First, nobody’s posted about it yet, Betty posted about this below and I actually read the post earlier and forgot that she had, so read her post about it.
Second, don’t miss the DougJ/NYT Pitchbot references in the latest Politico gossip column about the NYT. It turns out the current nepo baby publisher of the Times, Pinch or Paunch or Punch or whatever they call him, has his head so far up his anus huffing his own farts that a big part of their negative Biden coverage is because of this:
The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau. Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview. Harris, according to three people in the room that day, suggested that he contact the White House press office and later grumbled to aides about the back-and-forth being a waste of the allotted time.
[…]But the pleas for an interview have gone nowhere. As Sulzberger often tells colleagues and as he and Kahn have stressed in private conversations with the administration, every modern president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has done an interview with the Times. That, however, is an argument deemed uncompelling by Biden aides and one that, to some White House officials, smacks of entitlement. […]
In Sulzberger’s view, according to two people familiar with his private comments on the subject, only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency. […]
SiubhanDuinne
Betty Cracker posted about it two hours ago in the post immediately below this one.
Chris
Flipping that around, if Biden can win reelection (not that I’m assuming that, of course) without ever giving a New York Times interview, that would be a pretty big black eye for Sulzberger’s rag, wouldn’t it? It would proclaim for everybody that the New York Times is just a badly socialized yapping dog, rather than the kingmaker it so desperately wants to be.
hitchhiker
The surge of irritation that washed over me at reading these words was EPIC. Can anything ever penetrate that wall of obliviousness? Mr Sulzberger, check your premises, buddy. A paper like the Times … a paper which, nine years and counting, has still not found a way to discuss a narcissistic conman without genuflecting to those he conned?
That’s who we ignorant voters must rely on? OMG.
Baud
If America is saved, it’ll be because of DougJ.
Baud
@SiubhanDuinne:
Shhh. Someone’s angling for the top dog position when John steps down.
Nora
And for the record, just when did the New York Times ascertain that Trump was unfit to hold the presidency?
Entitled isn’t even the word for it. If ever I had any intention of subscribing to the Times, they seem to be doing everything in their power to dissuade me from such a stupid action.
$8 blue check mistermix
@SiubhanDuinne: JFC my brain is fried. Thanks I fixed up the post.
3Sice
FTFNYT has been in the tank for Trump from day one. Now things are literally going to shit and they want to play Clinton era finger wagging games.
Send him down to Mar-a-stinko for his presidential interview. He can stuff a couple of menthol filters up his nostrils.
Tony Jay
When they show you who they are, it’s okay to tell them who they are right back.
trollhattan
I wonder if the WH social media guru Jersey gal has anything to do with ghosting the fuck the fucking NY Times? Because that would be epic.
Punch the Punch!
trollhattan
@Baud:
You know darn well that Steve is first in line. Who says no to Steve?
Baud
I believe the White House Correspondence Dinner is this weekend. I wonder what Biden has in store for the NYT this year.
sdhays
It’s astonishing how poorly these access journalists have handled their access to the Biden Administration and campaign. It’s totally entitlement. It’s like they don’t know how to act when a Democrat doesn’t open the door for them and offer to take their coat.
Baud
Reddit is down.
ETA: Like I’m getting html code. It’s weird.
Harrison Wesley
So all those dudes in rural diners are more fit to be President than Biden because they were willing to talk to The Paper Of Record?
sdhays
Elizabeth Bumiller is a name I haven’t heard in a long time. I don’t remember why, but I had visceral reaction to the name, so she must have rolled around in shit in the past decade or two and seemingly got promoted.
matt
He should go through the Trump interview and have someone answer those questions in written form.
matt
@Nora: Trump gave an interview – he passed the test!
lurker
I worked at the times, and that certainly sounds like something Sulzberger would say.
hueyplong
I kind of like the idea of Biden not giving the FTFNYT the courtesy of an explanation, the proper messenger (ef goldman) being unavailable to deliver one.
Ocotillo
Times change….. Pun intended.
matt
@Ocotillo: So FDR didn’t do one I guess – good role model for Biden to follow!
Baud
@hueyplong:
Excellent.
Baud
@matt:
Four terms for Biden.
Old School
From Politico:
trollhattan
@matt: FDR was probably acutely aware that pre Pearl Harbor, NYT was more than a little Hitler-curious.
Baud
Not that I had any doubt, but the validation about the culture at the Times is nice to have.
Chris
@3Sice:
Yeah, what’s fucking amazing is how blatant the timing makes this.
They spent all of 2021, 2022, and 2023 furiously weaving a narrative of Biden The Doddering Old Man that managed to get quite a bit of traction with the general public. Only for that narrative to get completely pulverized by the one-two punch of the Valley Forge speech and the State of the Union, followed by videos everywhere showing that Trump, not Biden, is the one so senile that he literally can’t keep from nodding off in public all the time. Now they’re desperate to get an interview simply because it’s the only way they think they can resuscitate the narrative.
(Nothing Biden says, does, doesn’t say, or doesn’t do at the interview would actually matter: it’s just the excuse they’d need for a long Robert Hur type editorial about how he said it. “President Biden dodders into the room. ‘Howdy, Bob,’ he tries to wave, and we exchange old-fashioned pleasantries. As he awkwardly takes his seat, I’m reminded of all the times I used to help my grandfather into his rocking chair. His wavering arm gestures at the map on the wall: ‘We’ve got to send more arms to Ukraine,’ he wheezes.”)
