Thank you, NYT, for calling a lie a lie.
And you’re welcome for taking my advice!
This is what I wrote on Friday.
The Times drew a false equivalence between Zelensky’s accusation, which was speculative but rational and fact-based, and Trump’s, which was an angry spewing of unsupported propaganda. In fact, Trump’s echoed those very sources Zelensky accused of supplying the disinformation in the first place. In equating the two leaders in a side by side comparison, portraying this as a “simmering feud” between two individuals, rather than an existential crisis for Zelensky’s nation and the free world, the Times did a disservice to Zelensky, the gravity of the moment, the cause of honest journalism and ultimately, press freedom in America.
And they refused to call a lie a lie. Ukraine did not start the war - that reference by Trump should have been followed not by “Trump suggested,” but “Trump lied,” or at least, “Trump suggested, in a dramatic reversal of the truth.” People are, unfortunately, not smart enough for subtlety. Call a lie a lie.
Calling the new take on the history of the conflict “Mr. Trump’s revisionism” is akin to calling a schoolyard taunt a “doctoral thesis.” Please! The Times is not just insulting my intellect by calling Trump’s deliberate Orwellian distortion of victim and attacker a simple historical “revisionism,” it is insulting the whole idea of historical revisionism - the whole idea of ideas. Next the NYT is going to call this reversal a “Trump Doctrine,” when at best it’s a “Trump Capitulation” borne of a “Trump Fabrication.”
OK, that was then.
Here’s today’s front page. A bold step that should not be bold at all…
Thank you.
And you’re welcome!
What a bold move for such a highly respected newspaper ( said with maximum sarcasm ). Now if the remainder of the “mainstream Liberal media” (print and broadcast) would dare to be so bold and call out Trump and all of his Republican elected and unelected enablers in his fascist regime maybe we can get some accountability and resist the rapid destruction of our democracy and of our once-great nation.
Kudos for tackling an issue that on its face is not a "Jewish" issue. But placing a high value on truth, allies and fighting imperial ambition ultimately sets fair conditions for global co-existence for Israel and other nations that are not global powers in which national ambition is channelled away from grabbing land and mineral rights to trade and development agreements based on true reciprocity.
Ukraine deserves more respect as the only nation battling to resist Putin’s imperial dreams. But Ukraine's fight is not just about the futures of a small nation in Eastern Europe and of NATO. While the Trump Administration disses Ukraine and our allies in Europe, China is watching and shaping its own imperial dreams. There is also the ugliness of Putin's growing reliance on Iran and North Korea as sources of military equipment or troops against Ukraine. This reliance is building an axis of powers that, while still largely regional, pose a substantial risk of destruction to other nearby nations that includes but is not limited to Israel.