Maggie Haberman was the handmaiden of William Safire, speech writer for the last criminal president, Richard Nixon. Safire was known for two things: his excoriating articles on anything left of Gengis Khan and being the grammar tsar par excellence. He was waspish and arch. Sound like Maggie? Yup.
I will never forgive her for rôle in the New York Times' orchestrated lynching of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Still gossip queen of the Fourth Estate
The New York Times is now desperately scrambling to find a way to keep Trump relevant and in the game. They figured, just like the Trump campaign, that Biden's age would be the easy story to hype multiple times a day and let Trump skate to victory. But with Biden out and Harris in they have to deal with two big problems - Trump is the inept, unfit, illiterate, doddering old fool in the campaign and Harris will go after him in a way Biden could never imagine. Also, no one outside the punditocracy gives half a shit what Maggie "nepo baby" Haberman has to say.
Needing a little distraction in this dismal campaign season, I've invented a little game to play with the blog headlines in my news aggregator. I hide the item sources and try to pick the NYT posts by how hostile they are to Biden, Harris, and the Democratic Party in general, along with how oblivious they are to Donald Trump's sheer nastiness. I have attained a 98% success rate. For some reason, NYT reporters, columnists and op-ed writers are determined to elect Trump this November. That's the only reason I can conceive of for their obvious bias. This is obviously NOT the NYT I used to read on the commuter train every morning!
The NY Times has been doing this to Dems for a long time. It was the Times that tried to take down Bill Clinton in the 90s by letting their reporter Jeff Gerth be the mouthpiece for rightwinger Richard Mellon Scaife’s Arkansas Project’s slanders. That is how the completely bogus Whitewater accusations got traction. Every time it turned out that there was no evidence a fake scandals, the Times just jumped on the next one so we got Filegate, Travelgate, Chinagate…. After Republican Special Prosecutor Robert Fiske had cleared the Clintons of wrongdoing in all of those pseudo-scandals (plus the death of Vince Foster) the Times caved to Republican pressure by downplaying that report and demanding an Independent Counsel be appointed to ensure the “public’s trust”.
Once the Times had legitimized an accusation, no matter the lack of evidence, the rest of the mainstream media happily piled on without any serious independent fact-checking. The proof of that is the fact that Starr although had the full cooperation of the FBI (the Clinton-hating Director Louis Freeh was all in, even leaking constantly to the media) and over $70 million dollars at his disposal all he could come up with was that Clinton had cheated on his wife.
That debacle should have been a huge black for the Times and taught them never to trust rightwingers’ claims. Instead they then let Cheney’s operatives Ahmed Chalabi and Scooter Libby use the Times’s Judith MIller as the mouthpiece for the Bush adminstration’s WMD lies.
Thanks for calling out the constant MSM give-aways to Trump. When Trump does his usual misogynistic or racist gaslighting, or just schoolyard insults, it always stirs a ton of controversy and outrage--which generates clicks. The MSM loves his trash talk, because it makes them money.
Nancy Pelosi was famous for treating Trump like a pitifully broken--but still possibly lovable--six year old. Harris has already taken the "DA vs. criminal" angle, as it's an approach she's long familiar with, and is reinforced by Trump's felony convictions. Should work well, as long as she keeps her cool, and doesn't let his insults get under her skin. Trump and his MAGA attack dogs are already trying to paint her as "dumb as rocks", when she's got genius, or near genius, IQ.
The "he can't help himself" line so often written in the Times, WaPo, et al, is no more than a excuse for atrociously bad "journalism" and lazy reporting. I mean, there's some serious psychopathology operating here, and if all that can be said about it is "tRump is just being tRump", the Beltway crowd have really lost their way, and are doing the public no favors by letting the Orange Felon skate.
The hell with them and their normalizing of racism and sexism of this despicable creature, the Harris campaign will do all the heavy lifting for the media and lay out exactly what awaits this country in a tRump II regime, where "tRump just being tRump" = American-style fascism, full stop.
Great piece, I have been boycotting corporate media for over a year now, having been a long-term subscriber to NYT & WaPo. Quit cable a few years back, so no CNN, NBC, ABC or even CBS - even on my antenna - no NPR and no MSNBC except occasionally Lawrence O'Donnell and Rachel Maddow on YouTube but no clicks or likes. No Worldle, no NYT X-word - the last to go. These media are complicit in the normalizing of the most reprehensible behavior possible along with the downfall of the country. I am working for Kamala and hoping that Biden spends the next six months using his new royal powers to right some of the more recent and egregious wrongs done by the corrupt SCOTUS. I believe democracy will prevail but even then, I will never go back to them, unless there are major mea culpas and actions to right their wrongs. HOW though do we get through to the people who still think that corporate media (sans Faux Nooz) is reporting objectively? My liberal but uninformed real life friends are shocked when I suggest they follow Meidas Media, Mary Trump Media, TYT and Dan Froomkin instead. Thank you for your courage, Dan.
