The Washington Post and LA Times refused to endorse a candidate. Why?
Margaret Sullivan
There’s no way to see this decision other than as an appalling display of cowardice and a dereliction of their public duty
Dereliction of public duty? What?
The choice for president has seldom been starker.
On one side is Donald Trump, a felonious and twice-impeached conman, raring to finish off the job of dismantling American democracy. On the other is Kamala Harris, a capable and experienced leader who stands for traditional democratic principles.
Nevertheless – and shockingly – the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post have decided to sit this one out. Both major news organizations, each owned by a billionaire, announced this week that their editorial boards would not make a presidential endorsement, despite their decades-long traditions of doing so.
There’s no other way to see this other than as an appalling display of cowardice and a dereliction of their public duty.
Oh, right. So it’s actually about Trump Dreangement Syndrome, not about the actual duties of a free press and all that.
But the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post decisions are, in their way, far worse.
They constitute “an abdication”, said Jelani Cobb, dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. (I run an ethics center and teach there.)
The refusal to endorse, he told me, “tacitly equalizes two wildly distinct candidates, one of whom has tried to overturn a presidential election and one of whom has not”.
How could anyone – no, really – disagree with the American media establishment? Don’t they know who Jelani is?
As someone commented on X:
“ Jeff Bezos watched his ex wife blow a billion dollars of his fortune on Left Wing causes and did the funniest thing ever”
Hell hath no fury more than a man seeing his ex blow his money on progressive causes.
Fnar, fnar, fnar; “tacitly equalizes two wildly distinct candidates, one of whom has tried to overturn a presidential election and one of whom has not”.
Endless litigation and assassination don’t count then? To be fair to Kackling Kammy, I don’t think revelry in a brewery is within her organisational abilities, so it must have been Obama…
What happened to all that Coconut Joy?
It would seem all those unfunny forced memes made by 30-something homosexuals in the DNC were all for nothing. 🙁
Capable and experienced”
Well yes if you’re talking about taking the knee.
“tacitly equalizes two wildly distinct candidates, one of whom has tried to overturn a presidential election and one of whom has not”.
Does anyone know if Kamala protested the 2016 election?
On the other is Kamala Harris, a capable and experienced leader who stands for traditional democratic principles.
Ballot rigging and unlimited immigration – those democratic principles? And in what sense is she ‘an experienced leader’. She is arguably the most incompetent candidate for high office in any first world country ever.
When Trump’s elected, I wonder if he’ll continue with the now established practise of conducting lawfare against his predecessors? Sleepy Joe & Kammy could be seeing the inside of a lot of courtrooms in next few years.
That would be fun to watch, BiS, though I doubt Biden’s very aware of where he is most days, and that can only get worse.