‘Caution: Those with sensitive stomachs or respect for the truth should stop here.”
That’s the warning label The Washington Post should have slapped on a recent essay.
Unfortunately, it didn’t and let the writer gas on as if his fabulist claims were grounded in reality.
The op-ed was doubly dispiriting because, although it appeared in The Washington Post, it was written by the publisher of The New York Times.
Both outlets likely thought the joint imprimatur would increase the audience and impact.
Instead, the resulting flop magnifies their effort to spread misinformation.
Both outlets apparently still think Americans are foolish enough to trust Big Media to tell them the truth.
Author A.G. Sulzberger’s effort to inflate what was little more than another vicious attack on Donald Trump into a rallying cry for press independence is noteworthy for all the wrong reasons.
His farrago of leftist partisanship, self-aggrandizement and fearmongering comes disguised as an appeal for freedom of the press.
The transparent motive gives readers yet another reason to search elsewhere for facts and fairness.
Of course, nobody can argue with such truths as “The flow of trustworthy news and information is critical to a free, secure and prosperous nation.”
Or the claim that “defense of the free press has been a point of rare bipartisan consensus throughout the nation’s history.”
The author wraps his argument in red, white and blue by quoting President Ronald Reagan as saying, “There is no more essential ingredient than a free, strong, and independent press to our continued success in what the Founding Fathers called our ‘noble experiment’ in self-government.”
Bias papered over
Citing Reagan is an obvious tease to draw in conservatives and Republicans.
It’s also a fig leaf to cover the Big Lie about the Times built-in bias.
It hasn’t endorsed a Republican for president since Dwight Eisenhower in 1956.
Up and down the ballot, year in year out, no matter the office and the candidates, it would endorse a dead raccoon if it was running on the Democrat line.
The more recent and greater sin is that the paper’s radical narratives are no longer limited to opinion pages.
Nearly every article on every topic reflects a scolding, far-left view, whether it be on race, Israel, markets, the weather, books, films, theater or even sports.
The hyperpartisanship has reached new depths in the Trump era, with the Times a chief player in fomenting the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax.
And don’t forget that Sulzberger fired his opinion editor for publishing an op-ed from GOP Sen. Tom Cotton urging Trump to use the military to quell the 2020 urban riots.
The fifth male in his family to hold the title of publisher — no outsiders need apply — Sulzberger uses his essay to charge that Trump “and his allies have declared their intention to increase their attacks on a press he has long derided as ‘the enemy of the people.’ ”
He even blames Trump for anti-press crackdowns in Brazil and India and adds that the former president’s use of the term “fake news” caused global harm, writing “around 70 countries on six continents have enacted ‘fake news’ laws.”
The implication is that the president shouldn’t enjoy freedom of speech if it involves criticism of certain media.
Yet the author still has the nerve to claim that “I have no interest in wading into politics” and insists he will not let the Times “cast aside neutrality” in its election coverage.
Oh, please, does he even read his paper?
Or maybe he, like so many other New Yorkers, has given up hoping for a semblance of even-handedness.
Among the lines that deserve a warning label all their own are this one: “At The Times, we are committed to following the facts and presenting a full, fair and accurate picture of November’s election and the candidates and issues shaping it.”
This from the publisher of a paper which each day promotes three or four loaded stories against Trump and sees only “joy” and “hope” in his Democratic opponent.
So Kamala Harris is not only assured of the paper’s backing, she also won’t be pushed on her policy flip-flops.
Crying shame
And she shouldn’t waste time concocting elaborate evasions about how she wants to take the country in a different direction than the Biden-Harris administration. Whatever she says — or even if she keeps ducking interviews — will be good enough for the Times.
The paper is so rife with Trump hate that a book critic declared the Constitution is one of the “biggest threats” to the country.
That’s because . . . Trump won the Electoral College in 2016.
Ultimately, Sulzberger’s screed is not the high-minded appeal to our better angels he thinks it is.
Rather, it’s a reflection of how out little he understands America.
The nation is politically divided, yet the Times embodies the arrogance of the urban, elite left as it looks with contempt on those who see the world differently.
Its bias is so ingrained that it raises no objection to Dems using the courts to try to bankrupt, imprison and keep Trump off the ballot.
If Republicans tried that, the sky would fall.
After the 2016 election, the former publisher, Sulzberger’s father, wrote a note to readers apologizing for not better understanding Trump’s appeal.
That blindness was explained in part by the fact that some members of the newsroom were preparing to celebrate Hillary Clinton’s victory.
While it’s understandable that election night ended in tears for many Democrats, tears in the newsroom of the nation’s largest newspaper are out of bounds.
Or should have been.
But eight years later, the paper has moved even deeper into the partisan swamp.
It supports Big Tech censorship of conservative voices, meaning it believes in freedom of speech only for speech it agrees with.
And just as it tried to bury the facts about Joe Biden’s corruption with his family influence peddling scheme, it hid his mental decline.
Last June 26, the paper carried water for the White House with a story headlined, “How Misleading Videos Are Trailing Biden as He Battles Age Doubts.”
The very next day brought the debate debacle, where it became clear how unfit Biden actually was.
In the aftermath, when polls showed Trump building a massive lead, the Times suddenly switched horses and called for the president to quit the race.
When he did, and when Harris was anointed by party bosses in a backroom, Tammany Hall coup, the paper didn’t object to Dems ignoring the will of 14 million primary voters.
Keeping Trump out of the White House was and is all that matters.
Ultimately, the Times is, like every media outlet — and all Americans — free to say and write pretty much anything it wants.
But it would have more credibility if it admitted it has a political agenda and gave up the pretense of fairness.
Until then, good luck to Sulzberger in his quest for an Oscar for impersonating a publisher devoted to free, fair and honest speech.