"You VILL vote for Bush or Gore and you VILL like it!"

by The Cranky Media Guy

New York Times

If the New York Times were an ice cream store chain, they'd offer two flavors, vanilla and vanilla.  None of this wacky Rocky Road stuff for them.  Hey, vanilla is the most popular flavor, right?  Why confuse people by offering other flavors?

Too bad they're not in the ice cream business.  With an attitude (and selection) like that, they'd go out of business quickly.  As it is, the Times is one of the most influential newspapers in America.  Too bad.

The other day, the Times ran an editorial that said in part, "In running for president as the nominee of the Green Party, [Ralph Nader] is engaging in a self-indulgent exercise that will distract voters from the clear-cut choice represented by the major party candidates."  Huh?  Clear-cut choice represented by George W. Bush and Al Gore?  P.T. Barnum's Siamese twins, Chang and Eng, were less alike than those two joined-at-the-ego, charisma-challenged assholes.

Despite the fact that millions of Americans are repulsed by the thought of either of those empty suits occupying the Oval Office, that's not the issue, according to the Times.  "The public deserves to see the major party candidates compete on an uncluttered playing field," says the Gray Lady.  Get it now? 

If anyone has the temerity to think that they just might have a better approach to governing than the crème de la crap offered by the Republicans and Democrats, they're "clutter" according to the Newspaper Of Record.  To the Times' way of thinking, Ralph Nader is the drunken yahoo who wins a $50 bet with his friend by running onto the outfield at Yankee Stadium in the middle of the sixth inning.  Somebody call security!  Get that guy out of here!  The fans deserve an uncluttered playing field.

Funny, the Times didn't seem to feel this way in '92 and '96 when Nader made half-assed token runs at the White House.  Now, when he's acting serious about the race and getting anywhere from 7 to 10 percent of the vote (depending on the state), suddenly he's "cluttering things up."  If accusing Nader of self-indulgence ever made any sense, it would have been in '92 and '96, not now.

The Real Deal, methinks, is that outsiders like Nader represent something the Times can't deal with: deviation from the norm.  The mainstream press uses politicians and gets used by them.  That's how this game is played.  Along comes a passionate outsider and the whole applecart is threatened.  Not that Nader has any real chance of winning, of course, but he's a monkey wrench in the works and who needs that?  How dare the unwashed not say "Yummy!" to the stale crumbs the Big Two parties offer them?  What do they think this is, a democracy?

Now that you know how things really are on 43rd Street, you may feel free to laugh in the face of anyone who tells you how "liberal" the Times editorial staff is.  They're corporo-political shills all the way, Baby, rock-solid citizens of Status Quoville.  Their "choice would only be confusing" attitude would be bad in the ice cream business, but it's even worse in (what's supposed to be) journalism.  And that, my Distracted Voter Friend, is why they are the Weasel(s) Of The Week.