The New York Times Loves Eric Holder

A long time ago, the Gray Lady fancied itself a champion of the First Amendment, serving as a sophisticated skeptic and holding the government accountable.  Not so long ago, any pretense of objectivity at the New York Times was replaced by a higher priority – ideology, profits be damned.

Charlie Savage at the Times has been in the tank for the government since noon on January 20, 2009.  Before that, he was in the tank with the opponents of the Bush administration.  His most recent article provides a useful exercise why papers like the Times are better suited for the bottom of the bird cage, while new media outlets like Pajamas provide better – and unfiltered – information. 

Richard Pollock reported this week at PJM that the Holder Justice Department finally provided some information to PJM about the 130 lawyers hired by the Civil Rights Division since the inauguration, but redacted critical information from their resumes.  Charlie Savage crowed for years about the numbers of lawyers hired by the Bush Justice Department who were members of the Federalist Society – a group that exists to defend the rule of law and the Constitution.  Savage had this information because the Bush administration turned it over to him, in a few weeks.  The resumes turned over to PJM by the Most Transparent Administration in History contain devious redactions which conceal memberships and activities in left wing organizations like the American Constitution Society. 

Nevertheless, Savage makes no mention of this in his article.  In fact, he makes conclusions which cannot be made without data the Holder DOJ is hiding:

[T]here was a change in the political leanings of organizations listed on the résumés, where discernible. Nearly a quarter of the hires of the Bush group had conservative credentials like membership in the Federalist Society or the Republican National Lawyers Association, while only 7 percent had liberal ones.

“Where discernible.”  Savage doesn’t tell you the information about membership in left wing groups couldn’t be “discerned” because his beloved administration was hiding it from him, and from Pajamas Media.  In turn, Savage conceals the concealment by the government from his readers.  And so the Gray Lady’s former sparkle dims a bit more.  A few weeks ago, Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez told a large group of DOJ staffers he didn’t have enough money to pay for these 130 new lawyers and they hoped to find money eventually.  The Republicans in Congress can throw them a lifeline to make up the budget shortfall, or not.