Kay
Screw them. They’re horrible. It isn’t just the politics crew either. They launch and promote moral panics constantly. Their “just asking questions!” on trans people is just awful. Pure bad faith. They flogged a fake crime wave and spent months lying about the economy. Don’t even get me started on the obsession with tIvy league colleges to the exclusion of all other higher ed institutions, or their completely phony committment to free speech which doesn’t extend to criticism of the war in Gaza.
Biden busted up Reaganomics – maybe it’s time to bring this ridiculously pompous and self aggrandizing crew of ninnies down a notch too.
He should give a bunch of interviews to local papers. That wil drive them fucking crazy.
3Sice
This duplicitous fool knows Trump is physically and mentally incapable of serving another term.
But since the only option is a Democrat, he has to kneecap Biden under the guise of “fairness”.
cain
@Old School:
Which is why the nyt is losing subscriptions and not getting anything from Biden.
Baud
@Chris:
Good analogy.
Cacti
I’ve had a low opinion of the NYT since the Iraq war.
The recently leaked internal censorship memo for Times staff covering the Gaza conflict confirmed that nothing has changed.
Kay
It is just so funny that the 81 year old is such a break from tradition. These rigidly conventional people are completely baffled by Joe Biden. He doesn’t fit in any of their worn, old boxes.
It’s really the reason I continue to follow politics. It always surprises me. If you had told me 20 years ago that “MBNA Joe Biden” would (successfully!) reject Reagonomics and build a resilient, worker-centered economy basically from scratch I would have laughed at you. Yet here we are :)
Baud
@Kay:
It’s why I’m not a fan of the liberal penchant for making predictions. You just never know.
Baud
@Chris:
Have you thought about working at the NYT? You have a knack for writing.
Chris
@trollhattan:
Wonder how much his own issues with the NYC power structure came into this, also too.
As I recall, FDR wasn’t averse to working through a lot of political machines in general, but he hated Tammany Hall in particular. He also would’ve been on shaky terms with the bankers and industrialists at the very top of the pecking order. I don’t know exactly which corner of New York’s elite the NYT was affiliated with in those days, but it’s a safe guess that whoever it was had a grudge against That Man In The White House, and that said grudge was reciprocated.
(Also, wasn’t the whole point of FDR’s fireside chats to bypass not just the NYT but the entirety of traditional media? He knew most of the papers in the country were rags owned by some plutocrat or other, and he knew they were just going to lie about whatever he was doing, so he took his case to the people directly).
Kay
@Baud:
We were sending Joe Biden faxes from the law office during the bankruptcy bill fight, begging him not to vote “yes”. He was our biggest target as a Senator. Now he’s like Mother Jones. Who knew?
The deeply and rigidly conventional NYTimes of course fell for Trump’s “maverick” act when Biden was the real suprise and Trump is actually boilerplate GOP. They’re not original thinkers, Baud :)
Peke Daddy
@Kay: Coming soon: ” A moral panic about moral panics fostering moral panics: Why moral panics are the immune system for morality, don’t panic.”
Chris
@Baud:
Working at the NYT? What does a knack for writing have to do with the NYT?
Baud
@Chris:
I thought you did a good job mimicking their editorial style.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
This should be nominated!
Martin
I mean, it’s not just the Biden stuff. The NYT completely whiffed on George Santos whose district extended into NYC. They’re the local paper and they completely blew it.
Joe Falco
It must really sting his pride that under him, the NYT may not have a unbroken record of presidents since FDR granting the Times an interview. I hope it’s the new norm going forward until the Times can show it’s not the Republican mouthpiece we all know them to be.
Tenar Arha
@Kay: Yup. I’m continually amazed. This is the same guy who was chairman of the committee when Anita Hill was viciously verbally attacked, & ignored Warren’s testimony when he helped to make student debt non-dischargeable. And he is now the most accomplished legislating President in my lifetime after President Johnson, and with fewer Democrats in Congress to get stuff done!
Baud
Reddit is back up and is talking about this. Not just a curiosity of a nearly top 10,000 blog.
mrmoshpotato
@SiubhanDuinne: FAFO! Why don’t you scream about it RNC 2016-style, Ghouliani!
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Methinks you responded to the wrong comment.
sdhays
@Martin: And they just brush off any criticism as if “these things happen” doesn’t reflect on the quality of their work. “Presidents are always critical blah blah blah.”
They’re The FUCKING NEW YORK TIMES, damnit! They don’t make no mistakes! There are no valid criticisms! The article starts out with one of their junior reporters fucking up, and then fucking up again by giving out the wrong boss’ phone number, and they can’t even be bothered to apologize. In fact, they get testy as to how they were talked to!
Sister Golden Bear
tl;dr “DON’T YOU KNOW WHO I AM!!!”
jlowe
Just like ionizing radiation, I try to limit my exposure to the Times to as low as reasonably achievable.
mrmoshpotato
@3Sice:
Fixed for accuracy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: What was quip about Louis XVIII and the Bourbon restoration? “They have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.”
Chief Oshkosh
Listening to the conservatives warming the bench USSC (aka, America’s Court Jesters), it’s pretty clear that they’re desperate to come up with some sort of pablum to justify why they took the presidential immunity case. They’re also trying to play dumb enough to pretend that they don’t understand the DOJ’s explanations of their meandering mewlings. All so they can pre-save face when they pointlessly send it back to the DC court and demand that it be narrowed, which will further delay how actual justice is finally done.
