What We Expected

Sometimes, when a student asks a professor for a letter of recommendation, the professor tells the student to compose the letter for the professor to sign. It appears the New York Times editorial board similarly delegated responsibility for writing its presidential endorsement to the Obama campaign. The article is filled with the same half-truths, empty arguments and sophistry that we are used to from the Obama/media complex. I'd like to highlight a few of the most egregious statements:

"Mr. Obama has met challenge after challenge, growing as a leader and putting real flesh on his early promises of hope and change. He has shown a cool head and sound judgment."

• The Times suggests that running for president qualifies someone to be president. In that case, I should apply to be editor of the Times, and tell them that I am just as qualified as Obama is.

"In the same time, Senator John McCain of Arizona has retreated farther and farther to the fringe of American politics, running a campaign on partisan division, class warfare and even hints of racism."

• McCain is not the candidate who's been ripping on CEOs and rich people throughout the campaign, trying to state that paying taxes is patriotic and that the rich don't pay enough. Obama is the candidate of class warfare. As for racism, the Times fails to produce an example of it coming from McCain, because it can't. That is completely false. Elsewhere in the article, the Times tries to tie McCain to those e-mails your crazy aunt has been sending around, when it is clear that no such tie exists.

"The American financial system is the victim of decades of Republican deregulatory and anti-tax policies...Mr. Obama sees that far-reaching reforms will be needed to protect Americans and American business."

• The American financial system is victim to government-mandated loosening of mortgage lending standards. McCain tried to reform Fannie Mae, but the Democrats stood in the way, and Obama took more money from Fannie Mae that all but two other senators.

"Mr. Obama is clear that the nation’s tax structure must be changed to make it fairer."

• Americans with an income below the median -- half of all households -- paid a mere 3% of all income taxes in 2005.

"His choice of Senator Joseph Biden — who has deep foreign-policy expertise — as his running mate is another sign of that sound judgment."

• Pat Buchanan asks, "Has anyone ever asked Joe about his own and his party's role in cutting off aid to South Vietnam, leading to the greatest strategic defeat in U.S. history and the Cambodian holocaust? Has anyone ever asked Joe about the role he and his party played in working to block Reagan's deployment of Pershing missiles in Europe, and SDI, which Gorbachev concedes broke the Soviets and won the Cold War?" Biden also voted against the 1991 Gulf War and against the Iraq surge. Experience is no good if Biden keeps getting it wrong.

Mr. Obama may appoint less liberal [Supreme Court] judges than some of his followers might like, but Mr. McCain is certain to pick rigid ideologues."

• What reason do we have to think Obama would be less liberal that the current Congress? Obama has been rated the most liberal senator. McCain is much more likely to disappoint his party on judges that Obama is.

"Mr. Obama has withstood some of the toughest campaign attacks ever mounted against a candidate. He’s been called un-American and accused of hiding a secret Islamic faith. The Republicans have linked him to domestic terrorists and questioned his wife’s love of her country."

• Uh, Obama is linked to a domestic terrorist! And his wife did say that this is a mean country that she'd never been proud of until Obama became a presidential candidate. And I don't think nutty e-mails qualify as "tough attacks." In addition, Obama has been the recipient of full-fledged, all-out support from the media. I'd say he's been subject to less scrutiny than any modern presidential candidate. He's also been subject to less scrutiny than Joe the Plumber, for that matter.

I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The lives of many trees were utterly wasted to produce this inane, canard-ridden endorsement. Luckily, I don't think anybody cares who the Times endorses, especially since we all knew this was coming.