Apologizing / normalizing Trump's behavior has become the "special skill" of mainstream journalism. David Brooks used to do this every week on the PBS Newshour, which drove me nuts... especially since Judy Wooddruff let him get away with doing that.
And specific to Maggie Haberman, I have not considered her to be a reporter since I learned she held back damaging information about Trump so she could put it in her book. That information belonged in The New York Times. I consider her an opportunist not a reporter... and it mades me sad to see Katie Couric doing an Instagram Live interview with her the other day, calling her "my good friend" or words to that effect.
I appreciate that you know who Haberman is... even if Katie Couric doesn't. SMH
Excellent column. Thank you. I've stopped reading both the Post and the Times. The appalling Joe Kahn interview in Semafor makes it clear that the NYTimes does not care about democracy. There's no need to support them with subscriptions or clicks in that case.
I wish ... all my favorite Substackers would stop using an image of the Loathesome One with their stores (hint, hint!). I want to share on my FB page but I do NOT want that hate-filled face on my feed. Trying to figure out how to share without using it. Anyone?
I disagree that this quote from the Baltimore Sun “he inevitably lowers himself to the language of racists and misogynists” is a “brighter note” because it implies that Trump is just using the language of others — racists and misogynists. The truth it that’s Trump’s own natural language because he IS a racist and misogynist. Trump went from attempting to use language of decent people to soften his image to reverting to his true self.
I sent Maggie a short email this a.m. complaining about this article. She, or her minion, replied: "Doesn't seem you like you read the story. Oh well."
Maggie Haberman was the handmaiden of William Safire, speech writer for the last criminal president, Richard Nixon. Safire was known for two things: his excoriating articles on anything left of Gengis Khan and being the grammar tsar par excellence. He was waspish and arch. Sound like Maggie? Yup.
I will never forgive her for rôle in the New York Times' orchestrated lynching of Hillary Clinton's campaign. Still gossip queen of the Fourth Estate
The New York Times is now desperately scrambling to find a way to keep Trump relevant and in the game. They figured, just like the Trump campaign, that Biden's age would be the easy story to hype multiple times a day and let Trump skate to victory. But with Biden out and Harris in they have to deal with two big problems - Trump is the inept, unfit, illiterate, doddering old fool in the campaign and Harris will go after him in a way Biden could never imagine. Also, no one outside the punditocracy gives half a shit what Maggie "nepo baby" Haberman has to say.
Needing a little distraction in this dismal campaign season, I've invented a little game to play with the blog headlines in my news aggregator. I hide the item sources and try to pick the NYT posts by how hostile they are to Biden, Harris, and the Democratic Party in general, along with how oblivious they are to Donald Trump's sheer nastiness. I have attained a 98% success rate. For some reason, NYT reporters, columnists and op-ed writers are determined to elect Trump this November. That's the only reason I can conceive of for their obvious bias. This is obviously NOT the NYT I used to read on the commuter train every morning!
The NY Times has been doing this to Dems for a long time. It was the Times that tried to take down Bill Clinton in the 90s by letting their reporter Jeff Gerth be the mouthpiece for rightwinger Richard Mellon Scaife’s Arkansas Project’s slanders. That is how the completely bogus Whitewater accusations got traction. Every time it turned out that there was no evidence a fake scandals, the Times just jumped on the next one so we got Filegate, Travelgate, Chinagate…. After Republican Special Prosecutor Robert Fiske had cleared the Clintons of wrongdoing in all of those pseudo-scandals (plus the death of Vince Foster) the Times caved to Republican pressure by downplaying that report and demanding an Independent Counsel be appointed to ensure the “public’s trust”.
Once the Times had legitimized an accusation, no matter the lack of evidence, the rest of the mainstream media happily piled on without any serious independent fact-checking. The proof of that is the fact that Starr although had the full cooperation of the FBI (the Clinton-hating Director Louis Freeh was all in, even leaking constantly to the media) and over $70 million dollars at his disposal all he could come up with was that Clinton had cheated on his wife.
