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Señor “Panama John” McCain’s Hit Piece On “Barry Obama” As Op-Ed In Disguise Rejected By New York Times
I happened to stumble upon this “breaking news story” from Drudge while checking out MemeOrandum to learn the latest “blogosphere buzz“:
NYT REJECTS MCCAIN’S EDITORIAL; SHOULD ‘MIRROR’ OBAMA
Mon Jul 21 2008 12:00:25 ET
An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES — less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned.
The paper’s decision to refuse McCain’s direct rebuttal to Obama’s ‘My Plan for Iraq‘ has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles.
‘It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama’s piece,’ NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain’s staff. ‘I’m not going to be able to accept this piece as currently written.’ …”
(Snip!)
“… Shipley, who is on vacation this week, explained his decision not to run the editorial.
‘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.’
Shipley continues: ‘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.’ …
Of course, the Right is going ballistic, claiming the left-leaning (first and foremost) COMMUNITY newspaper for the left-leaning community of New York City is “biased” toward their KEY customer base, while the Left, thus far, seems to be afraid to respond to such accusations. Allow THIS left-leaning blogger to step up to the plate and give it a shot then.
I’ve never heard The New York Times describe themselves as “Fair And Balanced”. They are, INDEED, “left-leaning” as they should be since they serve a left-leaning community. Imagine FoxNews, if you can, despite being as “Fair And Balanced” as they claim to be, run a hatchet piece by Barack Obama on John McCain with NO REBUTTAL aside from the cable news equivalent to a “Letter to The Editor”, which would be nothing more than a few dissenting emails read by one of their hosts. Repeat after MOI — Ain’t… gonna… HAPPEN.
If you haven’t figured out by now that Liberals prefer the NYT to FNC, and vice-versa — for GOOD REASON — measured in terms of readership/viewship and the Almighty Dollar, you’ve got serious issues, my friends.
As for the subject of “articulation”, or the need for better “articulation” from Señor McCain, I do sincerely hope Op-Ed Editor David Shipley isn’t holding his breath. “War, war, war“, “stay the course“, “my opponent is a wussy“, and “more war, war, war” can only be “articulated” in so many ways and the vocabulary is destined to be limited to a bunch of two or three syllable words most liberal Americans wouldn’t really wish to reach down into their wallets to purchase.
Therefore, I selflessly volunteer my valued services to aid Señor McCain in helping him “edit” his “draft” Op-Ed in such a way it shall become a call for the equally patriotic liberal’s hard-earned dollars to flow into The Gentleman From The Nation Of Panama’s neoconservative pockets.
For example — let’s take just one paragraph from Señor McCain’s rejected Op-Ed draft in its unaltered form:
Señor McCain:“… The success of the surge has not changed Senator Obama’s determination to pull out all of our combat troops. All that has changed is his rationale. In a New York Times op-ed and a speech this week, he offered his “plan for Iraq” in advance of his first “fact finding” trip to that country in more than three years. It consisted of the same old proposal to pull all of our troops out within 16 months. In 2007 he wanted to withdraw because he thought the war was lost. If we had taken his advice, it would have been. Now he wants to withdraw because he thinks Iraqis no longer need our assistance. …”
Now, in an attempt to audition for “Panama John”, I’ll re-word his fiery hit piece Op-Ed draft in such a way he MIGHT be able to capture the attention if not outright AMUSE liberal Americans:
GTL’s Proposed Edited Version of Señor McCain’s “draft”: “… Barack Obama is a great American patriot, there is no doubt about it in my mind, or that of any other intelligent, critical-thinking human being’s; we simply disagree on our approach to the conflict in Iraq. While my opponent was skeptical about President Bush’s “Surge”, to his credit, we wouldn’t even be bogged down in the quagmire in the first place, had we heeded his wisdom in the beginning before waging a needless preemptive strike on this sovereign nation based upon faulty intelligence and a faulty presidency; something else we both are in agreement on. In 2007, my worthy opponent, Barack Obama, wanted to withdraw because he felt the war was won once U.N. Article 1441 was enforced and Saddam Hussein was handed over to the citizens of Iraq. I strongly disagree. The REAL war will not be won until we have secured the oil fields of Iraq for our subsistence, which is also quite dependent now upon the success of American corporations in the Nation Building business. Without a healthy military industrial complex, due to the outsourcing of everything else “American”, our stock markets and the world’s economy risks collapse as does our own nation’s slippage into “Third World Status”. …
How’d I do? I believe the NYT would, INDEED, publish this “final draft”, courtesy of The GTL™
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UPDATE: A couple of liberal bloggers have stepped up – Liberal Values; Salon (War Room’s Alex Koppelman); Obsidian Wings; The Newshoggers (Libby Spencer); The Mahablog… The always-independent thinking Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish (The Atlantic) also brings up an interesting point…
you obviously don’t watch fox GTL. Progressives and liberals are welcomed and encouraged to appear on the network. They have been chasing Senator Obama for over a year. The general consensus was Bill O’Reily who certainly leans right gave Senator Clinton a fair shake in his interview with her.
Other than that I agree with you. the NYT is biased to the left and reflects their community. Very refreshing to hear someone say it 8).
In a presidential election we should expect more from our news sources, but then again if they lived up to their responsibilities we wouldn’t be having so much fun blogging would we?