February 21, 2008: The New York Times - Struggles of a Dying Beast

Shaquille O'Neal still appeared to have some life in him last night - though not enough - but it is the New York Times that is now enacting the roll of "pitiful helpless giant," struggling to be relevant in a new era in its curiously timed McCain attack, for which they may have been prodded by The New Republic, of all tawdry institutions.

Years ago, when one read something in The Times you thought, oh, this must be true. Now, you think - what's the latest garbage? How times have changed! [That may be the worst pun of the year.-ed. It's still early.] The whole thing has a comic dimension. A newspaper accusing some guy of having an improper relationship with a woman... or maybe not... is on the edge of opera bouffe, considering the behind the scenes activities of the newspaper's own staff, from editor and publisher on down. Oh, but I forgot... We're talking about politicians here. We hold them to a different standard than ourselves.

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Other than here say from tainted witnesses, they've offered nothing. No soiled dress, no R rated touching, not even a picture.

Unless the Times is holding back, or this is some kind of McCain orchestration, this is non story.

This the Bush TANG story all over again. They dug and dug and came up w/ nothing.

Posted by: Lem at February 21, 2008 8:35 AM

Now we see the NYT endorsement of McCain (over Rudy) for what it really was; a cynical attempt to prop him up so they could tear him down.

I'm no fan of Mac, but I know a hit job when i see it and this is a hit job.

Posted by: Lem at February 21, 2008 9:20 AM

If the Times 'rushed it' it means it can't even crawl. If you whittle it down to the particulars of the accusation it may not fill a paragraph.

Posted by: Lem at February 21, 2008 9:30 AM

True or not, the real story is the timing. The endorse-then-attack strategy is pretty clear. How long did they sit on the story... eight years? Or are they claiming that this sprang from their source's brow like Athena in the past few days?

Keep in mind, this is the candidate that they endorsed recently.

Posted by: Wellspring at February 21, 2008 10:46 AM

They got nothin'. This is just nonsense, no sources, no proof, no special treatment, just anonymous sources with bague allegations of possible thought about wrong doing that never got done.

Pathetic.

Now the NYT can do a balanced story on the Chosen One, Obama leading his people from bondage to the Promised Land whereupon he walked across the Delaware and fed the adoring multitudes with but a loaf of bread and one miraculous little fishy.

Fake but accurate.

Posted by: TerryeL at February 21, 2008 11:13 AM

How long does it take to cancell a NY Times subscription and send a check to Mac all via the web?

It should all be under a NY minute.

Posted by: Lem at February 21, 2008 1:54 PM

Lem, having done both, I can tell you that the donation does use up approximately one NY minute. However, when I cancelled my NYT subscription (after their repeated efforts for more transparency in the Intelligence Community), it was a two step process. I emailed them, but they wouldn't cancel until I called and spoke with a human.

lanny Davis is sricking up for McCain here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lanny-davis/my-role-involving-todays_b_87788.html

Posted by: Stace at February 21, 2008 3:47 PM

"sticking"

Posted by: Stace at February 21, 2008 3:49 PM

What is amazing is how tawdry everyone views, not McCain, but the New York Times to be. I happened to tune in a Black radio station tonight and the host said that even though he was an Obama supporter he felt that the Times story was garbage. As far as he was concerned, the fact that they were using anonymous sources proved that they had nothing on McCain.

Posted by: Richard Nieporent at February 21, 2008 7:54 PM

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