David Brooks, "The Prodigal Sons": The Prodigious Sins of The New York Times

A New York Observer article entitled "The Tyranny and Lethargy of the Times Editorial Page" (http://observer.com/2014/02/the-tyranny-and-lethargy-of-the-times-editorial-page/#axzz2su9y1r4t) by Ken Kurson, recently caused something of a sensation by highlighting the dichotomy between the excellent newsroom reporting of the Times versus the irrelevance, stupidity and lack of originality of its editorial page. Well, Kurson was right. Compare today's New York Times op-eds with The Washington Post's opinion pieces.

In his latest Times op-ed entitled "The Prodigal Sons" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/opinion/brooks-the-prodigal-sons.html?ref=opinion), David Brooks smugly begins by telling us, "We take as our text today the parable of the prodigal sons." Brooks's conclusion:

"The father’s lesson for us is that if you live in a society that is coming apart on class lines, the best remedies are oblique. They are projects that bring the elder and younger brothers together for some third goal: national service projects, infrastructure-building, strengthening a company or a congregation."

So is Brooks right, left or center, or, as I suggested in an earlier blog entry (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2014/02/david-brooks-refiners-fire-case-in.html), an alien from the Planet Balderdash who weaseled his way onto the op-ed staff of the Times?

And then we have Frank Bruni, in a Times op-ed entitled "Hillary’s Secrets" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/opinion/bruni-hillarys-secrets.html?ref=opinion&_r=0), bewailing the unmasking of Hillary's narcissism and her Lady MacBeth-like ambition in a Washington Free Beacon article entitled "The Hillary Papers" (http://freebeacon.com/the-hillary-papers/) by Alana Goodman. Bruni writes:

"Blair’s journals are the kind of material from which biographies and histories have long been woven. But it doesn’t always surface so soon, and it is now augmented by the eavesdropping and tattling of cabinet secretaries (see “Duty,” by Robert Gates) and political allies and handlers eager to make themselves look better, even at a benefactor’s expense (see “Game Change” and the robust genre to which it belongs).

Frenzied media feed on this, to a degree that arguably goes beyond our obligation to keep politicians honest, and it’s troubling in two regards. How many decent, gifted people who contemplate public office look at what someone like Hillary endures and step away? And the people who aren’t scared off: How cold and hard are they, or how cold and hard do they become?"

Oh, poor, poor Hillary, who will always be remembered for her declaration regarding the reasons for the deaths of the four Americans in Benghazi, "What difference at this point does it make?" We should also never forget Hillary's infamous embrace of Syrian mass murderer Bashar al-Assad on "Face the Nation" in March 2011:

"There’s a different leader in Syria now. Many of the members of Congress of both parties who have gone to Syria in recent months have said they believe he’s a reformer."

Syria and Assad? Oh, that's right: There is a savage civil war there, in which the Assad regime is attempting to starve its opponents into submission. As we are told today by Michael Gerson, writing from Al Hadalat, Jordan, in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Syria’s refugees despair while the world is indifferent" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-the-despair-of-syrias-refugees/2014/02/17/43294b50-97fd-11e3-afce-3e7c922ef31e_story.html?hpid=z3):

"President Obama has described this as 'someone else’s civil war' and Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has dismissed the conflict as 'baddies vs. baddies.' Such characterizations are simply inaccurate. The killing of civilians in Syria is not the unfortunate byproduct of a civil war; it is a main objective of one side in that civil war. Some 40 districts , including about a quarter of a million people, are currently under siege by Bashar al-Assad’s forces. The goal is to surround these targets, lay them waste, kill everyone who poses a possible threat and prevent the return of suspect civilians. Both sides in the conflict commit atrocities. One side commits them on a massive scale as a matter of strategy.

This is what brought me to Jordan on a trip hosted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which has, as part of its mission, the goal of calling attention to modern atrocities and crimes against humanity. Syria has joined an infamous historical list including Bosnia, Kosovo and Rwanda. And the course of the Syrian conflict is currently demonstrating the utility of mass atrocities and the relative indifference of the rest of the world.

. . . .

These developments should mean something to Mr. Obama, the author of an executive directive (Presidential Study Directive on Mass Atrocities ) declaring the prevention of mass atrocities a 'core national security interest and a core moral responsibility.' At the moment, he stands judged by his own standard."

We also have Richard Cohen, in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Obama’s failure to act on Syria" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/richard-cohen-obamas-failure-to-act-on-syria/2014/02/17/badddd00-981b-11e3-8461-8a24c7bf0653_story.html?hpid=z3), writing:

"Six million people have been displaced. Three million have fled to neighboring countries. Polio has broken out in refugee camps (see a recent account in the New York Review of Books). The world does little to stop the fighting. The United States does next to nothing. Children die for lack of food or medicine. There is more than enough shame here to go around.

. . . .

Washington’s dawdling has become the hallmark of Obama’s foreign policy. He can make all the speeches he wants, but his confusion and indecision is what other leaders notice and what history will remember. Now, so very late, he has asked for options. Here’s one: Do something!"

So, do you prefer moralizing over the parable of the prodigal sons and Hillary's need for privacy, or, are you willing to be reminded of the moral failings of Obama, Hillary and Kerry (Assad is "my dear friend"), who have refused to combat genocide in Syria?

An inconsequential matter of individual taste? I don't want to think so.

