The New York Times really makes you think. Consider, for example, its editorial “The President Goes Negative.” It made me think, and think hard, that the editors of that formerly august organ must have a very low opinion indeed of their readers’ intelligence.
The piece opens with an attack on President’s Bush’s supposed “penchant for slash-and-burn politics.” Leave aside the question of whether the President exhibits any such penchant. Suppress the desire to point out the many ways in which the Bush administration has ostentatiously fulfilled the (to my mind dubious) promise of promulgating “compassionate conservatism.” For moment, simply take on board the Times’s description of the President’s approach to politics as “unseemly” at home and “shameful” and “damaging for the country” when practiced abroad.
“Slash-and-burn politics,” “unseemly,” “shameful,” “damaging to the country”: Pretty bad, eh? And it’s all the more derogatory because the President is said to have learned his trade “at the feet of Karl Rove and the late Lee Atwater.” (Is that any worse, you might wonder, than learning from James Carville, Hendrick Hertzberg, or Sidney Blumenthal, conspicuous tutors of the Clintons?)
Exhibit A in the Times’s indictment was President Bush’s warning, in a speech honoring Israel’s 60th anniversary, that dealing with “terrorists and radicals”–read Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, Syria–was tantamount to “appeasement.” The Times was not alone in understanding this as a “barely veiled attack against Senator Barack Obama.” Maybe it was, since Obama has publicly declared his intention, as the Times put it in another piece, “to talk to Iran without preconditions.” (According to the Times, Obama believes that, even if Iran has been acting “irresponsibly,” its behavior “reflected its anxiety over the Bush administration’s policies in the region.” Got that? Iran helps kill American soliders in Iraq and is busy developing nuclear weapons and it’s our fault.)
But maybe, as spokesmen for the Bush administration suggested, the President meant us to think not of Obama but Jimmy Carter, who has just returned from a nice parley with Hamas and a side trip to lay a wreath at the grave of his fellow Nobel Peace-Prize laureate, the terrorist Yassir Arafat? Or maybe he meant for us to think of both, or neither? Maybe he was just making the general point that appeasing bullies is, as history has amply illustrated, a bad because a bootless policy. (”Britain and France,” Churchill observed “had to choose between war and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will have war.”)
This is exactly what the Times wants to distract you from thinking. They find it egregious that the President should mention “appeasement” when speaking before the Israeli Parliament because “there are few words more fraught than ‘appeasement’ and no place where they carry more emotional weight than in Israel.”
Well, yes. But why is that a reason to avoid the word or the reality behind the word–the reality that dealing with “terrorists and radicals” is generally a dangerous form of appeasement? Why should the President not say that in a speech honoring Israel’s 60th anniversary? Because it reflects poorly on Barrack Obama? We all know that the Times ♥ Obama. But should its infatuation with a left-wing, astonishingly inexperienced politician absolve it of an elementary respect for the facts?
Of course, the Times is only partly motivated by infatuation with Obama. It is also powerfully motivated by BDS–Bush Derangement Syndrome. It is axiomatic for those suffering from this malady that the President is simultaneously a hapless puppet (Rove, Atwater) and a sort of evil genius whose every action is fraught with malignancy.
My favorite part of “The President Goes Negative” is the end. The second to last paragraph is a splendid instance of PTS–Pompous Times Speech: “Diplomacy is simply good sense”–you don’t say. I am sure President Bush will read that and say to himself, “Gosh, I never thought of that!” I suspect the Times really believes something like. The editorial castigates the President’s “refusal to talk” to regimes like Iran, Syria, and North Korea. But a quick Google search will show that the Bush administration has made countless diplomatic initiatives to those regimes. It’s just that it has accompanied its carrots with the prudent stick of conditions and, where necessary, the threat of sanctions.
Was this wrong? Was it ineffective? Did that great diplomat Jimmy Carter do better in his handling of Iran? Did Bill Clinton do better in his handling of regimes friendly to terrorism? (Here’s an interesting parlor game: how many terrorist attacks against US interests occurred during the Clinton administration? How many have occurred since September 11, 2001?)