Every single one of those six ought to be harassed until they day they die. Spit in their coffee. Add special items to their soup. Accidentally lose their car keys at the valet kiosk.
Chris
@Baud:
Now that’s just hurtful.
bcwbcw
It would be wrong of me to point out to angry NY Times customers that if you have a delivery subscription you can put it on “vacation hold” in blocks of six months at time and get online access for free essentially indefinitely. Just saying, it’s not like I’ve done it ever since “but her emails.”
Attempted Chemistry
Biden has been a pleasant surprise on a number of fronts. I thought he’d be mediocre and he turned out to be good-to-excellent all over the place.
Trump has been a “predictable surprise”- His technique of using a new scandal to push the old one off the front page means he will always generate copy that is cheap to cover.
sdhays
@Attempted Chemistry: Right. And because there’s always a new scandal, they don’t have to work at continuing to cover the previous scandal.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: I could make a case that the words “sucking” and “ass” should never be in the same paragraph, let along in the same sentence, or worse, positioned right next to one another.
Such an unpleasant image, I cringe every time I see those words together.
edit: Speaking as a commenter, not a front-pager. (just to be clear)
smith
@bcwbcw: You can jump the paywall for any of their articles by entering its URL into archive.is
Soprano2
@Chris: That’s exactly how they’d write it, too. It’s like NPR constantly saying Democrats are “trying” to do things. I’m not sure most of them are even aware they’re doing it, they’ve got it so ingrained into their minds that this is the way it is – feckless Democrats are constantly trying to do things, but are usually unsuccessful while the powerful Republicans just do things.
delphinium
@Sister Golden Bear:
That is the perfect summation.
And I think that Biden, at 81 years of age, knows quite well who is worth talking to at this point, and NYT it ain’t you.
David 🏀Caitlin Clark🏀 Koch
Chicago you’re on the clock
Kay
@Attempted Chemistry:
They’re just so shallow and unimaginative. Trump said “I’m a workig class hero!” and they bought it. Trump said “I’m a maverick!” and they bought it. What if….the more experienced politician is actually the less conventional leader? There is nothing mavericky about a mean spirited Republican who cuts taxes. The withdrawal from Afghanistan- now THAT is new.
That’s what I would ask Biden -how in the HECK did you go from shilling for that horror of a bankruptcy bill to hiring the most progressive NLRB that any of us will ever see?
But they don’t ask any interesting questions.
Dangerman
I’d give The Times unfettered access to the dog.
Frankensteinbeck
@Attempted Chemistry:
I know this is a fiddly thing and maybe not worth the fuss I make over it, but I honestly do not think he does this. The whole ‘distraction’ narrative fails to meet Occam’s Razor, and with Trump more than anyone. Trump is just a fuck-up. He commits new horrible acts daily. That they may or may not distract from his previous horrors is an accident.
I think it’s pretty rare that anyone ‘distracts’ from their failure by failing at something else. People are more often stupid than devious.
Ruviana
I’ve thought the latest Sulzberger should be called Pinche. Spanish speakers will get it.
danielx
JFC. What, exactly, is Biden supposed to get out of such an interview?
Ann Marie
Biden should sit down for a lengthy interview with someone from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. A.G. would have a fit.
danielx
@Ruviana:
Pinche cabron, more like.
Chris
@Tenar Arha:
For better or for worse, some of the best politicians for good causes seem to be the ones who have at least some roots in the bad ones. Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt, probably the two biggest economic populists ever to sit in the White House, both came from a Bruce Wayne level dynasty of wealth. LBJ, the most effective civil rights president since the Civil War, rose to power through the political machines of the Deep South.
Of course, you can never really tell which bad guys are true believers in the dark side, which bad guys are just blowing with the wind, and which bad guys want to be better but can’t be until the system allows them to be. So this isn’t the kind of development you can really predict.
japa21
@Ann Marie: I was thinking more The NY Post
matt
@danielx: Sulzberger thinks he’s administering something like a certification exam for the presidency.
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
A decade and change ago, somebody in the comments here pointed out that Sarah Palin’s stupid act couldn’t possibly be an act, because she never had a single moment when she was out of character. She wasn’t being folksy and unintellectual to play to the crowd, like some people thought. She wasn’t trolling for her own amusement. She really was just a fucking idiot.
Similar thing applies to Trump’s shittiness.
prostratedragon
@sdhays: GWB sychophant I believe. Her level of incompetence recedes in the rearview mirror.
hueyplong
@WaterGirl: His world does seem to contain a whole lot more analingus than do most. If it makes you feel better, only the bad guys seem to do it.
Anoniminous
Does unindicted coconspirator mean PoopyPants can be indicted later?
hueyplong
@matt: Odd how Sulzberger apparently thinks the test can be passed by recognizing a cartoon giraffe if you’re a Republican.
Sure Lurkalot
@Kay:
I was incredulous when Obama picked Joe to be his VP. Absolutely gobsmacked.
Just goes to show you can’t always go by people’s priors and some do live and learn, like Joe and me. Thanks Joe!
smith
@Kay: I think one of Biden’s political talents is the ability to position himself at the exact center of the Democratic big tent. That center has moved decidedly leftward in recent years, and Biden has moved with it. As irritating as it sometimes may be, activists screaming about issues that have been ignored do often make a difference over the long run.
