Pope Abramson Gets Nod, King Kong Keller Sent Back to Minors

But It's Okay, Jill Hates Israel

James Taranto outlines the series of mental and moral crimes that the New York Times has committed in the last year under the tutelage of a whack-job named Keller. Taranto demonstrates clearly how the Times agenda of lies and slander aim to trivialize and demean it opposition, by squandering what USED TO BE its moral authority in pointless and silly attacks:

The barren skag Abramson said that as a born-and-raised New Yorker, she considered being named editor of The Times to be like "ascending to Valhalla."
"In my house growing up, The Times substituted for religion," she said. "If The Times said it, it was the absolute truth."

Taranto points out:

The Times has of late acted a great deal like a corrupt religious institution. This column has chronicled its often vicious and dishonest attempts--both on the editorial page and in the news sections, which Abramson will head--to shore up its own authority by trying to tear down its competitors. Examples:

• In January, the Times responded to the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by instigating a witch hunt against "Republicans and particularly their most virulent supporters in the media," as an editorial put it--even though by the time the editorial was published, it was clear that suspect Jared Lochner was not motivated by politics.
• Also in January, a Times news story suggested that Fox News Channel Glenn Beck was advocating violence against an innocent '78-year-old liberal academic," Frances Fox Piven. In fact, Beck was merely criticizing Piven for advocating political violence.
• In March, Keller " 'snarled' that 'I think if you're a regular viewer of Fox News, you're among the most cynical people on planet Earth,' and that 'I cannot think of a more cynical slogan than 'Fair and Balanced.' " Earlier he had ducked a question about The Wall Street Journal's competitive challenge to the Times by denouncing its corporate cousin: "I think the effect of Fox News on American public life has been to create a level of cynicism about the news in general. It has contributed to the sense that they are all just out there with a political agenda, but Fox is just more overt about it. And I think that's unhealthy."

After the Times propagated the blood libel that conservative media figures were behind the murders in Tucson, we wrote that this campaign of vilification "is really about competition in the media industry--not commercial competition but competition for authority." Abramson's quote confirms that we were precisely on target in assessing the Times's view of its own authority.

"If the Times said it, it was the absolute truth." No. A newspaper is not a substitute for religion, and a lie is still a lie even if the New York Times says otherwise.

CIVILITY? Esquire asked the over-the-hill Keller this revealing question:

So you've got a baseball bat in your hands and one free swing--and Jayson Blair, Judy Miller, and Rupert Murdoch are lined up for you. Which one do you skull?
Keller: I think I've answered enough questions that I'm entitled to say "No comment" to that one.

Taranto instructs us:

In case you need a refresher, Blair is a former Times reporter whose fabrication and plagiarism helped discredit Keller's predecessor, Howell Raines, making Keller's ascension possible; Miller is a former Times reporter who went to jail to protect a source in a bogus "leak" investigation that the Times editorial page egged on out of antipathy for the Bush administration; and Murdoch is chairman of News Corp., a rival news organization (whose properties include this website).

In January, Keller said this: "It is true that the national discourse is more polarized and strident than it has been in the past, and to some extent, I would lay that at the feet of Rupert Murdoch." Yet as far as we know, Murdoch has never entertained questions about whether he would like to commit violent acts against Keller or other New York Times Co. executives.

To a greater extent, I would lay the fact that the national discourse is more polarized and strident.... at the feet of Keller and his barren crone acolytes Abramson and Bacquet, two PC excuses for keeping a rag that slanders and writes inflammatory editorials going slowly into a death spiral. Can't wait to see it crash and burn...!