I nearly entitled this “Jaw-Dropping Confession Of The Decade.”

Stop, you're killing me! My drink just came out my nose!

In his column today, Arthur Brisbane, The New York Times’ timid ombudsman (the Times calls him its “public editor”), writes a long post about widespread accusations that the Times has not applied the same objective rigor to Barack Obama that it could have, should have, and typically has done to other politicians despite its openly liberal tilt. Oh, Arthur’s defensive about it, all right, but his defense boils down to “it wasn’t intentional.” Brisbane appears to be convinced by an assortment of media scholars he respects that the accusations on the Right that the Times has been “in the tank” for Obama is not that far from the truth after all. Bias can be overcome, though, he concludes. Yes we ca…uh, well, you know.

Brisbane writes,

“The warm afterglow of Mr. Obama’s election, the collateral effects of liberal-minded feature writers — these can be overcome by hard-nosed, unbiased political reporting now.”

Now? You mean almost five years after the primary fight with Hillary, four years from the 2008 campaign, and three and a half years into Obama’s first term? Now it’s time to overcome bias and report fairly? Now it’s time to stop bathing in afterglow and do your job?

So now is the time for the Times to live up to its Code of Conduct, which declares that

“At a time of growing and even justified public suspicion about the impartiality, accuracy and integrity of some journalists and some journalism, it is imperative that The Times and its staff maintain the highest possible standards to insure that we do nothing that might erode readers’ faith and confidence in our news columns.”

Right now, then. Finally. Are we supposed to be impressed with that? Are we supposed to applaud the fact that the newspaper that has maintained its reputation as the epitome of American journalism, at a time of multiple national crises demanding the attention and understanding of the public and the highest level of dedication and performance from our elected officials, wallowed in an “afterglow” and its own biases for more than five critical years, and has suddenly resolved to embrace the standards of integrity it had assured us it was employing all along? Are we expected to show gratitude that in the midst of a precipitous collapse of journalistic integrity and objectivity at all levels of the Fifth Estate, the traditional role model for the profession decided to indulge its ideological preferences in reporting the news, thus becoming part of the polarization process championed by Fox, Rupert Murdoch and MSNBC, rather than combating it with excellence, and has now decided to again stand for fairness and excellence? Are we assumed to owe gratitude in return for the revelation that after betraying the public’s trust by employing easy bias rather than striving for difficult balance, the Times reporters are now is ready to get back to being responsible journalists?

Brisbane concludes,

“Readers deserve to know: Who is the real Barack Obama? And The Times needs to show that it can address the question in a hard-nosed, unbiased way.”

Yes it does. In fact, it needed to do that for the last five years. It’s too late now. The Times is welcome to try to clean up its act, but as far as trust and respect are concerned, I’m sorry. That’s over. I don’t trust professional organizations that abandon their professional duties for half a decade and suddenly crow, “We’re back!” I don’t care that The Times says it is again committed  to being objective about its primary reporting topic, and I don’t trust the paper to deliver now on ethical duties it claimed were guiding it all along. Neither should anyone else, regardless of their own political preferences.

I hope you journalists at the Times enjoyed all that “afterglow.”

It cost you, the public, and the nation dearly.