Not by us folks here. Seemingly by the editorial team of the NY Times itself.
It looks like the Times may be resuming the games that so hurt Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry.
I suggest we might all wanna be concerned, Barack's supporters especially, for I fear he'll be next.
I run a small group in Manhattan and pick up the occasional insider tip that suggests that this narrative rings true:
- A year ago, Andrew Rosenthal replaced Gail Collins as the Editorial Page Editor. Like Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, the publisher, he seems to be distinctly to the right of his predecessor. He is the one that appointed Bill Kristol as a weekly columnist.
- Here is a very good analysis of the recent opinion-columns slants in the Times. For the moment (just for the moment) they seem to favor Barack.
- Whispers here are that the Times may be looking into all of Barack's involvement with the islamist Odinga/Luo party in Kenya, and whether his involvement helped to fuel the post-election violence. Seems to me this should be a very worrisome issue for all of us here, for it looks at first glance like the perfect vehicle for swiftboating.
- On Sunday, Frank Rich published his famous column fairly or unfairly (as a mild Barack supporter, I think unfairly) bashing Hillary Clinton for what he claimed was a deck of racist cards played.
- In the Sunday online edition, the comments column under Frank Rich's column went wild. Within hours they were up to around 1000 comments, running 3 or 4 to 1 against Frank Rich. Mostly well-written, a lot of them not necessarily supporting Hillary Clinton; just not appreciating Rich's tone, and pointing out his anti-Clinton, anti-Gore and anti-Kerry history.
- Within a few more hours, large numbers of comments taking the anti-Rich viewpoint were simply gone. Deleted.
- And now, the entire comments thread seems to be gone. Deleted. (I captured it when the culling of the comments was in process, and could make it avaiable as a pdf document here.)
- On Monday, Paul Krugman's famous column appeared, arguing forcefully that we should tone down the personal bashing or we'll ALL be the ones to suffer. (This sentiment seemed to filter through the Kos diaries yesterday.)
- Also Monday, there was just one single letter to the editor very mildly critical of the Frank Rich column.
- In strong contrast, today (Wednesday) the entire Letters to the Editor column (newsprint edition) is given over to reactions to the Krugman column.
- It is extremely unusual for all of the letters to be on any one single topic. Seven of the nine letters are very negative towards Krugman and Hillary Clinton. Only two agree with him that the tone is superheated.
- The placement of the letters would also be highly suspect to any regular reader. While the letters columns normally flips back and forth between pro and con, today the first four all bash the Krugman point of view.
Frankly, this looks pretty ominous.
I doubt if Krugman needs this, and if a slant against him persists, he might soon just move on. To be replaced by.....? Ask Mr Rosenthal.
Seems to me that we really don't need any more media movement to the right. Is that what is happening? Ask Mr Sulzberger.
And we sure don't need any media swiftboating of Barack Obama. Is that where the Times is headed? Ask Mr Keller.