NYT Refuses to Publish Letter from GM

Mickey Kaus signals the rapid descent swirling down the porcelain corridor the NYT OpEd page is making under the tutelage of Marquette U [my alma mater] journalism grad Gail Collins. After Tom Friedman [who occasionally writes sensible pieces] wrote a piece accusing GM of all sorts of terrible crimes against humanity, the GM VP Harris sent a letter to the NYT saying the Friedman piece was "rubbish." The snooty OpEd Collins decided that the word "rubbish" was over the top and deigned NOT to print the letter. Even Tom Friedman admitted afterwards that his OpEd effort was "over the top" and designed to get GM's attention.

Isn't excessive non-factual accusation the very definition of TABLOID JOURNALISM? What precisely is the difference between the hyperventilating hyperbole of house-idiots Herbert/Krugman and the claims of the National Enquirer or the Globe available at your supermarket check-out counter? Why does Friedman believe he must exaggerate and prevaricate in order to "get attention?"

Yes, Ann Coulter was "over the top" in her description of the "Jersey girls" as harpies and enjoying their husbands' demise. But Mary Matalin upbraids MSNBC imbecile Don Imus correctly when she retorts that liberals slander Repubs almost daily with ridiculous exaggerations without the MSM fact-checking the tilted nonsense liberals spew.

Finally, the death of Zarqawi gets an AP story citing an purported eyewitness namelessly named "Muhammed" saying that Americans beat Zarqawi to death. On BBC just after the event, a local Iraqi claimed three black SUVs with tinted windows drove up to the house and dynamited it. At least the BBC did not run with that story, but AP evidently will go to every length to slander American soldiers, even without evidence.

The Democracy Project takes the AP and MSM to task, but they are undeniably committed to an American defeat in Iraq and a Democratic Party victory in 2008, so odds are that, similar to the NYT OpEd maveness Collins, they aren't listening and are descending into tabloid values.