The New York Times: A Clumsy Attempt at Prestidigitation

The world has gone rotten.

I don't recall ever seeing a more dismal choice of candidates than those fielded by the Democrats and Republicans to vie for Teddy Kennedy's vacant Senate seat.

I also don't remember a more partisan, contradictory editorial than that published yesterday by The New York Times , "The Massachusetts Election" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/opinion/21thur1.html?em). Needless to say, editorials are opinion pieces; nevertheless, you expect editorials published by a national newspaper such as The Times to maintain some measure of objectivity. Yesterday, The Times sank to the nadir of newspaper hell when it sought to distance Obama from the Democrats' humbling loss in the Bay State.

The editorial begins:

"To our minds, [Scott Brown’s upset victory] is not remotely a verdict on Mr. Obama’s presidency, nor does it amount to a national referendum on health care reform — even though it has upended the effort to pass a reform bill, which Mr. Obama made the centerpiece of his first year."

"Not remotely a verdict on Mr. Obama's presidency"? Then why was this interim election covered by every major newspaper in the world? Surely not because Scott Brown once posed as a centerfold.

Not "a national referendum on health care reform"? Wrong again:

"Conservatives are right to trumpet the Brown-Coakley race as a referendum on health care reform -- but it turned out to be a referendum with no decisive victor on the defining issue, according to a postgame analysis by pollster Scott Rasmussen.

The most interesting stat in Rasmussen's 1000-voter election night poll was the revelation that 56 percent of Massachusetts special election voters said that heath care was their number one issue."

http://www.politico.com/blogs/glennthrush/0110/Rasmussen_It_WAS_a_referendum_on_health_care.html

The Times editorial continues:

"Mr. Obama has done many important things on the environment, and in foreign affairs, and in preventing the nation’s banking system from collapsing in the face of a financial crisis he inherited."

"Many important things on the environment and in foreign affairs"? How peculiar. I am unaware of any "important things". Moreover, if we look to foreign affairs and examine this administration's accomplishments regarding Russia, China, Japan, Darfur, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel, I see something worse than an empty slate.

The financial crisis Obama inherited? Sorry, but it's time to stop blaming Bush. Although the banking system hasn't collapsed, there are few Americans happy with Goldman Sachs bloated profits or the failure of the system to return to its core business of lending money to worthy businesses and individuals in order to spur economic growth.

The Times editorial concludes:

"If White House reporters are still making jokes two years from now about checking the president’s pulse, the nation will be in big trouble."

How does this closing declaration jibe with the editorial's opening premise that the Massachusetts election was "not remotely a verdict on Mr. Obama’s presidency"? Moreover, why will the nation be "in big trouble"? Obama will simply not be reelected. The United States, having given Obama the chance to fulfill his 2008 promises, will decide that he has failed miserably and turn to someone else to do a better job.

This is, afterall, the essence of democracy.