Blatant Sleaze
On September 14, the New York Times resurrected unsubstantiated and graphic rumors about Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a purposeful smear article Brett Kavanaugh Fit In With the Privileged Kids. She Did Not.
The article was by disgraced NYT authors Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly to promote their upcoming book “The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation.”
I do not normally report on sleaze but to understand what the NYT did, I have to.
Here is one controversial paragraph.
“We also uncovered a previously unreported story about Mr. Kavanaugh in his freshman year that echoes Ms. Ramirez’s allegation. A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.“
Coverup Whitewash
The NYT later added this correction.
“The book reports that the female student declined to be interviewed and friends say that she does not recall the incident. That information has been added to the article.“
That’s one hell of a correction don’t you think?
Editing Error
Making matters worse for itself, The NYT came out and blamed it all on an “editing error“.
Reporters Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly said in an interview on MSNBC that they wrote in the draft of their Sunday Review piece that a woman who Kavanaugh was said to have exposed himself to while a student at Yale had told others she had no recollection of the alleged incident.
Their editors, they say, removed the reference. “It was just sort of. . . in the haste of the editing process,” said Pogrebin.
The editor responsible for editing the Kavanaugh piece, Times Deputy Editorial Page Editor James Dao addressed select questions about the piece on a Times “Bulletin Board” posted on Monday and updated Tuesday. But he did not address why the information about the woman’s recollection was removed from the story.
Dao declined a POLITICO request for comment.
Half Bullshit
“We certainly never intended to mislead in any way,” Pogrebin said in discussing the editor’s note on MSNBC. “We wanted to give as full a story as possible.”
I know bullshit when I see it. The whole story is bullshit. On second thought, make that half bullshit (I will explain in a moment).
Since when do you post unsubstantiated sleaze of this nature when the people allegedly involved do not remember the incident?
Someone shoved a penis in my face and I don’t remember.
Really?
Here’s the believable part: “We wanted to give as full a story as possible.”
Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly want to sell books and sleaze sells.
Of course they wanted as “full a story as possible” and the more bullshit the better.
Bullshit Replicated
Entire Book Unravels
Zerohedge fills in the remaining pieces in his take As Kavanaugh Smear Unravels, Original Accuser’s ‘Witness’ Now Doubts Story
As the left-wing smear against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh continues to unravel amid a journalistic malpractice scandal at the New York Times, original Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey Ford’s “lifelong friend” and alleged witness now doubts her story.
Keyser – who saidshe was pressuredby Ford’s ex-FBI buddy to lie and say that she didn’t remember the party instead of saying that it never happened – originally said through her attorney that she “does not refute Dr. Ford’s account,” however “the simple and unchangeable truth is that she is unable to corroborate it because she has no recollection of the incident in question.”
“I was told behind the scenes that certain things could spread about me if I didn’t comply,” Keyser told the Times journos – who felt it wasn’t notable enough for their smear article.
Now, Keyser says she doesn’t believe Ford’s story at all.
“We spoke multiple times to Keyser, who also said that she didn’t recall that get-together or others like it,” wrote Pogrebin and Kelly in their new book, The Education of Brett Kavanaugh: An Investigation (yet another item that didn’t make it into their inflammatory Times article). “In fact, she challenged Ford’s accuracy.“
Editors Should Be Fired
At a minimum, the editors responsible should be fired. They are corrupt, incompetent, or both.
Anyone at the NYT defending the editors should also be fired.
NYT Pours On the Bullshit
NYT opinion columnist Jamelle Bouie says Mad About Kavanaugh and Gorsuch? The Best Way to Get Even Is to Pack the Court.
So what should Democrats do? They should play hardball back. Congress, according to the Judiciary Act of 1789, decides the number of judges. It’s been 150 years since it changed the size of the Supreme Court. I think it’s time to revisit the issue. Should Democrats win that trifecta, they should expand and yes, pack, the Supreme Court. Add two additional seats to account for the extraordinary circumstances surrounding the Gorsuch and Kavanaugh nominations.
To post that article in the wake of blatant errors adds fat to the fire.
It’s also asinine.
