(NOTE: I read The New York Times Opinion section so that others don’t have to. While I could write something every day that mocks the lunacy there, I decided to just highlight a few of them once a week. I’ll also offer one from The Washington Post so they don’t feel left out. I provide the actual headline from the op-ed and go from there. Enjoy.)
Good news: we’ve got a Krugman-free (other than this brief mention) column this week!
The other kids who hang out on the corner of Bias and Hysteria made sure that they kept the crazy candle burning though. Grab a stiff drink and let’s see what made the final cut.
The New York Times ran a series last week that featured some of its regular op-ed writers admitting to something they got wrong and then examining why. It was an interesting gimmick that may have caught my attention had I not already been a regular reader of its Opinion section. The results were varied, but I thought I’d devote the Times portion of this column to three of them.
1: I Was Wrong About Mitt Romney (and His Dog)
This printed word barf from Gail Collins is almost as confused as an extemporaneous speech by Kamala Harris.
Collins barely admits that she was wrong to keep writing about the stupid Romney dog story. She immediately follows the halfhearted “confession” with, “In my defense,” so we know that we’re about to meander into a pile of bull manure. She decides that she might have eased up on Romney had he given a better answer when asked about the story.
Yeah, it’s really Mittens’s fault that she’s a hack.
Because this is The New York Times, Collins eventually has to turn her story about her 2012 faux pas that she obviously doesn’t think had much faux or pas in it into some whining about Trump. Allow me to rewrite our gal Gail’s final three paragraphs (two of which are about Trump) to reflect what she actually said:
“Romney is better than Trump also Trump BAD BAD BAD and oh yeah Romney McConnell or something and wait…what was my original point?”
2: I Was Wrong About Trump Voters
Bret Stephens — the one-time alleged conservative Times Opinion writer — starts off fairly well with this one. There are a couple of genuine mea culpa moments here about how he completely misread the right-leaning electorate in 2016 and what a condescending tool he was about it.
So far so good.
Let us remember who signs this guy’s paychecks, however. Had Collins’s and Stephens’s been the only articles I read in this series I would have thought that there was an editorial directive telling the writers to devote the last three paragraphs to daddy issues grievances about Trump. Again, I’ll paraphrase the conclusion to save you time, dear reader:
“TRUMP BAD J6 ZOMG THE REPUBLICCCCCCCCCCCCC!”
Thanks for trying, Bret, but we won’t be buying any of what you’re selling today.
3: I Was Wrong About Chinese Censorship
The most stunning thing about this Thomas Friedman article is that he doesn’t close it out with a tantrum about Trump (I’ve read your stuff, Tommy boy).
His concluding paragraph, however, is a perfect starting point for my critique:
So, for all these reasons, while I plead guilty to premature optimism when it comes to China developing a more open information ecosystem, I’m going to ask the court for a suspended sentence. Let’s all wait and see how this plays out over the next decade.
Friedman began traveling to China a lot in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He was impressed by the freedom that he perceived that the business press in China had then. How impressed?
This impressed:
So I brazenly wrote in my 1999 book, “The Lexus and the Olive Tree,” that “China’s going to have a free press. … Oh, China’s leaders don’t know it yet, but they are being pushed straight in that direction.”
If like me, you grew up in the Cold War era you know that American liberals fall into two categories:
1: Those who are pollyannaish about communism.
2: Commies.
If Friedman’s optimism back in the day was genuine then he falls into the former category. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say that’s the case.
Rational people who paid attention in history class never have any optimism about the commies and censorship. Ever.
Sadly, American liberals lap up commie propaganda like well-trained dogs at feeding time. I still meet people who sing Cuba’s praises, despite well over six decades of seeing people willing to risk life and limb just to get the hell off of that island.
With the above-mentioned benefit of the doubt, I’ll assume Friedman had ideological blinders on 20 or 30 years ago.
He has, however, been in the employ of the Times for over 40 years now, so he’s a straight-up commie.
PostScript: How media coverage drove Biden’s political plunge
It is impossible to take the premise of this nonsense seriously. The first line of the concluding paragraph is all the proof you need of my assertion:
It’s too early to say whether Biden is a great or even good president.
Seriously buddy? “Great” or “good” are our only options?
The clown who wrote this needs to be put into a concussion protocol.
And he was probably wearing a cheerleader skirt when he wrote it.
As always, it’s been fun hanging out.
See you next week!
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