Terra Incognita
Apparently the newspaper of jihad enablance has only just figured out it doesn’t know which country it lives in. NYT editorial:
There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.
It was not the first time in recent years we’ve felt this horror, this sorrowful sense of estrangement, not nearly. This sort of lawless behavior has become standard practice since Sept. 11, 2001.
The horror, the horror. A bit precious coming from a newspaper so intensely interested in all the news jihadis can use.
The country and much of the world was rightly and profoundly frightened by the single-minded hatred and ingenuity displayed by this new enemy. But there is no excuse for how President Bush and his advisers panicked — how they forgot that it is their responsibility to protect American lives and American ideals, that there really is no safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are sacrificed.
Ideals are great. Imagine the possibilities if the editorial board with a preference for genocide had some. NYT has had a little trouble remembering where it put its ideals, however, perhaps distracted by its eagerness for the United States to lose the war NYT had lost interest in covering.
I like this part:
We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably.
So Bush did win! Americans unwisely elected him over the principled, decent man of integrity, John Kerry. Good one.
Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America.
Well, NYT just hired Bill Kristol, so that’s a start, but short of a massive facial reconstruction, I highly doubt NYT ed board is ever going to see itself in the national mirror.
Here’s a suggestion for Bill’s first oped: “The New York Times should be prosecuted.” That’s thinking progress.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:00 am on Monday, December 31, 2007
22 Responses to “Terra Incognita”
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December 31st, 2007 at 10:41 am
I tried reading this bath of pancake syrup but the whining, head-tilting, more-in-sorrow bathetic tone drove me out of it in a paragraph.
One reason the NYT editorials so rarely seem to influence the national debate: because no one knows how to write one you can finish.
December 31st, 2007 at 10:44 am
Also, you ever notice how much internal sucking up the NYT does? It’s fine to do an editorial about your feature story of the moment, but the NYT does it in a pompous way that really makes it grate.
Also go look at the book critics’ 10 bests and see how often they mention a book by a fellow staffer.
December 31st, 2007 at 10:57 am
Verbs the editorial uses to characterize the GWB administration…
squandered, swept aside, sullied, trampled…
Methinks the NYTimes itself might look in the mirror, relative to sullying and trampling truth and objectivity etc.
December 31st, 2007 at 11:01 am
[...] Crittenden takes apart an NYT editorial. Always [...]
December 31st, 2007 at 11:32 am
Irony alert! If this administration was as bad as the New York Times said it was, there would be no New York Times. Just wait till the Red Witch takes over, then you’ll see some stifling of dissent, starting with the NYT ed board stifling itself.
“We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably.”
They can’t be referring to the guy who came home from Vietnam and collectively smeared his country and his fellow veterans can they? If so, they have a funny definition of “honor”.
December 31st, 2007 at 11:44 am
Off Topic…Oh yeah…but..
Were I to possess the knowledge of words and their usage, as many virtual friends across this great globe have (to many to list, but you know who/whom you are) I would write something, worthy of your abilities…BUT I do NOT.
To me although I have one, vocabulary is a place that stores taxis. Grammar, as I’ve posted in many places, mine passed many years ago. Syntax, is what I pay every time I buy booze or ciggies. Diction, well I won’t get into that one (damn, that didn’t sound nor did it look to damn spiffy, either).
At any rate, to all that have turned the clock and calendar into 2008, a very healthy, safe and prosperous New Year.
To those who have not yet turned the clock and calendar, my wish is that you DO have a very healthy, safe and prosperous New Year.
Cheers to all, from the sword of El Cid.
December 31st, 2007 at 12:01 pm
“There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country.”
I recognize it. It’s full of liberal assholes who are a lot more worried about a couple of terrorists having their heads ducked under water than they are about thousands of Americans murdered in cold blood by said terrorists.
Same old same old.
Hopefully, our government will ignore this bleeding heart crap, and do what needs to be done: namely, inflict the maximum amount of pain and death on terrorists at every opportunity.
December 31st, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Happy New Year, El Cid.
(and all)
May you continue to wield your sword to knock the buggers off at the knee.
December 31st, 2007 at 12:22 pm
The NYT editorial board doesn’t recognize the United States because it’s not the country they wish it to be. And thank God for that. In the meantime, I’ll take my satisfaction in their falling revenues and their decreasing relevance to anyone.
Oh, and happy new year, y’all!