The very best part of “The President Goes Negative” is still to come. Remember how the piece opened: “Slash-and-burn politics” that are “unseemly,” “shameful,” and “damaging to the country.” Then we have a rhetorical peripeteia: “Diplomacy is simply good sense.” Now that we are on the high road, full of PTS, we can forget about “the politics of personal destruction“, accusing people of “slash-and-burn politics,” etc., and say instead that “We also yearn for a more civilized and respectful political dialogue. That is essential for a healthy democracy. It is also essential for regaining the world’s respect.”
Can you beat that? How stupid does the Times think you are? From “slash-and-burn politics” to calls for “a more civilized and respectful political dialogue” all in the space a few hundred words. And the concluding appoggiaturas are especially rich: that such exercises in civility are “essential to a healthy democracy” and necessary for “regaining the world’s respect.” Translation: 1) democracy is only “healthy” when it follows a left-liberal line; otherwise it is in extremis. 2) “The world’s respect” means pandering to left-liberal, anti-American interests the world over.
The Times, like so many “progressive” institutions, confuses “respect” with “being liked.” Dr. Spock thought that way, and helped blight child-rearing for a generation. Neville Chamberlain thought that way, too, and we all know what happened as a result of his diplomatic efforts.
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Introduction by Roger Kimball
36 Comments
Tom:Dear Mr. Kimball,
I love your magazine and enjoy your blog. Terrific stuff! May I make a very small criticism? Your blog posts tend to be on the long-ish side. This can be good; this can also be bad. The genre is a weird one…but it should be geared toward quick reading.
Sorry for sounding snide. You do great stuff!
May 18, 2008 - 11:25 am reliapundit:i love how the lib media have all chastised bushitler for INJECTING HIMSELF INTO THE 2008 presidential race.
as if the dems weren’t already CONSTANTLY accusing mccain of being gwb’s third term.
how dumb do they think we are… as dumb as their followers?
we are not.
May 18, 2008 - 2:30 pm T. J. Babson:The New York Times is sophomoric.
May 18, 2008 - 2:37 pm Dan Friedman:The Times has been living inside a little liberal box for decades and never ventures beyond for fear its readers might start thinking outside of it. Their new slogan should be “Keeping ‘em dumb.”
May 18, 2008 - 3:03 pm GM Roper:Terrific analysis Mr. Kimball. It would appear that a severe infection of BDS removes all ability to think coherently. The Gray Lady is infected severely.
May 18, 2008 - 3:15 pm Larry Sheldon:How stupid…?
Stupid enough to buy it and read it.
I am neither. And articles that go on and on about what is says, as it it were important, are pretty stupid too.
Why would a thinking person care what they said? Next you will be running on about something Andrew Sullivan drooled.
May 18, 2008 - 3:36 pm Assistant Village Idiot:No no no. Offering a criticism of Bush is free speech. Offering a criticism of Obama is an unfair attack. You guys just don’t seem to get it. Measuring unequal treatment misses the point: progressives feel it and they know.
May 18, 2008 - 4:23 pm Evil Pundit:Perhaps the New York Times thinks its readers are stupid because those are the only kind of people who still read it.
May 18, 2008 - 4:24 pm BushLover:You forgot the part about how Dear Leader mentioned Nazi tanks going through Poland.
That was so true! I can imagine Obama inviting the Nazis into America!
You also forgot to mention that Robert Gates, Dear Leader’s Secretary of Defense said
“We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage . . . and then sit down and talk with them,” Gates said. “If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can’t go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us.”
So oh no! Dear Leader has an appeaser in his midst! Gates should be tortured as a terrorist supporter and put in a prison in Syria forever!
We must support Bush no matter how evil the man he decided should run the Defense Department!
I expect that Gates will fired tomorrow! Bush would never never pick such a proterrorist appeaser on purpose! He must have gotten distracted when he picked this Hate America Firster!
