|
Wednesday, June 28, 2006Unfit to printThere's been a great hue and cry about the New York Times publishing one detail after another about how we are pursuing the War on Terror. I support a free press. I support free speech. I believe firmly that we need a society in which newspapers can take a firm stance against the government and potential abuses of government power. Exposing state secrets is a trickier matter. It's plausible to believe that in certain circumstances we would benefit from a newspaper exposing what those in power would claim needed to be kept secret. In short, the Times should not be prosecuted. With the Judith Miller lockup and more, the New York Times has walked us into enough bad precedents over the past year or so. However bad Bill Keller is, it's not worth sacrificing a free press to feel good about getting him. Once upon a time in this country, though, we had something called shame. Some people arched their eyebrows in opprobrium. Once upon a time, in fact, there was even such a thing as bad press. In this case, we're dealing with a bad press, but arched eyebrows are the thing. The look that indicates discomfort with "those people." In the past few weeks, the New York Times has been getting links left and right from bloggers, online mags and more. They've been getting more buzz than when Adam Clymer was given his nickname. We ought be avoiding this crowd, not engaging them. On the leftbar, what I called "The Lying Bastard Sheet" has been removed. It's one less link suggesting a broad reach or influence. Other bloggers ought do the same. A while back, the New York Times did us all the favor of putting up Times Select, taking their editorials out of regular circulation. It was the best idea they'd had for the good of the American people in a long time. We ought to build on it. National Review noted quite some time ago that it was possible to go through much of life without knowing what the Times said. By skating to the edge of treason, the Times has got NR and all the rest wasting their breath on this lot. If those conservatives in the Washington-New York-Boston corridor who disapprove of the Times would simply resolve to cancel subscriptions and the rest of us took it out of our bookmarks, linkbars and regular updates, we would be observing a fine old axiom - if you've nothing nice to say... - and elevating the tone of civilized discourse in one fell swoop. And at the rate the Keller crew is going, the problem will then solve itself, with the New York Times fading rightfully into the oblivion. 
posted by gbarto at 10:01 PM |
Archives
|
Day By Day© by Chris Muir.Old TurkeyBlog here.
