Imagine reading an article that began like this: "The New York Times has been rocked by reports that its coverage of the 2008 election has been sorely compromised by an alleged homosexual relationship between executive editor Bill Keller and liberal columnist Paul Krugman.
"Waves of anxiety have swept through Times staffers who have been concerned about Krugman routinely showing up by Keller's side. Convinced that the relationship had become romantic, some senior staff at the paper have been trying to keep the two apart. These staffers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they warned Keller not to keep his office door closed especially when Krugman was inside.
"Concerns that Krugman's strong support for the Democrats have shaped New York Times coverage of the upcoming election underscore a paradox. The newspaper is widely suspected of tailoring its news coverage to support its political ideology--'all the news that fits'--even though the Times likes to portray itself as objective: 'all the news that's fit to print.'
"Both Keller and Krugman have denied the allegations although such denials are to be expected in such situations. Now some staffers are worried that Keller's coverage of the election may be influenced by his feelings for Krugman. 'We're worried that Krugman is threatening to break it off,' one reporter noted, 'if Keller doesn't give favorable treatment to his candidate and stick it to the Republicans.'"
Incredible? Absurd? Actually, this fictitious article is very, very similar to the actual article that the New York Times ran on John McCain. The key phrases in my made-up account are directly lifted from the Times' actual account. In that story, the newspaper alleged that McCain was having an affair with a 40-year-old lobbyist, naming her as Vicki Iseman. The Times also suggested that McCain gave special treatment to Iseman's clients.
What evidence that the newspaper produce for these explosive allegations? None, and this is after months of investigation by a whole team of reporters. It cited unnamed McCain staffers who said they had become concerned about appearances of impropriety. (None alleged any actual impropriety.) It cited two former McCain staffers who were by their own admission disenchanted with McCain, although even they refused to give their names.
Stung by criticism that followed this irresponsible piece, Keller told the public editor of The Times, "If the point of the story was to allege that McCain had an affair with a lobbyist, we'd have owed readers more compelling evidence than the conviction of senior staff members. But that was not the point of the story. The point of the story was that his close aides felt the relationship constituted reckless behavior and feared it would ruin his career."
I can testify from personal experience that this sort of weasel-behavior is entirely in keeping with the way the New York Times does business. Note that in the episode that follows I am giving actual names and not citing any anonymous sources.
Several years ago one of the paper's leading reporters Fox Butterfield did an article on The Dartmouth Review, which I edited as an undergraduate in the early 1980s. Seeking to discredit me, Butterfield quoted me as having written in the paper, "The question is not whether women should be educated at Dartmouth. The question is whether women should be educated at all."
A witty line, perhaps, only I didn't write it. The line was actually written by another student, Keeney Jones. When I called Butterfield to point this out, the man insisted, "No, you wrote it." So I demanded, "Where did I write it?" Butterfield pointed out that I had written an article about the Dartmouth Review in another magazine where I had quoted the line. I protested, "But I was merely citing controversial lines that had appeared in the student paper. How can you say I wrote that line when I made it very clear that Jones wrote it?"
To this Butterfield responded, "But by quoting it you have made it your line." I was dumbstruck. The best I could say to him was, "And I guess that since you have now quoted the line yourself, it has now become your line." The important point here is that we are dealing not with some dimwit but with a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter for America's leading newspaper. Yet apparently such dishonesty is the way they operate at the Times.
Some critics have been calling for Keller to be fired but I suspect that a much wider fumigation is required to clean house over there. The Times has long become a liberal rag and as incidents like these pile up, more and more people will recognize that the New York Times is no longer the great newspaper it once was.
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Sex Scandal at the New York Times
Posted Feb 24th 2008 7:18PM by Dinesh D'Souza
Filed under: Scandal, John McCain, New York Times, Sex
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Reader Comments ( Page 4 of 19)
46. And for all of you Dinesh kool-aid drinkers, how about a news item where the right-wing pigs actually DID mess up someone's life, strictly for political and personal gain:
http://news.aol.com/newsbloggers/2008/02/23/how-karl-rove-destroyed-a-democratic-governors-life/
Why no outrage over that kind of thing? Oh, because Rove is one of your fellow believers in Nazi tactics. Got it.
brandon at 9:49AM on Feb 25th 2008
47. Ah, 'tis election season...
Dinesh, you forgot to mention that they were Atheist Homosexuals in your fake news article. You gotta slip that into every blog. Don't forget.