May 18, 2008 - 4:45 pm Paul M Hupf:It is nonsense to think that a “more civilized and respectful political dialogue” can occur with Hamas, Hezbollah or any terrorist group. Neville Chamberlain’s is reported to have said, as he neared death, “If only Herr Hitler had kept his word.”
May 18, 2008 - 4:54 pm Ron Kean:I read The American Thinker and other blogs that say the Times is on a downward spiral in revenue, circulation, and investment.
I wonder how long it will be before a real demise? Is it possible? I’m from the mid-west and I’m still appalled by them publishing the telephone listening program and the banking tracking program by the US govt to catch bad guys.
The New York Police Department should come after the editors of the Times right after they get all of those thieves at the UN.
May 18, 2008 - 5:06 pm John Reece:I think the conservative tendency to equate Jimmy Carter with Neville Chamberlain is very unfair — to Neville Chamberlain. It took only five months after Munich for Neville Chamberlain to realize he’d been played, when Nazi Germany occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia, and to start mobilization and issue sincere ultimatums wrt Poland. Jimmy Carter still thinks he worked out a great nuclear deal with North Korea almost 15 years ago and has been trying tirelessly ever since to repeat his ’success’ elsewhere.
May 18, 2008 - 5:38 pm MCS:“Slash and burn politics.” Isn’t that the bottom line of journalistic ethics at the NYT?
May 18, 2008 - 5:59 pm Anna Keppa:Well, it all makes sense to me: The NY Times speaks in tongues on its editorial page today, and later, Our Saviour of the Tight-Fitting Jeans appears before an adoring crowd of 75,000 in Oregon to work his miracles.
The sun stood still, or so they said. The dead arose, and were seen by many. To those who attempted to help swooning devotees back to their feet, the Messiah’s minions yelled “Leave them! Leave them where the Good Lord FLANG them!”
Anyone still doubt we are seeing a new irruption of the Popular Delusions and Madness of Crowds?
May 18, 2008 - 6:07 pm ChknLtL:So the NYT gets upset when the President mentions appeasement? Me, I tend to get het up when I see appeasement in action. But then I live in one the fly-over states, and I don’t read the NYT, so what do I know?
May 18, 2008 - 6:30 pm bour3:Peripeteia and Appoggiaturas. Now don’t those two roll right off the tongue? I can’t wait to wedge those two into a sentence some time with someone and make it sound natural.
May 18, 2008 - 6:39 pm Gagdad Bob:Just how stupid does The New York Times think its readers are? Just stupid enough to think it isn’t.
May 18, 2008 - 6:55 pm Dr. Clifton Chadwick:Excellent piece! When I first read the editorial I was flabbergasted by its utter misdirection and inanity. I hoped that someone would pillory, deride, ridicule and expose NYT (excuse redundancy). No one is better than Roger!
May 18, 2008 - 11:16 pm AP:Thansk and cheers
The answer to your parlor game question, near as I can figure is:
Terror attacks against American interests under Clinton: at least six? http://theanchoressonline.com/2006/08/11/none-of-this-would-be-happening-if-bush-hadn%E2%80%99t-invaded-iraq/
Under Bush. None since 9/11
May 19, 2008 - 12:01 am Lash LaRue:“Under Bush. None since 9/11″ ?? 4,000 plus died US troops in Irag?
May 19, 2008 - 2:38 am thirdfinger:Lash,
May 19, 2008 - 3:12 am Fred Beloit:Those 4,000 and about 500,000 of their compatriots have killed about 23,000 of the insurgents friends and cohorts. In the meantime the attacks on other US interests = 0. This is what the troops signed up for and what they get paid for. They knew what they signed up for and don’t need people like you to take up for them. They understand that folks of your ilk use them as a cudgel to beat their opponents over the head. I’m sure you would have wailed about the Normandy invasion and the number of US dead their as well.
Anna,
I understand that most of those dead, brought back to life, are lining up to register to vote in Chicago.
