Mike the Mad Biologist has a couple of posts that illustrate why the New York Times has been rather schitzoid on the Republicans: Their market is wealthy Republicans who are not misogynistic, homophobic or openly racist.
When viewed that way, the Times's fawning over George Bush and uncritical support of the Iraq War (and total amnesia of the lessons of the Vietnam War) is understandable.
Speaking of Vietnam, 60 Minutes had a piece earlier this month on the Afghan War. Sixteen years into the war and it is not safe for Americans to travel in the capital city. In essence, the only places in the country under the control of Afghan and American forces are those areas inside blast walls and military bases (and sometimes, not even there) and where a rifleman or spotter can see.
When I watched the interview with Gen. Nicholson, I got the feeling that I was watching an interview with Gens. Westmoreland or Harkin: "Pay no attention to what is going on outside the wire, all is well."
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3 comments:
Driftglass always says that about David Brooks, so by extension, the New York Times. He says the way to understand them is to reverse engineer their publishing decisions, and what he comes up with is that the Sulzberger family employs hacks like Brooks to tell comforting fairy tales to the wealthy shut-ins who are his main audience.
Why else would someone who has been so spectacularly wrong about so many things for so long have seemingly life-long employment there?
That seems to line up with the advertising based approach to understanding just who the hell they are writing for pretty well.
It's a lot like the method of understanding cable news by seeing it as filler between ads for dick pills and reverse mortgages...
-Doug in Oakland
No wonder circulation is unsustainable. The audience is too small.
Pay no attention to what is going on outside the wire, all is well."
Your forgot the next sentence, which is, "And all I need to get to victory is a measly 100,000 more troops."
Yours crankily,
The New York Crank
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