AndrewV at 10:08AM on Feb 25th 2008
48. Oh my, what to respond to...
brian, allow me to clarify a point: we liberals generally don't care who is fucking whom. We prefer monogamous and devoted relationships, but regulate such behavior to the realm of 'not our business' so long as the relationship is concentual and legal. What is annoying to liberals like myself are things like preferential treatment and rampant hypocracy. Now, I don't care of the congressman was getting his pipes cleaned. I DO care if he was giving this lobbyist special access that he wouldn't normally have given. The hypocracy that it's McCain doing it is just annoying, but by this time hypocracy and the right are identical.
But incidently Brian, I don't believe McCain was having an affair. The allegations of two staffers isn't substantial enough for me to really get outraged. If there was corroborating evidence then I would be more outraged, but really this isn't anything that's ruffled this liberal's feathers... unlike... say... 912 documented lies to congress and the American people when ONE was enough to warrant impeachment.
Now, as to the article itself. I find myself at a bit of a loss as to Dinesh's ultimate point. McCain's own staffers resigned as they felt the relationship was inappropriate on a professional level. The times reported it and allowed the public to speculate as they would. McCain replied his affirmation that no inproprieties, personal or professional, occured. This would be business as usual in the media today.
If Dinesh is truly commenting on the problems of political bias in the media, then why is he ignoring the elephant standing in the room? Fox news has, for the term of its existance, sponsored the political cause of conservatives. Indeed its charter states that it will provide a conservative outlook on current events in order to provide a fair and balanced look at American and international affairs. So if political viewpoint is so anathma, Dinesh, why not at least cite the most grevious offender in the process of smearing the Times?
The answer is both sad and blatant: Dinesh does not like liberalism. The irony is that it is liberalism that allowed America to be something other than a british colony. It is liberalism that embraced the value of immigrants and declared that all people would be equal in the eyes of the law. It is liberalism that allowed Dinesh to be a equally valued member of American society regardless as to his origins. And were Dinesh to, say, fall through the cracks as it were, then it would be liberalism that would be keeping him alive so he could get back on his feet. It is liberalism that allows Dinesh to publish what he will without a government censor examining it for proper nationalist phrasing. It is liberalism that protects Dinesh's privacy and allows him to be himself when he is out of the public eye. It is liberalism which will assume he is innocent until proven guilty if he is accused of a crime, and it is liberalism which will require the state to prove without a doubt that he is guilty.
Note that I don't tie liberalism to economics. Liberalism is a social instrument, not an economic one.
Now Dinesh cites that the Times once quoted him inappropriately. I don't see any links to the supposed articles in question, and I don't see Fox Butterfield's side of the discussion. A pity, as a pithy response would be evidence of Dinesh's argument. But again, let us say it were true. That the times is truly chock full of liberals and is really just a left wing propogandist machine. So what? Fox news clearly establishes that they themselves are a right wing propogandist machine, yet we near no condemnations from Dinesh about their political affiliation. Is it because, just maybe, they say things that correlate to Dinesh's personal politics?
If the Time's political bias is unacceptable, Dinesh, then you must either accept that institutions like News Corps is equally biased and unacceptable or else conceed that it is not the bias that is the problem, but that their bias does not align itself to your personal politics and is thus unacceptable.
Which is it going to be, Dinesh?
Somber at 10:35AM on Feb 25th 2008
49. Sure this is a good video as a break
Ray at 10:45AM on Feb 25th 2008
50. Brian...
If I called you a dumb jackass, that'd be name-calling because...well...wait a second...it is a description...and it does fit...
Okay...I called Barack Obama a slippery eel...sue me.
As I've said, just because I say that Barack Obama is a slippery eel, doesn't mean that he isn't a slippery eel.
And my point still stands. Barack has NOT voted on 66% of the bills that have crossed his desk in 2008. Other presidential candidates who also happen to be US senators have a better voting record in 2008.
So let's skip past the name-calling by just describing Barack as a slippery senator who obviously has attempted to dodge his responsibilities as a law-maker. Not voting on bills makes it difficult for the American public to pin him to an actual point of view when it comes to vital issues confronting our nation.
