City Journal’s Heather Mac Donald writes that “The New York Times twists a police-bias trial beyond comprehension:”
It takes determination to out-demagogue New York City’s anti-cop advocates, but the New York Times has done just that. A front-page article in Friday’s print edition announces: BRONX INSPECTOR, SECRETLY TAPED, SUGGESTS RACE IS A FACTOR IN STOPS. The story goes on to claim in its lead paragraph that a secretly taped recording “suggests that, in at least one precinct, a person’s skin color can be a deciding factor in who is stopped.” In fact, the exchange in the recording, between a police officer and his precinct commander, suggests something altogether different: that crime determines who is stopped by the police. But reporter Joseph Goldstein has twisted the taped conversation into a poisonous indictment of the police at a time when anti-cop passions, already enflamed by irresponsible city politicians, are running dangerously high.
So according to recent articles in the New York Times, not only is the NYPD racist, but so are many of the Times’ own readers. To borrow from former editor Howell Raines’ motto, the Times appears to be flooding the zone – with a fair amount of paranoia and oikophobia.
(Cross-posted at Instapundit, where I’m sitting in this week.)
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