Citizen Alan
@Ruviana: I’m just gonna start calling him Nepo Baby Sulzberger.
Anoniminous
@Anoniminous:
oops, Wrong thread
prostratedragon
@Martin: They pay as little attention as possible to NYC and area news, apart from the social goings-on and the preoccupations of a couple of very narrow sets. This has been true for decades that I know of.
Scout211
ICYMI, last night a link to this ABC news story was posted in the overnight thread. It’s long, but well worth a read.
Someone leaked to ABC news the testimony from former staffers about Trump’s mishandling of classified documents. It’s full of witness testimony (anonymous) of Trump and his willful disregard for security throughout his presidency and beyond.
Brachiator
@Chris:
Yep. Very true. FDR used radio to get around what he perceived to be a biased media.
JFK used charm in his press conferences in the increasingly influential medium of television.
And yeah, Trump abuses social media to get around mainstream media.
Geminid
@Kay: Speaking of moral panics, an obituary from from Monday’s Washington Post:
Patricia Burgus was one of Dr. Bennet’s patience at what is now Rush University Hospital in Chicago:
In her book Creating Hysteria: Women and Multiple Personality Disorder, journalist Joan Acocella described how Braun talked Burgus into having her two young sons admitted to his specialized psychiatric unit, where they were treated for multiple personality disorder and “given stickers as rewards for producing memories of murder and cannibalism.” But…
Burgus sued Braun, a colleague and the hospital for malpractice. In 1997, they paid Burgus $10.6 million in a settlement.
It’s a long, appalling obituary:
https://www.washigtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/04/18/bennett-braun-dead
Chris
@Brachiator:
To be fair, Obama did it before Trump. I think that’s at least part of why the traditional media was so gobsmacked when he won 2012.
Geminid
@Geminid: I guess I botched the link to the Bennett Braun obituary.
Scout211
FCC reinstates net neutrality
narya
@Ruviana: Funny story: I only know because the guys I worked w/ at the bakery were all Mexican. However, a young woman who worked there was Puerto Rican, and apparently that slang is specific to Mexican Spanish; it took her a minute to understand, even though she was bilingual. (I don’t speak Spanish, though I’m valiantly trying to learn via duolingo.)
Mousebumples
@bcwbcw: hahaha. I don’t have a sub but that’s amazing. #LifeHack
@japa21: I vote for a Pitch Bot interview.
Anoniminous
@narya:
There are 12 dialects of Spanish in Latin America, Caribbean Spanish, and a further 8 in South America.
glc
@Tenar Arha:
Yes, he played a central role in giving us both Clarence Thomas and the student debt crisis, and is now mitigating the lesser of those evils – as well as allowing people like Lina Khan to enforce laws which have been ignored for the past 40 years under all administrations. Better late than never.
Even Buttigieg, who worked for organized crime (McKinsey) is now letting Jen Howard use the enforcement powers he had been sitting on.
Though the courts may still step in and rule that Democratic administrations do not have access to congressionally delegated authority, as is currently being argued. The “substantial impact” theory. We shall see.
Belafon
@Scout211: There will be a lawsuit in Texas by tomorrow.
catclub
@bcwbcw: I only have a subscription to the spelling bee, but I could give it up.
I have kept the free subscription to the WAPO one can get with a .gov email.
WhatsMyNym
@Geminid: You lost an ‘n’ in washington. It’s Washington Post
RaflW
@Kay: The NYT is so far up Chris Rufo’s ass they should be forced to gay marry him.
Fuck Sulzberger. Biden’s team is dead right to ignore AG and the whole crumbling edifice.
West of the Rockies
MSNBC before 4 EST is not progressive or liberal. Just watched a former clerk for Thomas and Kavanaugh go on and on a out how very weak the prosecution’s argument is with zero pushback from Andrea & Tur & co.
Geminid
@WhatsMyNym: Thanks. The picture of Dr. Braun is very creepy.
frosty
@WaterGirl: Agreed. I pied him awhile back but he’s back in circulation.
The dude needs some new insults.
Eolirin
Not that Biden hasn’t evolved on things but there’s another component to it too when it comes to things like the bankruptcy bill; at the time Biden was senator from Delaware and was representing the interests of financial services companies as major employers of the state.
This is the messy part of politics, but a senator has very different priorities than a president, even if they’re the same person with the same values.
Kay
@RaflW:
I forgot about him! I have too many grievances against theNYTimes to keep track of
Captain C
@hitchhiker:
cf. Butter Emails, WMDs, Whitewater, Walter Duranty, FTFNYT coverage of Hitler…
At this point, they’re not here for the hunting.
Bill Arnold
Mmmm, Martian Spiders! (H/T David Bowie, RIP)
Hundreds of black ‘spiders’ spotted in mysterious ‘Inca City’ on Mars in new satellite photos (LiveScience, Stephanie Pappas, 2024/04/25)
Kay
@smith:
100% agree, but don’t tell anyone at Balloon Juice.
They think activists just pretend to care about issues :)
Dangerman
Upon further review, I think the questions would have to be pre-approved, i.e.:
Walkies?
Fetch?
Who’s a good boy?
Jeffro
so will we all be getting new and updated copies of the Constitution, or should we just pencil the new requirements for president in the margins?
Eolirin
@Kay: 🙄
KSinMA
@Chris: OMG, that’s brilliant.
Jeffro
@Kay:
Seconded here!
