Well, it was sure looking as if the readers of that old gray mare would never have to face the awful truth of it all — that where Anthony Weiner once sat and Tweeted a Republican would now hold office. At midnight last night when it was obvious that Bob Turner had won, New York Times readers were still in the dark, online when the Associated Press had called the race.
Now, we see: G.O.P. Scores Upset, Claims Win as Omen for Obama By THOMAS KAPLAN 11:07 AM ET
Wow! What fast news-gathering The Times was able to do. Is a Pulitzer for local spot reporting in the offing? Eleven hours after the fact, the tremulous liberal readers of the once-revered “newspaper of record” learn the awful truth. One of their own has lost the seat once warmed by Charles Schumer himself. Oh, the horror, the horror.
And here’s the perfectly predictable spin the Times puts on this straightforward Republican victory, making it sound as though Congressman-elect Turner had crawled out from under some rock in Queens to win this race:
A little-known Republican businessman from Queens, channeling voter discontent with President Obama into an upset, won election to Congress on Tuesday from the heavily Democratic district in New York City last represented by Anthony D. Weiner.
National Republican leaders immediately trumpeted the victory as a sign of trouble for Mr. Obama’s re-election effort. “An unpopular President Obama is now a liability for Democrats nationwide,” Representative Pete Sessions of Texas, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement.
But Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, said the district’s large concentration of Orthodox Jews made it unusual and meant the race had few national ramifications.
“In this district, there is a large number of people who went to the polls tonight who didn’t support the president to begin with and don’t support Democrats — and it’s nothing more than that,” she said in a telephone interview.
As Mr. Turner declared that the election had been a referendum on the president, his buoyant supporters, gathered at a restaurant in Howard Beach, Queens, shouted “Yes, we can,” appropriating the galvanizing phrase of Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign. Mr. Turner predicted that voters elsewhere would also rebuke Mr. Obama in the elections next year.
“We have lit one candle today,” he said. “It’s going to be a bonfire pretty soon.”
Just keep telling yourself that, Debbie. And keep whistling in the dark all the way to January, 2013. It’s fine with me if the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee is in a state of perpetual denial and if The New York Times falls into the sea, sunk by its own slanted or censored news.
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