Shrewd, Barack, but not very shrewd. In the end, your strategy will cause you to slip...on your own eeliness. (There! Although "eeliness" isn't a real word, I didn't call Obama a name!)
Brian, does that make you feel better now?
I regret using the word eel in the first place. And I offer my sincerest apologies to all eels who might read my previous remarks. I'm sorry for insulting you like that.
Paul at 11:02AM on Feb 25th 2008
51. brian,
Wow... just... wow. I can only hope that somehow you won't be able to make it to the voting booth this November. You make me fear for our country, and are a shining example of our horrible public education and the dangers of close-minded right-wing crazy talk. I see more right-wingers who show the signs of dementia and schizophrenia than a whole wing of a psychiatric hospital.
Scary.
K at 11:05AM on Feb 25th 2008
52. somber,
as always i enjoy your post even when i do not agree. most of the time i find you civil, at least until angered.
as for fox. at least fox does not pretend to call itself one thing and do another. you and i know its going to have a conservative view. thats the audience it cators to.
abc,cbs,nbc, all these guys are liberal as the day is long and yet try to pass off the lame assumption that they are just reporting the news without bias. BS!! do not be hypocritical, if your liberally minded as the three networks just come out and say it. say you would go to any and all length to get a democrat elected. fox news is not trying to elect anybody but presents a conservative view,what is wrong with that?
brian at 11:06AM on Feb 25th 2008
53. k,
save the whale sister and hug the trees and kill the babies and call yourself socially responsible,its america!!! its the land of the free and the home of the liberally spineless. jut give me my freedom to do as i choose. i am all for you K. but your idealogy is rotten
brian at 11:10AM on Feb 25th 2008
54. "It is liberalism that allowed Dinesh to be a equally valued member of American society regardless as to his origins." --Somber
___________________
We must remember that Lincoln was a Republican.
Paul at 11:14AM on Feb 25th 2008
55. brian,
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but insults destroy your credibility in a debate.
Very disappointing.
I called MY congressman when I saw the writing on the wall about our invasion and CONQUEST of Iraq. What did YOU do?
Strados at 11:19AM on Feb 25th 2008
56. strados,
what insult? are liberals for saving the whales? are liberals for abortions? i am just merely pointing out the absurd line of reasoning here. the debate is always moving around on this board. its a moving target. its whatever someone wants to say.
but i did agree with you on your last post about voting. you and i are right on that. so wer'e not totally at odds
brian at 11:25AM on Feb 25th 2008
57. Paul (#38) - Please take an elementary course in statistics or provide the additional information that you left out to support your premise. Think about terms like confidence interval, coefficient of correlation. Specifically please provide the information that says the only or key reason that the Black people polled (saying "in this country" implies a good sample, which has not been proven) will vote for Obama is because he is Black.
Even if the claim of racism by a significant fraction of the Black population were true, it does not justify racism on your part. Someone has to take the high ground and set an example. It might as well be you and me.
alan at 11:29AM on Feb 25th 2008
58. "...are liberals for abortions? i am just merely pointing out the absurd line of reasoning here." --Brian
________________
And you're doing a damn good job of it, Brian! Your line of reasoning certainly is absurd when you suggest that liberals are for abortions.
See, barely anyone is "for" abortions. However, when it comes to abortion, liberals certainly do support a woman's right to choose...just the way the Christian god granted a woman (Eve) the right to choose in the Garden of Eden.
Giving people the right to choose is more Christian-like than you might want to admit.
Paul at 11:33AM on Feb 25th 2008
59. Alan...
Do your own homework.
Paul at 11:35AM on Feb 25th 2008
60. Paul (#38) - Please take an elementary course in statistics or provide the additional information that you left out to support your premise. Think about terms like confidence interval, coefficient of correlation. Specifically please provide the information that says the only or key reason that the Black people polled (saying "in this country" implies a good sample, which has not been proven) will vote for Obama is because he is Black.
Even if the claim of racism by a significant fraction of the Black population were true, it does not justify racism on your part. Someone has to take the high ground and set an example. It might as well be you and me.
alan at 11:40AM on Feb 25th 2008