Big Dogs Weblog

Sign of the Times, Drudge Unburies the News

by Big Dog on Jul 21, 2008 at 20:18 Political

Last week Barack Obama had a piece published in the terrorist daily brief known as the New York Times. Senator John McCain sent the NYT his response to the Obama piece and it was promptly rejected by the NYT Editorial Board. In an email exchange, David Shipley (who served in the Clinton Administration), told Michael Goldfarb of McCain’s campaign, that they would like to work with the Senator to get the piece published but had to reject it at this time. Then, a few suggestions were offered to make it more Times friendly:

Dear Mr. Goldfarb,

Thank you for sending me Senator McCain’s essay.

I’d be very eager to publish the senator on the Op-Ed page.

However, I’m not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written. I’d be pleased, though, to look at another draft. Let me suggest an approach.

The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech); while Senator Obama discussed Senator McCain, he also went into detail about his own plans.

It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece. To that end, the article would have to articulate, in concrete terms, how Senator McCain defines victory in Iraq. It would also have to lay out a clear plan for achieving victory — with troops levels, timetables and measures for compelling the Iraqis to cooperate. And it would need to describe the senator’s Afghanistan strategy, spelling out
how it meshes with his Iraq plan.

I am going to be out of the office next week. If you decide to re-work the draft, please be in touch with Mary Duenwald, the Op-Ed deputy. …

Again, thank you for taking the time to send me the Senator’s draft. I really hope we can find a way to bring this to a happy resolution.

Sincerely,

David Shipley NYT

Assuming Shipley really wants to publish something from McCain rather than bury his article (and without Drudge this might have been buried forever) we need to look at what he expects. Shipley wants McCain to refine his piece so that it mirrors Obama’s. One might think he meant that it should follow the same format and he certainly outlined it that way by indicating that it should explain how McCain defines victory, troop levels, and timetables for measuring success. That might be a reasonable request in the liberal world.

The problem is, it is more likely that Shipley really wants McCain to mirror Obama’s plan for defeat. Nowhere in Obama’s piece did the young Senator define victory. Nowhere did he discuss troop levels and nowhere did he describe a timetable for success. Obama states he will remove all of our troops (leaving a small contingent) within 16 months. Let me reiterate, OBAMA DID NOT DISCUSS WHAT VICTORY WOULD BE. He is vested in defeat and this is why the NYT had no problem publishing his article. Obama’s piece discussed his plan in vague terms and left it open to revision depending on the situation on the ground.

Obama says that he would redeploy our troops and that he would be as careful getting out as we were careless getting in. This is the same mantra he has been saying for over a year. In all reality, most of the stuff in his piece is from his stump speeches. The NYT might be accurate that the piece appeared before a particular Obama speech but the content has been part of his speeches for quite some time. Therefore, contrary to Shipley’s claims, the Obama piece did not offer new information.

The 16 month withdraw and leaving troops behind are not new plans. The only thing that is recent is that Obama would now like to have a surge in Afghanistan. He wants to put more troops in Afghanistan despite his objections to doing that in Iraq and despite his assertions that the surge has not worked. He gave credit to the troops but he was quick to point out that Iraq’s government has not held up its end of the bargain. Senator Obama is criticizing the Iraqi government for being slow when our own government has been non existent this year (and for many years). Nothing substantive has been accomplished by our do absolutely nothing Congress and we are not fighting a war on our soil.

The New York Times has demonstrated its liberal bias just as the major broadcast media did when it decided to follow Obama all over the world. When McCain made trips to the war zones, did all the anchors follow him around? It is obvious that the Times does not want to print McCain’s piece because it runs contrary to their opinions and it paints Obama in a poor light because it points out that Obama has never mentioned victory. The reality is that the Times will print any liberal tripe sent to it by left wing celebrities and Democrats in Congress. This is their definition of unbiased reporting. The amazing thing is that liberals who mock Fox for its Fair and Balanced slogan look at the Times as acting fairly.

Is it any wonder that the Times’ circulation is down and that the once great paper is being run into the ground? While I won’t lose any sleep if they go belly up, a lot of people will be out of jobs if they do not right that ship. The last thing we need is one more thing for them to blame on George Bush.

In any event, the McCain Op-Ed was printed in full on Drudge. At least we can count on Drudge to publish things.

Tags: drudge, liberal bias, McCain, new york times, Obama