“Lash LaRue:
“Under Bush. None since 9/11″ ?? 4,000 plus died[sic] US troops in Irag?”
Now this is a real NYT reader in action. Ecce homo.
May 19, 2008 - 4:49 am Jamie:U.S. troops carrying out a mission to bring radical change to the Middle East, and, we hope, to steer it into more productive waters by carrot and stick - those are not “terror attacks against American interests.” Those are casualties of war, tragic but inevitable. Lest you think I’d discount all attacks against military targets, when the Cole was bombed, that was a terror attack: those sailors were not engaged with the enemy who bombed them - either then or thereafter in response. (This is why Pearl Harbor was an opening salvo rather than a pure terror attack: FDR, whatever his other myriad flaws, at least put the wheels in motion following Pearl Harbor to allow the U.S. to retaliate for that attack.)
Bushlover, you poor critter. I’d suggest that “We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage,” coming from an administration that has shown quite definitively that it knows how to use leverage, != “talk to Iran without preconditions.”
May 19, 2008 - 4:51 am AP:Equate a real war in Iraq and Afghanistan to terrorism and then spell it wrong. Way to shore up your argument.
May 19, 2008 - 6:31 am Jeff Weimer:Why don’t they realize that this polyanna “we can all just get along” and an early exit from Iraq will cause the LOSS of respect? We won’t gain goodwill, they hate us anyway, and will continue to do so as long as we’re the big kid on the playground, and for no other reason than that. Have we learned NOTHING from the first WTC, Somalia, Kenya/Tanzania, the Cole? Nothing at all form 9/11?
May 19, 2008 - 6:57 am gajim:T. J. Babson: The New York Times is sophomoric.
No, I think its worse than that. How about freshmaniac?
May 19, 2008 - 7:20 am Karen:Criticism: the ads in this comment section cover up parts of the comments. Is this a feature…or a bug?
May 19, 2008 - 7:47 am Walker:Jeez. Now the thought police have created another non-word to add to the other non-words. You know, the F-word, the N-word, the I-word (Islamist) and now—per Obama’s pitifully wussyfied thin skinned-ness— the A-word!
Distraction! Unfair! Old Politics! Leave Brittany/my wife alone!
….pathetic for a man who purports to be strong and stable enough to lead the world.
May 19, 2008 - 10:23 am Nahanni:All I have to know is that my local weekly shopper newspaper has a greater circulation then the NYT on a daily basis.
The NYT will be out of business in two years if it isn’t bought by Rupert Murdoch by then. He might just let them go under, though. The damage done to it’s reputation by the moonbats who publish it currently might be too much to overcome and thus not worth buying.
May 19, 2008 - 11:19 am Troy Camplin:The NYT has always thought its readers dumb. That’s why it’s written at a 5th grade reading level, while the French paper Le Monde is written at a 12th grade reading level. (Sadly, the newspaper with the highest reading level, The Wall Street Journal, is itself only at an 8th grade reading level.)
May 19, 2008 - 12:30 pm airth10:I am just wondering how dumb Roger Kimball thinks his readers are. I mean, he really has drawn the cognitive dumbest with this posting. All he has to do is mention The New York Times and with that he has released the equivalent, in the form of deformed comments, a sequel to the movie “Dumb and Dumber”.
May 19, 2008 - 1:29 pm Jack Klompus:“drawn the cognitive dumbest”
May 19, 2008 - 5:44 pm Anna Keppa:Right. All he did was “mention” the NYT. Phenomenal argument and refutation of the points made in the column, airth. The brilliant pop culture reference really brings home the tremendous impact of your scintillating wit and wisdom.
Yes, airth, you’ve got a point….but one your comb-over doesn’t….quite…hide.
May 19, 2008 - 6:06 pm Uncle Ralph:The NYTimes, et al. Just goes to show you how right Lincoln was. You CAN fool some of the people all of the time.
May 20, 2008 - 3:15 am