That debacle should have been a huge black for the Times and taught them never to trust rightwingers’ claims. Instead they then let Cheney’s operatives Ahmed Chalabi and Scooter Libby use the Times’s Judith MIller as the mouthpiece for the Bush adminstration’s WMD lies.
Thanks for calling out the constant MSM give-aways to Trump. When Trump does his usual misogynistic or racist gaslighting, or just schoolyard insults, it always stirs a ton of controversy and outrage--which generates clicks. The MSM loves his trash talk, because it makes them money.
Nancy Pelosi was famous for treating Trump like a pitifully broken--but still possibly lovable--six year old. Harris has already taken the "DA vs. criminal" angle, as it's an approach she's long familiar with, and is reinforced by Trump's felony convictions. Should work well, as long as she keeps her cool, and doesn't let his insults get under her skin. Trump and his MAGA attack dogs are already trying to paint her as "dumb as rocks", when she's got genius, or near genius, IQ.
The "he can't help himself" line so often written in the Times, WaPo, et al, is no more than a excuse for atrociously bad "journalism" and lazy reporting. I mean, there's some serious psychopathology operating here, and if all that can be said about it is "tRump is just being tRump", the Beltway crowd have really lost their way, and are doing the public no favors by letting the Orange Felon skate.
The hell with them and their normalizing of racism and sexism of this despicable creature, the Harris campaign will do all the heavy lifting for the media and lay out exactly what awaits this country in a tRump II regime, where "tRump just being tRump" = American-style fascism, full stop.
Treating Mr. Trump as just another politician is like treating David Berkowitz as just another postman.
Great piece, I have been boycotting corporate media for over a year now, having been a long-term subscriber to NYT & WaPo. Quit cable a few years back, so no CNN, NBC, ABC or even CBS - even on my antenna - no NPR and no MSNBC except occasionally Lawrence O'Donnell and Rachel Maddow on YouTube but no clicks or likes. No Worldle, no NYT X-word - the last to go. These media are complicit in the normalizing of the most reprehensible behavior possible along with the downfall of the country. I am working for Kamala and hoping that Biden spends the next six months using his new royal powers to right some of the more recent and egregious wrongs done by the corrupt SCOTUS. I believe democracy will prevail but even then, I will never go back to them, unless there are major mea culpas and actions to right their wrongs. HOW though do we get through to the people who still think that corporate media (sans Faux Nooz) is reporting objectively? My liberal but uninformed real life friends are shocked when I suggest they follow Meidas Media, Mary Trump Media, TYT and Dan Froomkin instead. Thank you for your courage, Dan.
The chattering class "reporters" and "columnists" are Tinkerbells for the 4th Estate. If you don't clap hard enough for them they'll die.
Apologizing / normalizing Trump's behavior has become the "special skill" of mainstream journalism. David Brooks used to do this every week on the PBS Newshour, which drove me nuts... especially since Judy Wooddruff let him get away with doing that.
And specific to Maggie Haberman, I have not considered her to be a reporter since I learned she held back damaging information about Trump so she could put it in her book. That information belonged in The New York Times. I consider her an opportunist not a reporter... and it mades me sad to see Katie Couric doing an Instagram Live interview with her the other day, calling her "my good friend" or words to that effect.
I appreciate that you know who Haberman is... even if Katie Couric doesn't. SMH
Excellent column. Thank you. I've stopped reading both the Post and the Times. The appalling Joe Kahn interview in Semafor makes it clear that the NYTimes does not care about democracy. There's no need to support them with subscriptions or clicks in that case.
I wish ... all my favorite Substackers would stop using an image of the Loathesome One with their stores (hint, hint!). I want to share on my FB page but I do NOT want that hate-filled face on my feed. Trying to figure out how to share without using it. Anyone?
I feel the same way; I won't share his image on my feed, no matter how insightful the essay.
I disagree that this quote from the Baltimore Sun “he inevitably lowers himself to the language of racists and misogynists” is a “brighter note” because it implies that Trump is just using the language of others — racists and misogynists. The truth it that’s Trump’s own natural language because he IS a racist and misogynist. Trump went from attempting to use language of decent people to soften his image to reverting to his true self.
I sent Maggie a short email this a.m. complaining about this article. She, or her minion, replied: "Doesn't seem you like you read the story. Oh well."
I submit the final speech by Mr. Douglas in the film the American President should be remastered and played repeatedly in every venue: https://youtu.be/-__djIQgBJc?si=bhRFQ73mTikuIKfB