The fact of the matter is Republicans control the Senate and Trump gets to make the nominees.
Even assuming that changes, all it would do is encourage Republicans to counter the next time they are in charge.
Nonpolitical Court
The court is supposed to be nonpolitical.
In that regard, Trump made two excellent choices. He could easily have appointed two far-right choices but didn’t.
Excellent Choices
Some of my own readers incorrectly accused me of TDS (Trump Derangement Syndrome).
The notion is absurd. I am a free market, anti-war Libertarian.
When Trump strays from either, I criticize.
Here, Trump is correct.
Trump Tweets
Instead of admitting how stupid they were, Democrat presidential nominees want a Kavanaugh impeachment.
The people in charge of this fiasco at the NYT should be fired.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
The article was in the opinion section. When Sean Hannity or some other hack on faux news talk like they are telling the truth they are no different. Now when the New York times does it, it is a big deal ? Whenever the shoe is on the other foot the other side complains and whines but they never see the irony or hypocrisy.
The New York Times is the “paper of record” which does make it a big deal.
Nonetheless still an opinion piece
The NYTimes has been about partisan politics, not factual news, for a long time. The crap reporting of the last 10-20 years (this is not the only story the NYT was caught fabricating) has finally reached a point where it overwhelms the legacy reporting the Times used to do decades ago.
Its telling how many commenters here are so anti-Trump that they are willing to believe any lie they hear as long as in meets their confirmation bias. The Times has admitted they screwed up — mostly because they got caught again. And yet commenters here are still trying to conjure up some nonsense to justify their own bias.
I know moneymaven.io wants Mish to have lots of readership and page clicks, but Mish might want to consider the effects of continuing to have users like Sechel, hmk and herkie comment. People are known by the company we keep, and I for one don’t get any benefit debating with morons. I know Mish has banned people before, and the decision not to ban these people reflects poorly on Mish’s blog.
Crazy people inflate page clicks in the short term — on “news” websites, on TV shows and on blogs. But long term, their low intelligence drives people away. We don’t want to be associated with them (not even anonymously) and we don’t want to waste our time with their bullsh!t.
Its too late to save the NYTimes. Their readership has changed over the last 5-10 years, because their reporting went to crap over the last 10-20 years. The NYTimes company continues to hemorage money. Advertisers want to reach the best potential customers, not low quality customers.
Ultimately, this story is about the decline and fall of the NYTimes (and WaPo) whoring themselves out to sell books because the newspaper itself has the same future as K-mart or Sears. Remember when Sears used to stand for quality? Maybe I’m dating myself, but a long time ago….
You cannot say you support the Constitution and Freedom of Speech, and then try to ban speech you don’t like. That is hypocritical and I am glad Mish is not a hypocrite. There are limits, and you will not see (for example) antisemitic rants or plugs to make $1000/day from home in the comments here.
You seem to be glossing over the fact that Mish has already banned people he does not like. Not for anti-semitic rants or $1000 get rich quick schemes… they wrote comments that were critical of Mish’s position. Mish himself said they had been banned, by him, and those people never commented again.
And whatever self righteous rants you might go on, there is also the issue that quality of comments tends to be self reinforcing. When there are lots of comments that are nothing more than never-Trump rants, when even the NYTimes itself admits they screwed up, the never-Trumpers are still spewing out excuses and nonsense.
It did not help that Mish himself published a horribly biased cartoon blaming the GOP for Vietnam. Mish later admitted that he cut out the part or the cartoon that blamed the democrats…. editorial mistake my -ss.
Mish can’t understand why some people accuse him of Trump derangement syndrome. How about the lopsided decisions of who gets banned and who continues to bash Trump over nonsense that his been thoroughly discredited? How about the hopelessly biased and partisan cartoon Mish himself published?
You cannot hide behind the Constitution in one instance and then trample on it when it suits you.
Whenever its a case of admitting corruption or incompetence, the correct answer is always incompetence. That’s what Bill Clinton did practically every week during both Presidential terms. Every scandal was blamed on incompetence. And the media reported it as such. “Gosh, he’s just the clumsiest sweetheart, isn’t he?” was the tone from the NYT et al.
