their ’s, they have to do something rom sinking under!
“That rotten, traiterous piece of filth should be hung by the ankles from a lamp post and beaten by the mob rather than gaining a pulpit at ANY self-respecting news organization,”
He is talking about Bill Kelleher (or whatever his name is) who is the chief editor of that rag isn’t he?
I think this “outrage” is just the first sign of a death rattle for the formally great newspaper.
At least at the Times, Anthony Lewis has been relegated to retirement status. Inevitably, Lewis found his way to the New York Review of Books, the nursing home for all superannuated antiIsrael columnists. For thirty years, Lewis wrote the same two columns: The if only Israel would make concessions column and The only if Nixon, Ford, Reagan would make concessions to the Soviet Union column.
The fact that Hoyt gave column space to letters such as this shows how far the Times has fallen. First of all, 700 isn’t many. MM could get that many sent in an hour if she chose. 700-1 should tell him something too, since it obviously reflects the percentage of conservatives (who make up at least half the general population) who read his paper.
Bias? What bias?
If nothing else, they have committed readers, Gregory. Or, their readers should be committed.
Well, he has one thing right, I guess.
I’d always heard it as a liberal is someone so open-minded their brains fell out.
I was born and raised in New York. I left in 1971.
I hate New York liberals, HATE!
I just can’t wrap my head around their truculent politics. It’s almost like they know how wrong they are so their vitriol is the poison pill they try to shove down our throats to get us to agree with them.
Idiots! Especially the ones who are immigrants from other states, bastards.