Posted by
Andrews on Friday, February 22, 2008 10:45:44 AM
I know I said I would be ignoring the election in my next two posts, but I just can't resist commenting on the mistake the New York Times made.
Obviously, while the NYT was endorsing Senator McCain they were also well along the way to preparing their current hit piece, alleging ethics violations and an affair with a lobbyist. It appears conservatives were right when they argued that the NYT endorsed McCain only so they could tear him down before the general election, handing the election to either Clinton or Obama. I am sure some editor thought this was a brilliant idea, but I would argue that it is a terrible mistake by the NYT editors.
First, they sprung their trap both too early and too late.
If they wanted to change the general election, they would have been better off had they continued to follow the "Bush used cocaine" model, springing their story at the last moment before the election, leaving no time for the candidate respond, and ensuring the thought would be fresh in the voters' minds. By springing this so early, they gave McCain plenty of time to respond and left many months for it to fade from the voters' memories.
The only other possibility is that they worried about McCain as a rival to the Democrat nominee and were hoping to hand the nomination to Huckabee. If that is the case, then this came far too late, there is just no way Huckabee can realistically win the nomination. So smearing McCain at this point can have no effect on the primaries, except perhaps to garner some sympathy for McCain.
Second, the charges are such weak ones that it just makes the NYT look petty and amateurish. Others have dealt with the
pathetic nature of the charges, so I won't get in to that here. I will just point out that it looks pretty pathetic that the NYT took months to dig up what amounts to a little innuendo along with a few acts that violated no laws, and are questioned only by a handful of carefully chosen "ethics experts". One would expect months of NYT research would generate another Watergate, not this sort of tabloid journalism.This revelation makes it appear the Times is well past its prime. Free monthlies produce better journalism than this at a fraction of the cost and without months of research.
Last, by springing this story now, the NYT has managed to confirm what every conservative has always suspected, that the media is, by and large, an active adjunct of the Democrat Party. Yes, polls and analysis of stories has shown again and again that reporters themselves share a largely liberal bias, but this is the first time we have convincing evidence that they are taking active steps to advance the interests of the Democrats. How else to explain endorsing McCain while preparing a hit piece, then choosing to spring that hit piece at the very moment McCain appears to have the nomination sewn up? Only an attempt to hand the election to the Democrats explains this behavior. And by so doing, the NYT has finally given conservatives evidence no one can deny, proof that even independents and liberals cannot easily dismiss.
In short, I think the New York Times editors thought they were being quite clever by juggling alternating endorsements and smears to help push their preferred candidate into office, but in reality, I think they made a mistake this time and ended up with a non-scandal which will have no effect on the election, but does give the best proof yet of collusion between the media and the Democrat Party.
UPDATED 02/23/2008
I was watching the morning news and see that there was a beneficial effect I failed to predict, McCain has had record fund raising since the NYT story broke. Not up to the levels of the Obama cult's tithing of their first born children, of course, but record for McCain. So it does appear I was right in saying this was a terrible misstep for the NYT.