So when the NYT itself is caught in a morbidly corrupt situation, the editor must ask, “What would Bill do?”
As for Kavanaugh, who DOESN’T believe this? “A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.”
C’mon, we’re talking about drunken preppie teen boys here. Every teen flick from the 80s had this exact thing going on. It happened. A lot. But was it bad? Was it life-shattering for the dipsy drunken bimbos who hung around the boys’ dorms EXPECTING those sorts of things to happen? Uh…. no.
I reckon every single NYT hack reporter under the age of 50 WISHES he or she had been there/done that. Dorm life is more promiscuous than ever these days, but the vibrant dorm culture that accompanied the rampant behavior was killed off long ago by the sterile SJWs infesting those places.
As for Kavanaugh, who DOESN’T believe this? “A classmate, Max Stier, saw Mr. Kavanaugh with his pants down at a different drunken dorm party, where friends pushed his penis into the hand of a female student.”
I don’t. Stier is a democratic operative and the woman denied the event happened.
Ford’s friend doubted Ford’s claims against Kavanaugh. The prosecutor who questioned Ford in the hearing found her not to be credible.
It’s all a political hit job.
Trump is spot on with FAKE NEWS. But it’s not about reporting real news. It’s about maintaining and growing a subscriber base. So the NY Times is basically MAD Magazine.
How dare you malign that excellent bastion of journalism by comparing it to the New York Times!
I found a copy of the NYT in the trash and put in my parrot’s cage. Poor thing got constipated.
My position with firing is logical.
I am not asking for gov’t intervention. I am telling the NYT that if they wish to have any sense if integrity such errors should not be allowed and heads ought to roll.
I say the same thing about banks, about bad teachers, and things like the VW scandal.
People ought to be held accountable by the boards of these companies.
It’s amazing that someone cannot grasp this simple construct.
At the NYT they were sifting through reports from the wire services and other feeds, thinking: How can we fill the paper today? Suddenly someone came up with the idea of reporting on the justices in the Supreme Court, and another added, why not write something about where Brett’s penis has been over the last century.
(Hint: There’s a little more going on than an honest mistake…)
I’m sorry, but is anyone else confused about how the alleged misconduct may have even happened? How does some one other than you push YOUR penis into another person’s hand? The whole accusation sounds absurd and written in salacious terms to grab headlines. Are we supposed to believe Kavanaugh was walking around the party with his junk out, and a friend purposefully shoved him into a woman who happened to be waiting with outstretched hand? Shouldn’t the accusation of harassment be leveled at the shoving friend as well?
Mish,
I can sense that you’re not entirely onboard with the NYT in this, but an Occam’s Razor approach to understanding the situation would suggest that the authors, editors and sources simply lost track of their lies.
It’s a quite common problem. In fact, the humorist Will Rogers openly admitted that he started out lying frequently as a kid but realized quickly that he wasn’t nearly smart enough to keep sorted out which lie he’d told to whom and when. These folks haven’t made that breakthrough and it’s causing them a lot of grief. Unfortunately, they will quickly forget the lesson.
I’d also advise the NYT that, when you’re using Saul Alinsky’s rules in lieu of doing your own thinking, it’s vitally important that you follow them faithfully. They ignored rule 7:
“A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Don’t become old news”
The Indians had an even better way of putting it, I think: “A smart Indian knows to get off a dead horse.”
The Kavanaugh smear horse is dead. Hanging around with dead horses probably won’t grow readership.
Rule 7
I am starting to think that Sechel and a few other TDS victims in these comments work for Shareblue or some other Correct the Record style shilling organization.
“Since when do you post unsubstantiated sleaze of this nature when the people allegedly involved do not remember the incident?”
Newspapers LEFT AND RIGHT have been publishing stories that mislead and push the boundaries of truth long before any of us were born, where was the outrage when they got us into the Spanish American War when it was reported The Maine was blown up in Havana harbor? Just to give one example. Yes, there are stories like this and pushing the Kavanaugh nomination through was bound to trigger many, if you look for a lowest common denominator with no morality other than to advance an agenda of the far right (or left for that matter) through the senate this is what you can expect. And no, you are never going to convince me that Kavanaugh was the best choice for the post, in fact he could not even answer some basic questions in matters of law. If this is the best we can do, well it is just another nail in our collective coffins.