December 31st, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Best to you all in the New Year. I sincerely enjoy reading and participating in this forum. It is brain therapy from a world of New Dealers, tax eaters, thug appeasers, failed culture enthusiasts, dorm room pacifists and assorted “planet savers”.
December 31st, 2007 at 2:07 pm
FDL’s gone crazy over NYT’s rant:
http://firedoglake.com/2007/12/31/we-cannot-recognize-our-country/
It’s not enough, you know, to demonize BushCo - the netroots mob wants their necon heads!
Why?
Well, you see, we’ve become a fascist dictatorship according to the unruly mobs of the left-wing. It’s punishment they want: Punishment for Afghanistan (can you believe it?), for Iraq, for Guantanamo, for John Ashcroft, for John Bolton, for John Roberts - any poor old John they can get their hands on!
Look out John Doe on mainstreet - you’re next! To the guillotines!
FDL and they’re hordes (don’t forget the Kos crowd) would make Robespierre look like an amateur.
December 31st, 2007 at 4:26 pm
It’s those damned ignorant knuckle-draggers who keep the world from being the NYT’s Utopian United States of America–one, by the way, that has never been, thank all the stars and gods and whoever else might have had a hand. The America that the NYT’s wouldn’t recognize is the one our Founder’s left us.
Since it is a time when we stop to take note of things past and our hopes for the future, I’ll take the opportunity to thank my fellow commenters for their thoughtfulness and efforts. I always come away with something new to think about.
I also come for the wit that regularly shows itself. Being about as dry as the Sahara myself, I highly value, and envy, a true wit who can communicate so much in a few well chosen words.
May each of you have a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
December 31st, 2007 at 6:37 pm
The firedoglakers and the koskids don’t seem capable of independent thought beyond the latest buzz phrase put out there for them to become steamed over.
And steamed they become, on cue.
Shorts in a knot, panties in a wad…
Products of brainwashing in the public schools, they don’t seem able to recognize that they are (in the extreme) tools of more sophisticated and monied interests who manipulate them as this generation’s Useful Idiots.
December 31st, 2007 at 6:50 pm
JC:
I’ve always wondered who, specifically, is responsible for actually writing the NYTimes editorials. Is that infomration a closely guarded institutional secret, or something that is common knowledge amongst insiders, or is there a standard protocol for that deed which could be a reasonable basis for assumptions about likely suspects?
Even absent the regular disparity between paper’s official opionions and the facts reported elsewhere on their own pages, the overblown rhetoric and underwhelming logic of their editorials would still be an embarassment — and I think somebody deserves to get the credit. I read better quality stuff in the blogosphere every single day, on both right and left.
December 31st, 2007 at 6:58 pm
“It is brain therapy from a world of New Dealers, tax eaters, thug appeasers, failed culture enthusiasts, dorm room pacifists and assorted “planet savers”.”
I’ll second that emotion!
December 31st, 2007 at 9:29 pm
You just have to love it, when things go well, right Harry and Nancy?
Gosh, think I’ll have a glass of champagne, for that one.
December 31st, 2007 at 9:54 pm
d who, specifically, is responsible for actually writing the NYTimes editorials. Is that information a closely guarded institutional secret
The NYTimes editorials are never signed…attributed.
Curiouser and curiouser.
Pinch must write ‘em.
December 31st, 2007 at 11:41 pm
Screw the NYT. They are less than nothing. Worse than zero. A negative. A knowing and willful force multiplier for the cause of the enemy.
The NYT has led in the fall of standard journalism as a professional system of information distribution.
Happy New Year’s Jules and everyone! And to all y’all’s kith and kin!
Also, thank you for the effort you put in to helping the rest of us schlubs keep up with what’s going on. And, thanks for helping remind us that not all professional journalists are scumbags, idiots and enemy propagandists.
January 1st, 2008 at 12:18 am
Happy New Year All.
January 1st, 2008 at 10:30 am
“Pinch must write ‘em.”
I’ve wondered about that. They seem so unsophisticated, it’s hard to believe that someone who has done a lot of real reporting is writing them. This last one brings to mind the commencement speech he made where he apologized to the next generation for the world we will be leaving them.
January 1st, 2008 at 11:08 am
The day that the NYT looks in the mirror and sees the United States of America is the day I weep for my country.
January 1st, 2008 at 10:36 pm
Old hippies and bad acid are always a bad combination.