{"id":538,"date":"2008-01-13T22:26:15","date_gmt":"2008-01-14T02:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=538"},"modified":"2008-01-26T17:59:03","modified_gmt":"2008-01-26T21:59:03","slug":"the-crazies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=538","title":{"rendered":"The crazies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clark Hoyt<\/a>, public editor of the New York Times<\/em>, has contracted a case of the crazies.  This public editor malady consists in (a) obsessing over the nasty email they get instead of the reason for the nasty mail; (b) picking unrepresentative samples of that email to make a point about free speech or fairness.  He writes:<\/p>\n

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Of the nearly 700 messages I have received since Kristol’s selection was announced — more than half of them before he ever wrote a word for The Times — exactly one praised the choice.<\/p>\n

Rosenthal’s mail has been particularly rough. “That rotten, traiterous [sic] piece of filth should be hung by the ankles from a lamp post and beaten by the mob rather than gaining a pulpit at ANY self-respecting news organization,” said one message. “You should be ashamed. Apparently you are only out for money and therefore an equally traiterous [sic] whore deserving the same treatment.”<\/p>\n

Kristol would not have been my choice to join David Brooks as a second conservative voice in the mix of Times columnists, but the reaction is beyond reason. Hiring Kristol the worst idea ever? I can think of many worse. Hanging someone from a lamppost to be beaten by a mob because of his ideas? And that is from a liberal, defined by Webster as “one who is open-minded.” What have we come to?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So the issue is no longer the completely crazy choice of Bill Kristol for the Times op-ed page, but rather the nastiness of "liberal" email and the long-suffering editors of the New York Times.  I believe we have changed the subject–a nutpicking red herring.   <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clark Hoyt, public editor of the New York Times, has contracted a case of the crazies.  This public editor malady consists in (a) obsessing over the nasty email they get instead of the reason for the nasty mail; (b) picking unrepresentative samples of that email to make a point about free speech or fairness.  He … Continue reading The crazies<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,29,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-op-ed-writers","category-red-herring","category-straw-man"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}