I hope Biden goes OFF on them at the WH Correspondents’ dinner, too. Nothing fancy: a simple “go fuck yourselves” would be fine.
Jeffro
@Ruviana:
@danielx:
pinche culero is how I always heard it, back in my restaurant days =)
Villago Delenda Est
The vile journalism-destroying cult of Broder is alive and well at the Vichy Times.
TBone
@Chief Oshkosh: chemical castration in the coffee, salt peter soup.
TBone
Speaking of sucking whatever, I thought we were against kink shaming.
JustRuss
@Kay: Yeah. We elect the worst POTUS ever and then follow that up with one of the most progressive ever, in the person of Joe-Damn-Biden. It’s crazy.
TBone
What is Pecker about to dribble down the court?
Matt McIrvin
@JustRuss: And now we’re preparing to kick him out and reelect the tyrant in part because we’re disappointed that Biden isn’t progressive enough.
Baud
@JustRuss:
The cycle is longer than that. Bush-Obama-Trump-Biden. I would put a Clinton at the front of that but that is probably more controversial.
Either way, the whipsawing is awful.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
What do you mean “we,” kimosabe?
TBone
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-e-jean-carroll-case-new-trial-denied/
If anyone should know “entirely out of proportion” it is Dotard. He has hands.
Blue Galangal
I notice how no one at the corrupt and complicit NYT substantially (or even partially) addressed any of the concrete examples in the Politico article…
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I still maintain that Clinton was about as progressive as was politically possible at the time he was in office. That was not much, by later *or earlier* standards, but it was a significant contrast with Reagan-Bush. Hell, he (and Hillary) tried to do single-payer universal healthcare and got smacked down hard with bullshit.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
He and the Dems raised taxes by a lot (proportionally speaking). They don’t get enough credit for that.
One of the Many Jens
@WaterGirl: Hey there! I wanted to check in regarding the Four Directions matches – are you still needing donations in order to capitalize on the final angel matches, or are you set, and the thermometer hasn’t yet caught up? Thanks!
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: He also tried to allow gays to openly serve in the military. After that got smacked down by all Colin Powell, he brought in Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell which was a a step forward at the time, no matter how it seems now.
WaterGirl
@catclub: Is the available for an email address: .edu ?
WaterGirl
@frosty: I really like mr mashed potato, it’s just that phrase that I am talking about.
Citizen Alan
@Dangerman: What? Biden’s dogs? They’d bite a NYT reporter the second they showed hostility to their master. And be right to do so. I still say that no one from the Secret Service should be allowed to work in the White House unless they can pet Commander and Major on the head without either of them growling. Dogs know.
Harrison Wesley
NYT should definitely have a seat at the WH Correspondents’ Dinner. At the same table with Tucker Carlson, Jim Hoft, Jesse Watters and Peter Ducey. Turds of a feather, so to speak.
Citizen Alan
@Chris: I think at a certain point, grifters come to believe their own grift. Certainly most crooked fundie preachers do. The thing that always gets me about Palin is that you can look at tv footage of her when she was the local sports person (or maybe she did weather; can’t remember). And she talked like a reasonably intelligent sane person with none of the “You betcha!” schtick that marked her as a politician. It’s like Connecticut Yankee George W. Bush actively teaching himself to speak with a Southern drawl.
Citizen Alan
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah, people seriously underestimate how conservative this country was and how gunshy the Dems were at every level when Clinton took office after the GOP held the White House for 20 of the previous 24 years.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: o rly? I think many of their tactics are counterproductive, but I think the vast majority of them are well-meaning and serious. I absolutely support their right to protest. I also think that university administrations and elite journalists are being idiots about the whole thing.
We had anti-apartheid protests when I was an undergrad and our university president* walked over from his office and engaged with the protesters. He was given a chance to explain the university’s position on divestment. He may not have persuaded anyone, but the fact that he had enough respect for his students to treat them as adults mattered.
*For z_g, it was Rik Warch.
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: I also think that while concrete and productive demands are good, you don’t always need a fully-fleshed-out theory of how you’re going to make things better in order to be qualified to protest a terrible situation. Analysis paralysis is a thing and just expressing vocal disapproval and “we’re mad” can be a useful signal.
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: Being a student means you are figuring things out. “This is horrible and it should stop!” is a perfect valid protest message. I would prefer it if they did a better job of policing themselves and making sure that any anti-Semitic rhetoric or actions be shut down quickly. The few acts of harassment of people wearing a kippeh or shouts of “Go back to Poland” are kind of thing that get media attention and can tar a whole group. Telling people who are doing that that they are not welcome and should leave would help. But I am no longer an undergrad, so my preferences are somewhat immaterial.
ETA: The university administrations could have helped out here. But they seem to want a fight.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
My son’s roomate gave me a book – “Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine and the Foundations of a Movement” (Angela Y Davis). I think they think I’m like a “resistance wine mom” who can possibly be radicalized :)
Wine grandmom.
Uncle Cosmo
Naah, what they wanna be is the PRO: Paper of Record for the Oligarchy (AKA Vichy TImes, AKA Herrenvolkischer Beobachter).
I tells ya, folx, here we are in the thick of World War O-for-Oligarchs and the FTFNYT is the enemy’s main print mouthpiece (along with the NY Pus, and Fux Noise, NooseMucks and Stinklair in the broadcast world). They’ve been fashing for fascists for the last century.
