In early June, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) published a now-famous op-ed in The New York Times that called for “an overwhelming show of force to disperse, detain, and ultimately deter lawbreakers.”
Cotton noted:
The pace of looting and disorder may fluctuate from night to night, but it’s past time to support local law enforcement with federal authority. Some governors have mobilized the National Guard, yet others refuse, and in some cases the rioters still outnumber the police and Guard combined. In these circumstances, the Insurrection Act authorizes the president to employ the military “or any other means” in “cases of insurrection, or obstruction to the laws.”
Cotton added, “But the rioting has nothing to do with George Floyd, whose bereaved relatives have condemned violence. On the contrary, nihilist criminals are simply out for loot and the thrill of destruction, with cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa infiltrating protest marches to exploit Floyd’s death for their own anarchic purposes.”
After leftists erupted in fury that Cotton actually suggested that federal law enforcement should intervene in the chaos and violence plaguing cities like Seattle and Portland, the Times hastily added a long note apologizing, within which they claimed that “the essay fell short of our standards and should not have been published,” adding, “For example, the published piece presents as facts assertions about the role of ‘cadres of left-wing radicals like antifa’; in fact, those allegations have not been substantiated and have been widely questioned. Editors should have sought further corroboration of those assertions, or removed them from the piece.”
How times change: in a piece published on Friday, titled “Abolish the Police? Those Who Survived the Chaos in Seattle Aren’t So Sure,” the Times actually acknowledged that Antifa was indeed present in the city of Portland. The relevant paragraphs read like this:
Many of the business owners on Capitol Hill agreed: Much of the violence they saw and the intimidation of their patrons came from a group these business owners identified as antifa, which they distinguished from the Black Lives Matter movement. “The idea of taking up the Black movement and turning it into a white occupation, it’s white privilege in its finest definition,” Mr. Khan said. “And that’s what they did.”
Antifa, which stands for anti-fascist, is a radical, leaderless leftist political movement that uses armed, violent protest as a method to create what supporters say is a more just and equitable country. They have a strong presence in the Pacific Northwest, including the current protests in Portland.
The brouhaha that ensued from Cotton’s article precipitated the resignation of editorial page editor James Bennet. The Times’ reaction to Cotton’s op-ed prompted Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) to tweet an obituary for the paper, writing, “The NYT literally fired their editorial page editor because he dared publish an op-ed that Leftists disagreed with.”
The NYT literally fired their editorial page editor because he dared publish an op-ed that Leftists disagreed with.
The totalitarian Left will brook no dissent. To hell with Free Speech—we are Pravda.
New York Times: founded as an actual newspaper 9/18/1851.
Died: 6/7/2020. https://t.co/YIzBihdhtO
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 8, 2020
H/T Erielle Davidson