I don’t read the NYT but I do read the WaPo. Which many have said is basically a mirror of NYT. The WaPo is no longer a news organization. They’re a DNC propaganda arm. Almost everything they publish has an anti Trump or anti republican slant. Even their weather and sports. Every weather story contains a mention of global warming making whatever happened worse or the cause of whatever happened. They recently wrote an article about iguanas invading Florida and blamed it on global warming. Even though the entire state has always been habitable to them.
I don’t read either, because I will not shut off my ad blocker. When I go to a site that demands I pay to read, or set up a subscription, I just leave. I had a subscription with Sirius XM long ago and at a good price, about $7 per month, but forgot about the automatic renewal, the next year they dinged my checking account for $177 for the year, an amount I would not have paid had I remembered to end the subscription in time to stop it, and which also overdrew my checking account costing me even more. I imagine there are people out there that use high limit credit cards for subscriptions and are paying who knows how much for access to sites they never ever go to because they forgot about them after the initial use.
On Monday, after the New York Times “correction,” the KTLA news at Ten PM doubled down on the smearing of Kavanaugh, ignoring the NYT correction entirely.
Fortunately, i do not have to rely on MSM leftist partisan propaganda as my source for news.
Their editors, they say, removed the reference. “It was just sort of. . . in the haste of the editing process,” said Pogrebin.
That comment doesn’t even pass the smell test. Editor is a serious responsibility.
…….Even assuming that changes, all it would do is encourage Republicans to counter the next time they are in charge.
Mish,
sad thing is ; they are not going to be in charge any more! Ever. We are at the braking point, generational rift.
Screw what kind of juvenile shenanigans or crimes he committed as a high school and college student, Kavanaugh committed perjury in his confirmation hearings testimony. He is overtly political. The supreme court is now overtly political. Sad.
You mean it isn’t rabidly liberal shredding the written constitution in favor of progressive imagination.
“He is overtly political. The supreme court is now overtly political. Sad.”
I forget the Supreme Court case, but Kavanaugh did not side the way conservatives would have expected him to.
As far as the court being overtly political, the court often splits along political lines. What is sad is when the court does not uphold the Constitution as it is written.
“What is sad is when the court does not uphold the Constitution as it is written. ”
Like every single Court, since at least Holms’.
The Fundamentalist Jihadis are kicking the West’s rear, in no small part because they, for all their (and for all I know even their law’s) faults, at least are pretty darned vigilant about sticking to their law as originally written. AND how it is, and was, near universally understood.
“Rule of law” ceases to differ from purely arbitrary rule, as soon as “The Law” starts growing interpretations and extensions way beyond the narrowest and most universal possible interpretation of age old WRITTEN, hence verifiable by all, documents. Interpretations which not only “everyone” currently agree with; but at least as, probably even more, importantly; darned near “everyone” at any point prior, agreed with as well.
Otherwise, you end up in the pathological state the US finds itself in now; where “Rule of law” is no more than diversionary theatrical rituals, aimed solely at covering up the fundamental arbitrariness of rule by the law-making and interpreting classes. In current practice; half literates on generous Fed welfare, ensuring pliable halfwits who will tow the line and keep the welfare, and the spoils which come with it, flowing, gets to do the “interpreting.”
Yes, let’s be more like Saudi Arabia!!!
Start by being more like the US, pre Holmes and his drivel.
Then grow up enough to realize Hobgoblins are really imaginary. Hence are not what are so-called “enemies” are. If “they” are growing and “we” are stagnating, that’s a pretty good clue that we are doing something very, very wrong.
Up until the 60s, things were going the exact opposite way: Muslim youth couldn’t wait to leave firebrand Mullahs for more Western ways. Because, to anyone sentient, The Way of the West was still superior back then. Now????? Who knows? And besides, when the alternatives are both akin to picking favorites among turds in a sewer, blowing the entire sewage pile to smithereens doesn’t really seem nearly as bad an idea anymore.
Not what Stuki said.
