William Kristol, the New York Times and Nazi Gunter d'Alquen
by Walter C. Uhler
from Smirking Chimp
It was an offhand remark, in 1971, by a Penn State professor to his political science students, that prompted me to become a devoted reader, then decades-long subscriber, to the New York Times: "If you don't read the New York Times, you can't begin to know what's occurring in the U.S. and the world." Over the years, I found overwhelming evidence -- much of it amusing and delightful -- to support his claim, even as I suppressed my suspicions that the "Old Grey Lady" was pimping for a muscular U.S. presence around the world. For years I lived with the conceit that sophisticated people spent much of their weekend mornings reading Sunday's Times
But, my-oh-my, how "Times" have changed! First, copy-cat journalism by Times' "wannabes" undermined the paper's claim to be the "paper of record." Subsequently, that reputation was further eroded - as was the general appeal of newspapers - by the emergence and widespread appeal of "24/7" cable and internet news. Finally, the Times suffered severe self-inflicted wounds - by such dishonest reporters as Jayson Blair and Judith Miller - from which it has yet to recover.
The final straw for me, however, was the December 30, 2007 decision by the Times to hire William Kristol (editor of the Weekly Standard) as a columnist. Although the Times calls Kristol a conservative, he is, in fact, a notorious neoconservative - a member of a political cult that many traditional conservatives disavow. Readers who noticed this Orwellian elision by the Times might also recall that in January 1998, Kristol (and Robert Kagan) wrote an Op Ed titled, "Bombing Iraq isn't Enough," which the Times was reckless enough to publish.
Reckless? Yes, because, as Robert Parry has observed: "Under principles of international law applied from Nuremberg to Rwanda, propagandists who contribute to war crimes or encourage crimes against humanity can be put in the dock alongside the actual killers." [Consortium News, Posted August 21, 2006] Simply recall that, under international law, the unprovoked invasion of another sovereign state is considered the most egregious of war crimes.
(Continued here.)
from Smirking Chimp
It was an offhand remark, in 1971, by a Penn State professor to his political science students, that prompted me to become a devoted reader, then decades-long subscriber, to the New York Times: "If you don't read the New York Times, you can't begin to know what's occurring in the U.S. and the world." Over the years, I found overwhelming evidence -- much of it amusing and delightful -- to support his claim, even as I suppressed my suspicions that the "Old Grey Lady" was pimping for a muscular U.S. presence around the world. For years I lived with the conceit that sophisticated people spent much of their weekend mornings reading Sunday's Times
But, my-oh-my, how "Times" have changed! First, copy-cat journalism by Times' "wannabes" undermined the paper's claim to be the "paper of record." Subsequently, that reputation was further eroded - as was the general appeal of newspapers - by the emergence and widespread appeal of "24/7" cable and internet news. Finally, the Times suffered severe self-inflicted wounds - by such dishonest reporters as Jayson Blair and Judith Miller - from which it has yet to recover.
The final straw for me, however, was the December 30, 2007 decision by the Times to hire William Kristol (editor of the Weekly Standard) as a columnist. Although the Times calls Kristol a conservative, he is, in fact, a notorious neoconservative - a member of a political cult that many traditional conservatives disavow. Readers who noticed this Orwellian elision by the Times might also recall that in January 1998, Kristol (and Robert Kagan) wrote an Op Ed titled, "Bombing Iraq isn't Enough," which the Times was reckless enough to publish.
Reckless? Yes, because, as Robert Parry has observed: "Under principles of international law applied from Nuremberg to Rwanda, propagandists who contribute to war crimes or encourage crimes against humanity can be put in the dock alongside the actual killers." [Consortium News, Posted August 21, 2006] Simply recall that, under international law, the unprovoked invasion of another sovereign state is considered the most egregious of war crimes.
(Continued here.)
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