The German, Italian and Japanese industrialists didn’t learn a goddamned thing from ending up on the losing side in Great War 2.0, because they didn’t lose diddly. We should’ve hit them with a clue-by-four by stringing up the directors of IG Farben and Krupp and FIAT and every other economic organization complicit with the dictators as accessories to mass murder before, during and after the fact. But noooo, we were too hot to enlist the their malefactors of great wealth in our crusade against the Reds that we never made them suffer for aiding and abetting Der Fuhrer and Il Duce and the Emperor.
And IMO we should’ve seriously considered doing the same to the FTFNYT publishers for aiding and abetting the fascism from the safety of NYC. And the same for our homegrown malefactors of great wealth that Smedley Butler blew the whistle on.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: They had Proud Boy founder McInnes drop in. And the anti-semitism (blaming Jewish diaspora in the US for what Netanyahu is doing) seems to be feature not a bug.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Angela Davis? The CPUSA presidential candidate from the ‘70s?
Geminid
@Kay: Panera Pickup Truck Broker.
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: That would be one of the counterproductive things I was talking about.
piratedan
@Sister Golden Bear: it’s as if the NYT is the drunk state legislator being pulled over by the rookie State Trooper (Joe Biden).
Omnes Omnibus
Protesters are taking over FIT.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes. I had already read Women, Race and Class but I didn’t say anything other than “oh, thank you!” like the grandma that I am.
sab
@Citizen Alan: I don’t like George W Bush at all, but the southern drawl wasn’t fake. His parents were yankees, but he did grow up in Midland, Texas. My Ohio parents moved us to NC, Kentucky and central Florida, and when we weren’t at home we talked like all the other kids.
Kay
@Geminid:
I might give him my little car and take that truck. He barely drives at all and I’m going to be a gardening retiree in Michigan – I think I need a truck.
Bill Arnold
@schrodingers_cat:
Who is “they”? I see no evidence McInnes was invited by protesters, or welcomed by them. He even wore a (parody of a) lefty disguise.
Out of curiosity, has anyone asked him why he showed up?
sab
@Villago Delenda Est: I know this blog is left of center, but we are also mostly a bunch of old farts who remember the politics of the 1960s and 1970s, and really are more like centrists from back then.
I think the NYT is seriously misreading the room. We despise them and the protesting kids despise them. My older kids (working class so working not protesting) also despise them.
Geminid
@Kay: Pickups are great for mulch. A lot of places will scoop it into the truck, and mulch is light so you can haul plenty. You’ll want a mulch fork, but the local farmer’s co-op will have one.
You’ll want to go by there anyway, to pick out some Carhart gear to go with the truck. Michigan’s cold.
Soprano2
@Kay: Oh c’mon, we don’t all think that. What I do think is sometimes their tactics are counterproductive and don’t do them any favors. I guess it depends on what their goal is – if they want to get more people to agree with them they should do certain things, but if they’re trying to get on the news other things work. Sometimes the things that get them attention and on the news can also lose them support, though. ETA – I also think all movements have a problem with people who don’t really care about the cause attaching themselves to it because they want the attention. It’s a problem with no easy answer.
MomSense
@Matt McIrvin:
Any Dem president is going to be exactly as liberal/progressive as that 60th vote in the Senate.
Kay
@Bill Arnold:
I think there has been anti semitism and they should do more to denounce it – but it is also true that some of the protestors are Jewish. I think media and Republicans are attempting to flatten it and turn it to their preferred narrative, but the video we’re seeing doesn’t comport with what they’re saying – the students are peaceful. I don’t think those UT Austin students who were basically attacked by their own fucking college did anything wrong. They were sitting on a lawn listening to speakers.
I love that some of these kids are going into debt to pay the outrageous tuition and the people who are supposed to be supporting them are calling police and evicting them. If I were a protesting student at UT Austin who will leave with 100k in debt I’d be pretty pissed the leaders of that college are working to throw me in jail for sitting on a lawn.
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: One of the things we need to keep in mind is that we don’t want to be equivalent of the pro-Vietnam liberals from the ‘60s. The people who misread the changing world and helped put liberalism in decline for 40+ years even as they were achieving amazing victories in civil rights and eliminating poverty.
schrodingers_cat
@Bill Arnold: No idea. BTW how hasn’t he been deported yet. IIRC he is Canadian and is here on either a GC or a longterm visa. Because heading an organization like Proud Boys would violate the terms of either of them.
Brachiator
@Chris:
This is true. I think though, that while previous presidents used new media to speak to the country, Trump weaponized social media with deliberate malice to spread lies and disinformation to his base. Traditional media was more than willing to give Trump air time, and Fox still serves as a compliant propaganda machine.
But Trump wanted an outlet for his venomous ego.
Kay
@Geminid:
Lol
Elizabelle
AG Sulzberger is an asshole nepo baby. Was not fond of his father, with the Clinton Derangement Syndrome, and this lesser Sulzberger is worse.
Executive Editor Joe Kahn is also horrible. I wonder daily what Margaret Sullivan thinks about the turn The NY Times has taken. She had informed us Kahn would be fine. He is not.
sab
@Kay: My not activist almost forty-year old step kids are beside themselves about Gaza. The boys’ adopted sister is ethnically Syrian but raised Irish Catholic. They are appalled by what Israelis are doing.
I’m not Jewish, but most of my high school friends and my first husband were. I have lived in Israel. I used to like Israelis.