You say that you are free market, yet you also say that the people in charge of this fiasco at the NYT should be fired. Maybe you’re better off just not reading the NYT.
Hmm… this reply highly illogical. Mish didn’t propose any government intervention.
You’re right. He did not. The point I meant to make is that the NYT here is free to angle or lie in their reporting – granted they could be sued, but that’s a separate issue IMO. It doesn’t make much sense to me to say people there should be fired. It does make sense to me to decide not to consume their news. Thanks for your reply.
“It does make sense to me to decide not to consume their news.”
But it is not just their news. KTLA News used the Times editorial to smear Kavanaugh, as did all manner of other news outlets. The NYT was tip of the spear for a biased mainstream media, which ran nationwide with the smear.
There is not such thing as an unbiased media mainstream or otherwise. Even with in the biased media you have sub-biased “media”. For instance the NYT attacks medicare for all even though is “liberal”. Fox news also has its own sub-biased for the right. Once media became a conglomerate in the hands of a few the “unbiased” went out the window
The media has never been unbiased at any time in its history. Surely you’ve heard of Yellow Journalism, which goes back to the 1800’s and attacks on oriental workers on the west coast. Hell, even Jefferson was complaining about the bias of certain newspapers.
Actually, he has to read it if he’s to reply in a factual fashion.If you fail to look at all sources you box yourself into an echo chamber. The trick is to determine where and to what extent the bias is.
The slogan of CNN was facts first. Such a slogan projected objectivity. The NYT is considered to be the paper of record. That projects objectivity. It also projects a sterling reputation of respecting the truth, as best it can be determined. Might as well read a grocery store checkout stand tabloid.
Medicare for all is not a liberal position, it is a leftist position. The NYT is liberal establishment media, so it would not be sub-biased for attacking medicare for all. The NYT promoted Hillary, the liberal establishment candidate, over Sanders, the leftist candidate.
CBS, NBC, ABC news, have always been conglomerates, as they were nationwide media. It is just now that each is associated with a movie studio: Paramount, Universal and Disney.
LOL yes because I’m to believe “Fair and Balanced” “We Report; You Decide” from fox
You are so brainwash that it isn’t worth any more responses…
“It doesn’t make much sense to me to say people there should be fired.”
Mish, like everyone else, has a first amendment right to recommend people be fired. It’s the free market choice of the NYT to accept, reject or ignore his recommendation.
Does anyone, at all, literate still read that sophmoric drivel?
One of the reasons I got disenchanted with the MSM is because I knew from my own experience that what they were writing was tosh. One of the things that I like about this and other of my favourite sites is that they bring back the sheer gusto of what it was like in my youth when the newspapers and television were unafraid of talking about big things. I swear that if you only get your news from the MSM you would not know that the Magnitsky family substantially lost their case against Putin in the, I think, ECHR. You really would be ignorant of Rep Gabbard’s coruscating put down of President Trump over his subservience to Saudi Arabia. The MSM are culpable because of what they do not report , and what they do report is mostly gossip and tittletattle.
Yeah! Plus I love the lively debates we have on this site and everybody’s take. Really makes one critically think!
“We wanted to give as much The Full Monty as possible.”
I find these so called trustworthy magazines and newspapers so untrustworthy nowadays that I refuse to pay for them. There is loads of free information available and it encourages to think oneself not just suck the tits of we-know-it-better-trust-us.
I don’t know if Kavanaugh is the sleazebag they say he is, and nobody, especially Kavanaugh, has had an adequate opportunity to test the witnesses to determine the veracity of the allegations; Dr. Ford was theatrically tested with no real judicial standards applied, and she still failed miserably to make the case.
What I would really like to know is why none of it came up from the mid-1990’s onward as he climbed the ladder into increasingly responsible Federal positions. “Classmate” Mr. Stier actually worked on the Clinton (Bill) defense team during the impeachment proceedings while Mr. Kavanaugh worked on Ken Starr’s team. Wouldn’t that have been the time to call Mr. Kavanaugh into question? Or why not later as he was nominated to the Federal bench?
Sorry, but these allegations are barred under the principles of estoppel and laches..