When blogging goes bad: complaining to NYT over an editorial endorsement

I’m a critic of the media, don’t get me wrong. They do a lot of dumb things, they print asinine articles, hire writers that have no business getting mainstream exposure, etc. However, sometimes I think people get out of control with it. This article got some exposure on Reddit and it’s a fine example of taking things a little too far. The qualm? An editorial in the New York Times endorsed Hillary.

Here’s what I propose

Write a letter to the New York Times expressing your disapproval of their endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Make the next news story that they received more mail disagreeing with this decision than any other in their history. We can do it.

Here’s the problem. This isn’t the Times’ endorsement, it’s an editorial. That’s how editorials work. Secondly, any paper should be allowed to endorse whoever the hell they want. You can’t think it’s even remotely logical to launch a complaint campaign against the NYT simply because you dislike who they’re endorsing. I’d like it if it was someone else myself, but come on. This is just asinine.

If we’re going to get into the business of organizing mass campaigns against papers every time an editorial says something we don’t like, then we’re going to be pretty damn busy.

The final State of the Union approaches

So we’re counting down the days to Bush’s final speech on the State of the Union. The Democrats have come up with a peculiar idea of “prebuttal” to the speech, refuting what they know he’s going to end up saying before he says it and asking him to tackle certain issues. It’s a neat little exercise in futility.

“We need to restore America’s leadership in the world, and we truly need a new direction in Iraq,” Pelosi said.

“Our first goal as a country must be to restore that moral authority,” which has “suffered grave damage,” Reid added. When Bush delivers his State of the Union address Monday night, “he can start by announcing America does not torture,” the Senate Democratic leader said.

“Democrats call on him to support one standard of interrogation for the entire United States government, to renounce waterboarding and to finally commit to closing Guantanamo.”

At this point it’s all political masturbation. Bush spent the past seven years doing whatever he jolly well feels like, he’s not going to change his mind now.

Although I admit I’m still crossing my fingers that he steps up and announces that it was all a big prank and that he can’t believe so many people fell for it. Then he says that he’ll have us out of Iraq pronto and that Osama was captured years ago, and don’t worry, he’ll have that economy back soon.