JOURNALISTIC HISTORY (CHOKE) – AT 12:22 P.M. ET:    If you must, you can read the "historic" front-page editorial in The New York Times here.  As you've now heard over and over, it's the paper's first front-page editorial in 95 years.  From The Times:  "The last time The Times ran an editorial on the front page was in June 1920, when it lamented the nomination of Warren G. Harding as the Republican presidential candidate. It was a move, The Times wrote, that would 'be received with astonishment and dismay by the party whose suffrages he invites.'"

From Warren Harding to gun control.  Nothing in between. 

The in betweens got it right.  This front-page editorial is almost laughable in its simple-mindedness, lack of information, and, actually, lack of urgency.  It is not laughable in its timing.  It is so clearly designed to draw attention away from terrorism and toward the anointed president's favorite subject – gun control.  The editorial offers nothing new, but follows the sacred party line.  It tells the viewer that The Times, which once advertised its independence, is now simply part of the regime press.

In a way, this decision to blow it all on a ridiculous "historic" editorial was inevitable.  The Times is run by a member of the owning family, and is operated with an adolescent's passion and a fanatic's single-mindedness.  The paper was bound, ultimately, to make a fool of itself at some point. 

We await the next "historic" editorial.  Planned Parenthood?  Stop and frisk?  Lack of safe spaces in the anthropology department?  You can predict every word.

December 5, 2015