Thomas Friedman, "Israel’s Big Question": The Mustachioed Emperor Has No Clothes

A recent New York Observer article entitled "The Tyranny and Lethargy of the Times Editorial Page" (http://observer.com/2014/02/the-tyranny-and-lethargy-of-the-times-editorial-page/#axzz2su9y1r4t) by Ken Kurson, recently caused something of a sensation by highlighting the dichotomy between the excellent newsroom reporting of the Times versus the irrelevance, stupidity and lack of originality of its editorial page. Regarding Friedman, the article tells us:

"Another Times reporter brought up Mr. Friedman, unsolicited, toward the end of a conversation that was generally positive about the editorial page: 'I never got a note from Andy or anything like that. But I will say, regarding Friedman, there’s the sense that he’s on cruise control now that he’s his own brand. And no one is saying, ‘Hey, did you see the latest Friedman column?’ in the way they’ll talk about ‘Hey, Gail [Collins] was really funny today.’'

Asked if this stirring resentment toward the editorial page might not just be garden variety news vs. edit stuff or even the leanings of a conservative news reporter toward a liberal editorial page, one current Times staffer said, 'It really isn’t about politics, because I land more to the left than I do to the right. I just find it …'

He paused for a long time before continuing and then, unprompted, returned to Mr. Friedman. 'I just think it’s bad, and nobody is acknowledging that they suck, but everybody in the newsroom knows it, and we really are embarrassed by what goes on with Friedman. I mean anybody who knows anything about most of what he’s writing about understands that he’s, like, literally mailing it in from wherever he is on the globe. He’s a travel reporter. A joke. The guy gets $75,000 for speeches and probably charges the paper for his first-class airfare.'"

Friedman is a "travel reporter" and a "joke"? How can this be? Obama reads him!

Well, in his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Israel’s Big Question" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/12/opinion/friedman-israels-big-question.html?ref=opinion&_r=0), Friedman declares:

"Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, not without reason, is asking the Palestinians to recognize Israel as the “nation state of the Jewish people,” confirming that if Israel cedes them a state in the West Bank, there will be two-states-for-two-peoples. But, for Netanyahu to get an answer to that question, he will have to give an answer to a question Israelis have been wrestling with, and avoiding, ever since the 1967 war reconnected them with the heartland of ancient Israel, in the West Bank, known to Jews as Judea and Samaria. And that is:

'What is the nation state of the Jewish people?'

Kerry, by steadily making the answer to that question unavoidable, has set the whole Israeli political system into a roiling debate, with some ministers shrilly attacking Kerry and slamming Netanyahu for even putting the question on the table — as if the status quo were sustainable and just hunky-dory."

Of course, Friedman again makes a point of ignoring the fact that according to none other than Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, Israeli settlements have been built on only some 1.1% of the West Bank (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/erekat-olmert-offered-palestinians-territorial-equivalent-of-west-bank-1.393484). Friedman also makes certain not to mention that in 2008, when Israeli Prime Minister Olmert offered Palestinian Authority President Abbas an independent state along the 1967 lines with agreed upon land swaps and Palestinian control of east Jerusalem, Abbas refused.

Several years earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Barak similarly offered to withdraw from 97 percent of the West Bank and tear down 63 Israeli settlements. In exchange for the settlements that would remain part of Israel, Barak said he would increase the size of Gaza by a third. Barak also agreed to Palestinian control of much of East Jerusalem, which would become Palestine's capital, and Palestinian sovereignty over the Temple Mount. Arafat, however, also refused.

How does Friedman write an op-ed about Israeli intransigence without mentioning the Barak and Olmert peace proposals?

Friedman is indeed a "joke" and a poor one at that.

Syria, Schizophrenia and The New York Times

In today's New York Times, there is an excellent article entitled "Break in Siege Is Little Relief to Syrian City" (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/10/world/middleeast/in-homs-syria-still-no-relief-from-a-siege.html?action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&region=Footer&module=TopNews&pgtype=article) by Ben Hubbard, describing how the Assad regime is starving out the civilian population of Homs. Mr. Hubbard writes:

"'We have entire areas of the country where the ability to transport food and other materials is severely hampered because of deliberate blockades and constraints on trucks and convoys,' Matthew Hollingworth, the director of the World Food Program’s Syria program, said by telephone from Homs on Sunday. 'It is a tactic that everybody is using, and it has a massive impact.'

Reflecting the toll of such tactics, one older man evacuated in Homs on Sunday said he had survived on one spoon of bulgur a day for the past week and that his wife had died, malnourished and unable to get medical treatment, according to Dina Elkassaby, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program.

'Some people were living off roots and weeds and grass and olives if they were lucky,' Ms. Elkassaby said."

On the other hand, in keeping with the decision of the Obama administration to observe this human suffering from the sidelines, the editorial page of the Times has given little attention to this tragedy (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2014/02/maureen-dowd-still-mad-as-hell-at.html). Would-be Middle East expert Thomas Friedman? He's off on an eco-tour of Israel and the West Bank (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2014/02/thomas-friedman-whose-garbage-is-this.html).

The recent New York Observer article entitled "The Tyranny and Lethargy of the Times Editorial Page" (http://observer.com/2014/02/the-tyranny-and-lethargy-of-the-times-editorial-page/#axzz2su9y1r4t) by Ken Kurson, recently caused something of a sensation by highlighting the dichotomy between the excellent newsroom reporting of the Times versus the irrelevance, stupidity and lack of originality of its editorial page. The article focuses on Andrew Rosenthal and Thomas Friedman, but Maureen Dowd also does not emerge unscathed.

The perfect example of this dichotomy? The handling by the Times of the civil war in Syria, described above.

Rosenthal? Have a look at my interaction with the man (see, e.g.: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2012/09/is-new-york-times-columnist-maureen.html) and form your own opinion.

Friedman? Indeed, as I have been saying for many years, the emperor has no clothes.