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The New York Times, the “paper of record” that was once Stalin’s mouthpiece, has just made news by giving us all the presidential endorsements fit to print. In a first not just for the paper but, perhaps, for any paper, it has chosen two candidates: Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).
No, the Times isn’t recommending we become like ancient Sparta, which once had two kings; isn’t espousing a binatarian view of two persons in one commander in chief; and isn’t likely trying to help Democrats who vote twice. So what was the paper doing?
Amusing the punditry, for starters. As an example, the Times opens its analysis of Warren by calling her “a gifted storyteller.” Well, yeah, that is one way to describe the Prevaricating Pocahontas, whose short list of “stories” (i.e., lies) involves having American Indian heritage, losing a teaching position owing to pregnancy, plagiarizing a cookbook recipe, her father’s job, her parents’ elopement, and her son’s private schooling.
The Times also states, in kindly dismissing ex-vice president Joe Biden, that he’s 77 and that it’s “time for him to pass the torch to a new generation of political leaders.” Yet while the 70-year-old Warren certainly is more vibrant than punchy Joe, she’s not exactly a new generation (a half generation, maybe — or a new degeneration).
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But this may not matter because, writes Fox News’ Howard Kurtz in a credible analysis, the Times’ criticism of Warren and praise of Klobuchar make clear they want the latter.
Warren has “displayed ‘some questionable political instincts,’” explains Kurtz, quoting the paper’s profuse criticism of Warren. “She can sound like she sees ‘a universe of us-versus thems.’ She’s backed away from Medicare for All. She goes too far in ‘placing the blame for a host of maladies from climate change to gun violence at the feet of the business community when the onus is on society as a whole. The country needs a more unifying path.’”
The bottom line is likely that the Times desires a female nominee (its endorsement’s closing line is “May the best woman win”) and wants that woman to be Klobuchar. But realizing she’s languishing at three percent in the polls and likely won’t be chosen, the paper wants to give voters a second choice. It’s saying, “In case one gets a flat, we’ve got a spare,” as Fox pundit Greg Gutfeld quipped in an amusing analysis (video below).
Another motivation for the Times is “commercial,” writes the left-wing New Republic; it asserts that the Gray Lady wanted to titillate readers by taking them “behind the scenes” of its endorsement process, which involved more than 12 hours interviewing nine candidates.
(It would have been 10 candidates, mind you. Amusingly, however, Michael Bloomberg refused to be interviewed, claiming that he — a 77-year-old man who heads a major media company — “didn’t yet have positions on enough issues,” the Times relates.)
But the Gray Lady’s effort isn’t impressing. The New Republic called the paper’s endorsement a “charade” while other critics, on both the Left and Right, said the organ had “beclowned” itself.
Yet perhaps the most clownish aspect here is the notion that there’s anyone but radical Democrat contenders from which to choose, with the Times labeling Klobuchar a “realist.” The paper does admit that upon interviewing the candidates, the “similarity of their platforms on fundamental issues became striking.” As with a tadpole spawned in a polluted pond and thus inured to its toxins, however, the Times doesn’t acknowledge that it’s a sinister similarity because it itself is part of the effluent (and wants to keep its 64-year streak of endorsing Democrats alive).
Just consider that Klobuchar, a supposed “moderate,” is “in favor of the Green New Deal … [and] has a 100 percent rating from Planned Parenthood and NARAL and an ‘F’ rating from the NRA,” relates commentator Brian C. Joondeph.
And now the Gray Lady is getting an F rating, too, from all sides. But, hey, if Time’s Athlete of the Year can be a whole women’s soccer team and our times say there can be more than two sexes, why can’t the New York Times have more than one candidate? Besides, much like those two like-named publications, putting Warren and Klobuchar together gives you a complete failure.
Photo: AP Images
Selwyn Duke (@SelwynDuke) has written for The New American for more than a decade. He has also written for The Hill, Observer, The American Conservative, WorldNetDaily, American Thinker, and many other print and online publications. In addition, he has contributed to college textbooks published by Gale-Cengage Learning, has appeared on television, and is a frequent guest on radio.