But this in Gaza is somehow acceptable? They talk about the threat of terrorism, but most Israelis are more at risk from their own terrible driving and smokers at gas stations. Unless they let Netanyahu expand it into a regional war.
ETA Every public American figure I can think of who has spoken out about Israel in Gaza is Jewish. This is not a Jewish problem. It is an Israeli problem.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I just think we’re thrilled when they do stuff like walk out of high school to lobby for gun reforms, or walk out to protest the treatment of trans or gay students in Florida but when it’s something that we’re uncomfortable with we reject them. I include myself in this. They are allowed to go their own way. Am I a Communist? No, absolutely not. But I’m absolutely fine with a 19 year old thinking Angela Davis is great.
There’s always hangers on at events. They’re always a pain in the ass. But if you;ve been in one of those large protest groups you’re only aware of the people immediately around you – I would wager most of the Columbia students were not aware the anti Semites had gathered outside the grounds. They’re not in a helicopter. They don’t have a panamoric view of the whole scene.
TBone
@Uncle Cosmo: ✊
Kay
@sab:
Wow. I’ve only ever travelled in Europe and Mexico.
I think we also have to acknowlege the pro Palestine “movement” predates October 7th. This has been going on a long time. The “movement” is not at all new.
Brachiator
@Chris:
Also recently ran across this little historical nugget about the press and the White House.
Lobo
@Omnes Omnibus: The hyprocrisy is so deep. The screamed “Academic Freedom” for actual Nazis like Richard Hanania and similar ilk, but now that it is those students….
TBone
@Kay: he put together a team that included us DFHs. He’s listening and acting upon what he hears from us, and also he knows in his heart what we need to HAVE a future. He’s such a great man, setting an example of How to Government for generations to come.
Baud
@Lobo:
To be fair, the hypocrisy was deep even before the current situation with the protestors.
sab
@Kay: I wasn’t pro-Palestinian. I was a shiksa wife of a Jewish immigrant. I wasn’t anti-Palestinian either. I was ambivalent: this is who is here, deal with it.
This was pre-Oslo, so I hoped they would.
( They were quite nasty to me, the shiksa convert wife.) Their treatment made my husband follow me back home.
Israelis kind of sneer at American Jews. Suckers and not real Jews
ETA We were in the Negev down south on a moshav (cooperative. ) One of the local teenagers asked me what religion our dog was! Yes Israelis can be shockingly bigotted.
Omnes Omnibus
@Lobo: Yes, absolutely. The university administrations are a shitshow. If nothing else, they need to remember that those protesters are the schools’ future donors. Right?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Well, not anymore
Baud
My theory (as in utter speculation) is that the Republicans have really started to get involved because they expect Biden to ratchet up pressure on Israel now that the supplemental has passed and the GOP want to portray Biden as pro-HAMAS and under the thumb of the protestors. That would be consistent with their playbook.
japa21
@sab: I don’t think Pelosi is Jewish.
sab
@japa21: Zelenskiy is, and his Jewish dad would not let him emmigrate to or study in Israel.
Brachiator
@sab:
I am an old fart who remembers the 1960s and 1970s and totally supported the anti war effort. I registered for the draft, but got a high number in the lottery. Otherwise, it would have been Canada for me. I had some friends who enlisted rather than be drafted and respected their decision. Fortunately, they served and came back home.
But the war was bullshit and I supported every effort to end it.
I have very mixed feelings about some of the Gaza protests, but support the efforts. And as with Vietnam, I recognize that there are people with mixed motives and even some scoundrels among the protesters.
sab
@japa21: Got your point finally. Others have, but the earliest and the loudest were Jewish. Including Adam Silverman. What Israelis are doing in Gaza is an Israeli thing not a Jewish thing.
Baud
Via reddit, the Internet remembers
japa21
@sab: Don’t have any argument with that statement. There is an old saying “Friends don’t let friends drive drunk.” We have been letting Israel do that too often.
Baud
@japa21:
The US would have been in a better place if some outside power were strong enough to tell W to cool it.
Omnes Omnibus
I would also note that this particular conversation is among a pretty goyish (to the best of my knowledge) bunch. Jewish commenters may have a different take on the prevalence of anti-Semitism in the protests. Those of us who are not in a historically persecuted group can easily miss signals that are glaringly obvious to the group.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Are you saying we should convert?
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I am not giving up shellfish and bacon cheeseburgers. You can do what you want.
Kay
Biden’s internal divisions on this are getting worse. I think there will be real anger if Blinken backs down on the Leahy Laws sanction – it’s already been approved by a state department committee.
sab
Down below, Nevada donors beating Arizona donors! Yay!
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
By the same token, however, I’m no longer comfortable telling Arab Americans or anyone with a connection to Palestinians that they have to vote for Biden. I have no idea what it feels like to watch your country provide the weapons to kill 35k civilians in my ethnic/religious group. I could see them sitting this one out. Some things are just too much to ask.
Emily B.
@bcwbcw: Thank you! Great to know, especially since The Paper of Record is now charging $123 per month for home delivery.
Ruckus
@Chris:
I read the NYT as often as I read the LAT.
Not in decades.
Why? Relevance, pure and simple. They do not provide anything that I need and I’m not going to waste paper by giving them one more place to get it thrown away. First I feel that newspapers have lost the plot, and a place in the news process. They tell me nothing I need to know that I can’t find out for free and without wasting resources.
sab
@Kay: Nonsense. You have been to Denmark.
Ruckus
@hitchhiker:
I like your comment better than my own.
