Dearest NY Times
by tristero
Dearest NY Times,
First, props for doing some things right.
In the print edition, your main page 1 headline reads, "Trump Escalates Use of Migrants as Election Ploy." The online edition is even more inclusive: "Trump and G.O.P. Candidates Escalate Race and Fear as Election Ploys" And you follow it up with your lead editorial title: "Donald Trump Is Lyin’ Up a Storm." Thank you very much for telling the truth and telling it plainly.
But then — sigh — we get an oh so Thoughtful and Very Serious (tm) op-ed by longtime partisan Republican operative James Baker on the "hard choices" the US faces now that the Saudis have taken to torturing and dismembering journalists. The op-ed ends with this description of Baker:
James A. Baker III, the 61st secretary of state, is a senior partner in the law firm Baker Botts, which has an affiliation with lawyers practicing in Saudi Arabia and represented members of the Saudi royal family in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, is a contributor to the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy’s Center for Energy Studies.
And I have to ask: Is publishing a free advertorial by a highly paid Saudi apologist your idea of "both-siding" the publishing of a heart-rending essay by Khashoggi's fiancé? Disclosing an utterly egregious conflict of interest does not make it go away. It merely calls into question the ethical judgment of those publishing the op-ed in the first place.
Seriously, how can you debase yourself like that?
Love,
tristero