New York Times Death Spiral Watch
New York Times ombudsman Clark Hoyt wins the prize as the worst and most craven ombudsman around--even worse than the Washington Post's Deborah Howell.
Outsourced to Spencer Ackerman:
toohotfortnr: How was I to know she was with the Russians, too?: Clark Hoyt finds Bill Kristol worthy of the New York Times op-ed page. First Hoyt pretends that the objection to Kristol is about him being an Iraq hawk rather than, say, Kristol's role as a GOP apparatchik. Then he and opinion editor Andrew Rosenthal really humiliate themselves.
On Fox News Sunday on June 25, 2006, Kristol said, “I think the attorney general has an absolute obligation to consider prosecution” of The New York Times for publishing an article that revealed a classified government program to sift the international banking transactions of thousands of Americans in a search for terrorists. ... Kristol refused to talk with me about this issue, or an earlier statement that The Times was “irredeemable,” or the reaction to his appointment — an odd stance for someone who presumably will want others to talk to him for his column.
Rosenthal said Kristol’s comment about prosecution bothered him. It was, Rosenthal said, “a heavy accusation that put him in a category other than a journalist.” But he said that Op-Ed columnists are not necessarily traditional journalists, and he did not think that “holding one opinion” should be the basis for selecting or rejecting a columnist.
Truly a liberal fascist is one who won't take his own side in a putsch.