Because the NYT genuflects to Dumbass J Toilet. (I say that because it seems, from some reliable sources that he never lets porcelain support him, he just carries it around, like an extremely cheap and bad perfume.
sab
@sab: I have lived in NV, not in AZ, so rooting for the (formerly home) team.
Old School
Biden-Harris football ad.
Ruckus
@Chris:
BINGO – on all counts.
Ruckus
@Chris:
There was at one time something I was told about newspapers. It’s always behind because the printing type has to be set, the paper printed, handled/delivered, which means the information is always going to be along the lines of the old saying – “A day late and a dollar short.” And given that newsprint and the process to produce the final product is a pain in the wallet, at some point it will lose most if not all support. In many places it already has.
prostratedragon
@Baud: One could practically hear people like Merkel in Europe thinking this at the time.
Another Scott
[ rofl ]
Cheers,
Scott.
Melancholy Jaques
@Kay:
I’d cite interrupting Easter mass at St Patriheyck’s as an example of the kind of thing that does absolutely nothing to advance the cause while alienating people who may not even be aware of why they are there.
Saying “I think your tactics are counterproductive” is not saying that their cause is not just or that they are not sincere.
Melancholy Jaques
@Melancholy Jaques:
St. Patrick’s. No idea how that happened.
wjca
Put that on every college** game broadcast, across the South, all fall. Could see some startling places turn blue. TIFG may be their god-king, but football is GOD from Texas right across to the Atlantic.
** If there are high school games on TV (I’ve never lived there, but I wouldn’t be surpries), that would be even better.
Ironcity
@Ann Marie: I was thinking more Penny Saver or Thrifty Nickel if they are still around.
One of the Many Jens
Hey Watergirl, re the Four Directions Angel Match, the thermometer for NV should now be above 20K to be eligible for the mega-match (thank you angels :*)), that I think was due today, if I’m remembering correctly. Thanks, as always, for putting these together!
Melancholy Jaques
@wjca:
Just get it into Three Year Letterman’s twitter feed.
brantl
@Dangerman: What have you got against the dog?
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: The irony here is that the arguments Powell made against allowing gays to serve in the 80s and 90s were virtually identical to the arguments made in the late 40s over racially integrating the military.
Ruckus
@danielx:
Agree. pinche cabron.
Ruckus
@Chris:
Agree. shitforbrains has been shitty for decades. So many decades in fact that it’s likely he was shitty in his private school kindergarten class.
Ivan X
@Omnes Omnibus: Thank you for this sensitivity. I think, frankly, most of us here are appalled by what Israel is doing, and find Netanyahu’s malignant government loathsome and untrustworthy, but we are worn out from trying to talk about it with those who doesn’t get what it feels like to be Jewish right now.
I do think the A-S accusation gets thrown around too easily, but some of it is real — you know it when you see it — and very apparent to us when it may not be to others.
I can only speak for myself but I have a hair trigger around it — the last 40-70 years have been a relatively safe time for the (remaining) Jews in the diaspora, but we are always expecting the next pogrom, and frankly, the rhetoric of much of the protests is pro-violence (towards Israel), pro-war (towards Israel), and anti-Israel’s existence. You can say that it’s only a few fringe people, but that’s not what I observe when I see protests out here in NYC. And it’s not what I observed when I went to college (at a mostly white school in Portland, OR), when more than once people laid into me about Israel on the basis of nothing more than them learning I’m Jewish.
It’s a cliche at this point to say that you can be against Israel’s policies without being antisemitic, but I mean, some of the protestors are saying implicitly, or blatantly, anti-semitic things.
What I feel gets left out is I’ll be the first to say that Israel has blood on its hands both now and in its past, but the grotesqueness of what Hamas did (I mean, the gang rapes, the brutality of the murder methods, these details matter), and is doing, and what they would do in the future, is screamingly absent from the Pro-Palestine conversation.
I don’t think we (Jews and Palestinans) can move forward without an acknowledgment of how we have brutalized one another. Simply calling for the end of Israel and the insistence that Zionism is inhrently evil is a nonstarter for me. Israel is important to Jews. Calling for a ceasefire is fine, appropriate even, if it means that both sides stop firing.
But, with that said, Israel has more power here, and slaughtering tens of thousands for nebulous, unachievable goals with no clear end date is not acceptable, either. (And neither are West Bank settlements.)
And, yes, the university administrators are assholes who are not helping.
I think all I’m trying to say is that yes, anti-semitism is real, and sometimes being anti-Israel is, in fact, antisemitic, depending on the intent and message of the person. And sometimes, in these protests, it’s right out there in the open. Even if were an anti-Zionist Jew, which I’m not, I can’t see linking arms with people like that.
This article by Noah Smith (yes, it has flaws, I am not endorsing all it has to say, or how broad a brush it paints with) sums up some of my feelings:
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/palestine-is-the-end-of-the-line
ETA: I know of at least one commenter here who no longer visits because they feel as though their Jewish perspective isn’t welcome. I don’t personally find that to be true, but I think we mostly keep quiet at this point for fear of pile-on.
Chris
@Ruckus:
There was a running gag in one of the Western comics I read as a kid where the local small town editor was always delivering news of what had just happened to the people who had just seen it happen after it happened.
“Hey! I just came from the saloon, there’s been another shootout, have you heard?”
“Of course! You’ll read all about it in my morning edition! By the way, how do you spell ‘shootout?'”