This would be an Unethical Quote of the Week if there were any reason to believe what the New York Times says about President Trump, and if the Times didn’t make equally unethical quotes every day.
Here’s part of the Times editorial titled, “Antisemitism Is an Urgent Problem. Too Many People Are Making Excuses”:
“…The political right, including President Trump, deserves substantial blame. Yes, he has led a government crackdown against antisemitism on college campuses, and that crackdown has caused colleges to become more serious about addressing the problem. But Mr. Trump has also used the subject as a pretext for his broader campaign against the independence of higher education. The combination risks turning antisemitism into yet another partisan issue, encouraging opponents to dismiss it as one of his invented realities.
Even worse, Mr. Trump had made it normal to hate, by using bigoted language about a range of groups, including immigrants, women and trans Americans. Since he entered the political scene, attacks on Asian, Black, Latino and L.G.B.T. Americans have spiked, according to the F.B.I. While he claims to deplore antisemitism, his actions tell a different story. He has dined with a Holocaust denier, and his Republican Party has nominated antisemites for elected offices, including governor of North Carolina. Mr. Trump himself praised as “very fine people” the attendees of a 2017 march in Charlottesville, Va., that featured the chant “Jews will not replace us.” On Jan. 6, 2021, at least one rioter attacking the Capitol screamed that he was looking for “the big Jew,” referring to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, Mr. Schumer has said.”
It gives me great pleasure to know that Times boot-licker ” “A Friend,” the long-banned EA commenter who has set a nearly unbreakable record for unauthorized posts here, most bleating about how unfair I am to the noble Times, will be desperately searching for a way to rationalize that verbal offal without having to admit, “Okay, the Times editors are partisan hacks.”
Donald Trump, regardless of his other, many flaws, has been the most supportive President regarding Israel in more than half a century, while the Obama and Biden administrations emboldened Israel’s enemies, such as Iran and Gaza. It wasn’t Trump supporters who took over the campuses of Harvard, MIT, Columbia and other elite schools to chant slogans widely understood to mean “Kill the Jews.” Donald Trump wasn’t the Presidential candidate who passed over the state governor, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, who was widely conceded to be her strongest running mate, for a certifiable dope so that she would not risk alienate her party’s substantial anti-Semitic component. Shapiro, you see, was seen as “too Jewish.”
As usual—is it a printed policy somewhere?—the Times apes its Axis fellow travelers by contriving a way to turn any news or opinion topic into an attack on President Trump. In this case, the lie is particularly strained. Who is more likely to be an anti-Semite, the President who targets higher education indoctrination centers that have been minting Jew-haters, or the Axis news media siding with those colleges and universities that shrugged off the harassment of Jewish students as “free speech”?
Incredibly, the New York Times is so desperate to make Trump the villain for its own party’s misdeeds that it resorts to the thoroughly debunked “very fine people” lie. Heck, even Ethics Villain Jake Tapper flagged that one as a false accusation years ago—and the Times editors resort to it anyway? This is shamelessness marinated in dishonesty and incompetence. The paper should change its motto to “All the lies that are useful to print.”
The attempt to blame the unethical and bigoted trend embraced by a disturbing number of Times subscribers on Trump gets more and more attenuated and desperate as that section goes on. We have the hoary “bigoted language” claim—like, say, Trump saying mean things about illegal immigrants that they absolutely deserve, and the Times dishonestly terming them “immigrants.” We have guilt by association: Trump has dined with a Holocaust denier!
Come to think of it, I have dined with a Holocaust denier, racists, felons, disbarred lawyers, anti-Semites, sexual harassers, liars, sociopaths, anti-gay bigots, child molesters, Communists and assorted sociopaths. That doesn’t imply that I agree with them, promote their beliefs or even like them, though I consider the former child molester a friend. Trump had dinner with Bill Maher. So what?
Then the Times attack concludes with this devastating assertion: “On Jan. 6, 2021, at least one rioter attacking the Capitol screamed that he was looking for “the big Jew,” referring to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, Mr. Schumer has said.”
Three points: 1) Donald Trump is responsible for what every utterance by one of those drunken fools? Seriously? 2) What a single drunken rioter may have said in a mob had an effect on the rise of anti-Semitism? Really? and 3) Oh, well if Chuck Schumer says it happened, that must mean it did. Give me a break…
Added: I see that Ann Althouse also flagged the Times Editorial…let’s see what the liberal law professor’s readers are saying…
Almost all of them reacted to the editorial much as I have! One even challenged Althouse subscribing to a paper that is so obviously biased and untrustworthy. A few other samples:
- “And once more NYT promulgates the easily debunked and foul “very fine people” lie. This time to deflect the iniquitous behavior of the left onto the American right, the innocent defender of the Jews.”
- “Of course, a lot of the NYT’s fellow travellers don’t think antisemitism has become an urgent problem…in fact, they think antisemitism is a just cause.”
- “And on Jan 6, “at least one” person called Schumer “the big Jew.” Well that settles it! They are ALL Nazis!”
- “Mr. Trump had made it normal to hate, by using bigoted language about a range of groups, including immigrants, women and trans Americans” Among progs, TDS is an even lighter sleeper. The guy whose daughter married a Jew and converted, and the guy who is standing by Israel, and the guy who is going after campus dens of antisemitism somehow still has to be invoked in a critique of antisemitism.”
I would consider ditching my Times subscription, but the truth is no other news source is any less corrupt. If I had a better option, I’d take it.
Ethics Alarms 
If we had a public event for the Pinocchio Award, the NYT would be the all-time recepient. I love that you found the Mendacity clip. Thaank you!
Because of the recent use of the “Mendacity” clip, we watched “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” for the first time.
What else can we say at this point? They are colluding with the Democrats to propagandize the same talking points again and again, knowing that, if they repeat the lies often enough, people will eventually accept them as truth.
It’s a strange movie because of the casting. Paul Newman is not believable either as gay or as a football star (and what the hell would be wrong with someone, gay or not, who couldn’t get excited about Taylor in her prime?) There are about five schools of acting on display: Liz, who is doing a movie star turn, Newman, who is from the method school; Judith Anderson, who was a classically trained actress, Jack Carson, who was a comic actor, and Burl, who just projects his natural charisma and presence (the part was written for him) and steals the movie, in my opinion.
We didn’t even realize Newman was supposed to be gay until we read the plot of the play. Not seen much of Taylor but she did fine here. You’re right on Ives stealing the show.