What Would Wing-Nut Bloggers Do Without the New York Times to Kick Around?

Posted by Clif, Sadly, No! at 9:37 AM on April 8, 2008.

You'd think that a New York Times article that planted a big sloppy wet French kiss on John McCain would be welcomed over at Pajamas Media. But that would just prove that you were unfamiliar with PJ Media's resident fashion plate, Roger Kimball, and his latest piece of nonsense, which he thoughtfully titled "Why I Do Not Like The New York Times, Section 10, Chapter 687," for those who might not otherwise get the point. Roger managed to see the article, which praised the military service of McCain's son, as further proof that the Times staff spends every waking hour plotting the best way to provide to Al Qaeda detailed instructions on how to build a suitcase nuke.

Roger starts his riff on the Times articles with a little bit of fractured syntax that would make Pastor Swank blush with envy:

The latest contribution to malicious journalistic non-entity dilated on the fact Mr. McCain says very little publicly about his son’s service in the United States Marines.

If he'd just said the "malicious journalistic non-entity global splash dilated on the fact" the homage to Swank would have been complete.

As Jodi Kantor . . . noted in the course of her story, Mr. McCain has refrained from mentioning his son’s service with the Marines 1) because he did not want to be seen to be using it for political gain and 2) he wished “to protect him from becoming a prize target.”

You might think that even the Times would applaud number 1, but Jodi manages to cast a miasma of suspicion over even that aspect of Mr. McCain’s behavior, writing that he “has largely maintained a code of silence about his son.” What she means is that he hasn’t said much about it. But only dodgy people—you know, mafiosi, army generals, and Republican politicians—maintain “codes of silence.”

Ah, yes, there it is: the famous liberal tactic of smear by miasma. And the reporter was probably whistling the theme from The Godfather when she wrote the sentence in order to transmit telepathically to her readers the image of John McCain dressed up as Don Corleone and talking like he'd swallowed a box of cotton balls.

But now for the real wingnut magic -- watch Kimball transform a piece that speaks favorably about the military service of McCain's son into, well, a threat to his life:

I wonder how Ms. Kantor and her editors feel about the second reason Mr. McCain gave for not talking publicly about his son’s service? Ms. Kantor notes that “The McCains declined to be interviewed for this article, which the campaign requested not be published.” But she published it anyway. What if, God forbid, some harm comes to the junior McCain?

Clearly saying that Corporal McCain is a Marine and has served a tour of duty gives the Iraqi insurgents all the information they need to take him out -- which, is why, of course Roger would never name a Marine in print.

Would she feel badly about that? Would she think, “Gee, perhaps I should not have published details about the military service of a son of a prominent politician?” I doubt it.

One of the requirements for becoming a Pajamas Media blogger is the ability to read the mind of reporters at the New York Times. Here at Sadly, No! our powers are somewhat more limited, so we have to settle for ridiculing Roger's preposterous bow ties and his uncanny resemblance to a puppet from a kiddie show. Besides would anyone really want to read Roger Kimball's mind?

Tagged as: new york times, mccain, wing-nuts