JoeClarke.Net

Just as Gepetto played Pinocchio, the New York Times has been playing the major media and the American public since Vietnam. At one time, the Old Gray Lady, who now has "All The News Fit To Spit At," was a more patriotic American newspaper before it transfigured into the internationalist rag it is today.

Is there anywhere in the world a more concentrated array of such Ugly Americans are staffing a newspaper - U.S. or foreign? Not the Brit Guardian, not The Washington Compost or even The L.A. Slimes. No paper has so many expatriates as the NYT. The Sulzebergers, Safire (not a conservative), Brooks, Krugman, Rich, Herbert, Friedman, Miller, and a Token Gentile, Dowd. I could throw out a bunch of other Jew and Gentile names, such as Linda Greenhouse (do Supreme Court Justices actually want to read good reviews about themselves in the Times? Yes.), but that's not the point. And, by God, the Times even has an its own official "Ethicist," Randy Cohen. In order to understand Randy's ethics, read the Bible upside down and backwards.
BTW The only reason I mention the liberal Jewish contingent at the Times is because the NYT has never been hesitant to bash the conservative, Christian right.

I just heard, today, a report that a New York Times editor had asked a Republican luminary (Freepers: Please, post the details of this) to submit a commentary on the Tom Delay contrived flashpoint. After the retired Republican governor, or whoever, replied that he liked Tom Delay, the Times editor became suddenly uninterested in the commentary.

Do we so soon forget the blood, gore, and fear that the Times prophesied would upset the Iraq elections?

What has Frank Rich thought about such serious subjects as the deaths of the Pope and Terri Schiavo? Here's a Rich sampler: "Mortality - the more graphic, the merrier - is the biggest thing going in America. Between Terri Schiavo and the pope, we've feasted on decomposing bodies for almost a solid month now." Frank Rich, April 10. The Culture of Death is chronicled by the Newspaper Of Death.

In the year that we lose Koppel, Brokaw, Rather, half of the 60 Minutes staff, and maybe Jennings (my prayers are with him, regardless), may the Light shine upon these Darkened Times (especially New York's Times), and expose the Newspaper Of Record's record.