On Saturday, the New York Times, lamentably America’s newspaper of record, endorsed a corrupt, perfidious miscreant for president of the United States, and it wasn’t Donald Trump. Alas, the paper elevated the scandal-ridden former secretary of State who barely scraped by in a race against a 74-year-old self-avowed socialist, with the party cheating on her behalf!
Worse, the editorial board described Hillary Clinton as “realist” and “bipartisan.” They attempted to make her palatable to young people by calling her a “grown-up.” They praised her for only flip-flopping to their position. They dismissed her email scandal as “a matter for the help desk.” No, I am not making this up.
One wonders just what world the Times has been living in for the past year. Overlooking Clinton’s designation of “Republicans” as her enemy and the millions of Americans she would put in a “basket of deplorables,” the Times confidently declared that “she has shown an unusual capacity to reach across the aisle.” As a U.S. senator and former secretary of State, “she built a reputation for grit and bipartisan collaboration,” and as president, she would likely “find common ground with a destabilized Republican Party, whose unifying goal in Congress would be to discredit her.”
Are we talking about the same person?
I would think not, especially since the paper also called the Democratic nominee “a realist who believes America cannot simply withdraw behind oceans and walls.” Oh, she believes that America should be involved overseas, all right — that much is not in doubt. It’s the “realist” bit some might have a quibble with. This “realist” also thinks we can provide “free college” by taxing the rich. This “realist” thought that toppling a Libyan dictator in the name of democracy was a good idea. Sure, she isn’t promising to make Mexico pay for a wall on the southern border, but nobody’s perfect.
Perhaps Clinton actually is a realist, though. She understands that foreigners will only donate huge sums to the Clinton Foundation and pay her husband absurdly high speaking fees if she grants them political favors. Interestingly, neither the Foundation nor Hillary Clinton’s infamous speeches to Wall Street firms merited a mention in the Times’ endorsement. Imagine that.
At least Clinton is a “grown-up.” At age 68, I would hope so. But the Times counts this as a key selling point — for millennial outreach. “Through war and recession, Americans born since 9/11 have had to grow up fast, and they deserve a grown-up president,” the Times explained. Yes, Hillary’s a grown-up, and that totally convinces the disenfranchised Bernie Sanders supporters to line up behind her. Brilliant move, New York Times!
Another count in Clinton’s favor, according to the Times, is that she’s flip-flopped — to their position.
After opposing driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants during the 2008 campaign, she now vows to push for comprehensive immigration legislation as president and to use executive power to protect law-abiding undocumented people from deportation and cruel detention. Some may dismiss her shift as opportunistic, but we credit her for arriving at the right position.
Yes, driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants is the right position (given from the mouth of God Himself), and it doesn’t matter that Clinton flip-flopped, because at least her heart’s in the right place. One wonders if the Times has a similar position on Clinton’s gay-marriage reversal — is it suddenly acceptable she once opposed it because she’s arrived at “the right position” now? On other key flip-flops, the Times is similarly forgiving, if not outright sycophantic:
… She helped promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an important trade counterweight to China and a key component of the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia. Her election-year reversal on that pact has confused some of her supporters, but her underlying commitment to bolstering trade along with workers’ rights is not in doubt.
Um, sure. The newspaper praised Clinton for supporting the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and assured readers that “her underlying commitment to bolstering trade … is not in doubt.” But I thought the whole reason she flip-flopped on TPP was to make her commitment to free trade more in doubt. Was I wrong?
Next Page: Gun Control is “service to families,” and the email scandal “a matter for the help desk.”
The Times also emphasized the former first lady’s “record of service to children, women and families.” This illustrious record includes … supporting gun control. Yes, America’s newspaper of record thinks Clinton’s efforts to restrict American gun ownership is a “service to children, women and families.” Here it is, listed in that paragraph: “This year, she rallied mothers of gun-violence victims to join her in demanding comprehensive background checks for gun buyers and tighter reins on gun sales.”
Perhaps most egregious, however, was the Times‘ nonchalant dismissal of the notorious email scandal, which seems to get worse by the day.
The Times admitted that Clinton “has also made her own share of mistakes. She has evinced a lamentable penchant for secrecy and made a poor decision to rely on a private email server while at the State Department.” Yes, huge understatement, but accurate.
“That decision deserved scrutiny, and it’s had it,” the paper declared, with all the authority of Moses on Mt. Sinai. In other words, “turn away, citizen — nothing to see here.” And here’s the final dismissal: “Now, considered alongside the real challenges that will occupy the next president, that email server, which has consumed so much of this campaign, looks like a matter for the help desk.”
Yes, the New York Times editorial board wrote that Clinton’s “reckless” mishandling of classified information on a private email server which security experts have said was likely hacked by foreign interests is “a matter for the help desk.” This is how the country’s newspaper of record deals with the endangering of America’s secrets.
I am no fan of Donald Trump, and I can understand liberals reluctantly gnashing their teeth, girding their loins, and pulling the lever for Hillary Clinton. I may end up doing the same for Mr. Trump. What I cannot understand is how cavalierly a paper like the New York Times can spout such unadulterated propaganda for a woman so corrupt, disingenuous, and pathologically dishonest. At least when Ted Cruz admitted he would vote for Donald Trump, he didn’t pretend the man was a hero.
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