Here is what they carried today:
All set, readers?!
Also see: Everyone Knows About the New York Times
And this:
The Hobgoblin of Big Minds: The New York Times' Mysterious Disappearance During the McClellan Imbroglio
"What in bloody hell is going on at the New York Times?
It was bad enough that the Washington Post buried the snipped McClellan revelations on page 15 (and that, by the way, was an Associated Press story, not a Post piece), but for the Times' news department to blow them off entirely is, for me at least, less aggravating than it is downright dumbfounding.
My only guess is that having originally made the decision to ignore the most significant development in the Plame affair since Scooter Libby's unconscionable commutation, the Times then decided to make it appear that theirs was a stand on journalistic principle: they are above the gossipy fray, a publisher's teasing, the unsubstantial musings of a quick-buck artist. In doing so, they then swiftly got caught up in one of Emerson's foolish consistencies.
That observation was confirmed this morning. I scanned the Times' online pages looking for some belated reference to the McClellan story. Nothing. So I migrated to the Times' internal search box, whereupon I typed "Scott McClellan," still thinking that some journalistic act likely had been committed by the Times, but was merely beyond my ken.
The results? Number 1) "Times Topics: Scott McClellan; News about Scott McClellan, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times," whose related links were topped not by news about Scott McClellan, but by a Mar. 7 piece on the Libby verdict. Number 2) A Sept. 1 story on Tony Snow's departure. And number 3, my favorite) An Apr. 26 "Arts, Briefly" piece in -- yep -- the Arts section, literally footnoting that "A memoir by Scott McClellan ... is to be published next spring by PublicAffairs, The Associated Press reported."
Gee, I wonder what ever became of that? Did anything of interest happen to happen between that announcement and the publishing date? I scurried to today's Arts section to check out the latest in political news, but alas, those arts reporters were covering only the arts, the pikers.
But let it not be said, as I indeed said in my opening, that the Times' editors entirely ignored the story. For this will be their defense: They let loose their blogger, Mike Nizza, on it, who noted Tuesday in "The Lede" that it is "intriguing" that "Mr. McClellan appears to hold President Bush partially responsible for statements to the White House press corps in 2003 that later proved to be inaccurate."
I like that. "Inaccurate" -- like little more than the miscalculation of a restaurant tip.
By the next day, however, after the McClellan story had blanketed other legitimate news operation's political coverage, The Lede was in full-blown damage control -- and I can only assume at the behest of embarrassed Times editors. Story? What story? They knew all along it was nothing but pestiferous hubbub, unworthy of their high-minded attention.
Or, as The Lede condescendingly put it: "After a day of wide coverage and swift reactions on the Web, the publisher, Peter Osnos of PublicAffairs, told MSNBC that Mr. McClellan 'did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him' about two senior aides’ roles in leaking the identity of Valeria Plame Wilson.... When we wrote about this yesterday, that was clearly one of the possible outcomes, although one that will disappoint opponents of the president who were hoping for him to be directly tied to one of the biggest scandals of his administration."
Blogger Nizza then concluded by quoting a right-wing blogger: "'Sorry, suckers,' Greg Sargent wrote at The Horse’s Mouth, 'It looks like McClellan will actually exonerate Bush for his role in Plamegate.'"
So let me get this clear in my muddled and amateurish head. The Times now depends on MSNBC to get hot-button stories straight -- certainly before venturing any reporting itself -- and on right-wing apologists to authoritatively assess their ultimate outcome -- and with that breadth and depth that only right-wing apologists do so well.
Got it. Bottom line: Put down the paper, turn on the tube. And for heaven's sake, let us certainly not venture into the story's vice-presidential implications, since the publisher pointedly omitted saying that McClellan did not intend to suggest that Dick Cheney lied to him. What's a little old news about possible White House obstruction of justice, after all? Yawn.
But here's an alternative bottom line: The Times blew it -- big time, to use the justice-obstructing vice president's favorite colloquialism. It then tried covering its butt, rather than the story, by relegating coverage to, and belittling others' coverage in, a blog.
May the journalistic gods help us should the House Judiciary Committee ever gin up impeachment proceedings. The Times, you see, already covered that sort of stuff back in '74, and it wouldn't want to just garishly pile on today.
Now forget all this crap and go have a marvelous Thanksgiving, right after you ..."