NYT Staffers Rail Against Publication Of Cotton’s ‘Send In the Troops’ Op-Ed

Staffers at The New York Times criticized the paper for publishing a controversial op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) that advocated an “overwhelming show of force,” including the deployment of the military to quash rioters and anarchists who he says have infiltrated and tainted anti-racism protests across the country.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1312647

“We understand that many readers find Senator Cotton’s argument painful, even dangerous,” Bennet wrote. “We believe that is one reason it requires public scrutiny and debate.”

This is the worst form of bothsiderisms. Will the NYT now be posting Pro-White Supremacy OpEds because it “requires public scrutiny and debate”?

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Remember when the NYT was accused of being liberal? Seems like a looong time ago.
Now their motto is more like the satirical Mad Magazine version: “All the news that fits we print.”

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FWIW, I think Ginger Thompson nailed it.

The New York Times is under no obligation to provide an outlet for a government official to call for military repression of citizens exercising their constitutional rights of free speech, assembly, and petitioning that government for the redress of grievances. That the grievances are more than merely legitimate makes providing that official an outlet all the more heinous.

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Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) that advocated an “overwhelming show of force,” including the deployment of the military to quash rioters and anarchists who he says have infiltrated and tainted anti-racism protests across the country.

And if that quashes all demonstration, well that’s just a bonus knock-on effect. Can’t be helped, so might as well just enjoy it.

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Cotton’s piece is worth reading if you’ve eaten poison and need to induce vomiting. His hypocrisy over historical federal intervention to enforce civil rights is staggering & guaranteed to help you chuck up those toxins. In that sense its publication was a genuine public service.

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I have long wondered why NYT and WaPo and the like give space to heinous characters and opinions like Cotton’s. They always say they’re “fostering public debate” about thes topics.
But what are their limits? If someone has an opinion that it’s ok to rape three-year olds, will they publish it?
This is both-siderism at its best. They need to decide what their journalistic standards are. Until I see clear ones, I won’t subscribe. Which is why I have never given a cent to the NYT and will never again to the WaPo.

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I think the point of that Cotton is in a position to write legislation. I think what he wrote is horrible. But I’m kind of glad that it’s there, so we can all see how horrible he and people like him are. That’s really the only reason… Shine a light on what they think. It’s really the only effective way to combat lies and inhumanity… Be honest and decent.

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I unsubbed (finally) when they ran those piece of shit articles about Biden and Ukraine that Ken Vogel got pimped out to write. Subbed to Wapo and TPM Prime AF, haven’t looked back since.

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Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) advocated an “overwhelming show of force" to crush political protest, which is a Constitutional Right.

If I ever see this asshole on the street, he will rue the day that he ever expressed his fascist opinion. I wouldn’t physically harm him. I’d make him very uncomfortable with my free speech, telling him explicitly why he is a traitor to the Constitution, and how he has wiped his ass on the multiple oaths he has taken to support and protect the Constitution.

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If they need to point out that Cotton holds heinous unconstitutional opinions, they could do that by having someone write an op-ed against him, without giving him the soapbox.

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A Treasonous Cotton instigated the letter to Iran in order to undermine US diplomatic efforts and our president.

OT:
I’d like to see the NYT or some other major paper investigate why Chauvin pulled George Floyd from the back seat of the cruiser when he was put there and in handcuffs. What for? If you’re going to arrest him and he’s in cuffs and in the backseat of the cruiser, there’s no good reason to take him out. I’m wondering if Chauvin could see that George was already in distress with breathing and …

This really bothers me after watching the video a couple of times. There’s no good reason that I can fathom to do what he did.

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That’s right. There were only unfathomably bad reasons.

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Cotton is positioning himself to be Trump’s smarter successor.

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Arkansas is “AR” not “AK”.

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Yeah. I was thinking that on the NYT last day of publication it would have a Tom Cotton editorial defending Trump’s right to shut down the fake news NYT and occupy its editorial offices with troops and Bennet would say “it was published because it is an opinion
that requires public scrutiny and debate.”

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Tom Cotton’s opinion piece was an open call for fascism. Say it, he’s a fascist who is going run on a fascism platform.

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Planting rightwing manifestos like this in the “Librul New York Times” is the gold standard for Republicans. Once again, they can reference “EVEN THE LIBRUL NEW YORK TIMES!” And the Times invariably plays along, because for some reason, “liberal” is a bad word, regardless of how accurate or insightful the “liberal-slanting” article or op-ed may be.

But the Times loses every time. Just look at the litany of Clinton-era faux “scandals” they bit on. The Hillary Clinton nothingburgers they flogged for years. The buy-in to Bush era lies (after all, wars increase circulation and clicks! ka-CHING!). And the oh-so careful wording that normalizes Donald Trump, who is “mercurial” not “erratic, arbitrary and raging out of control”, who “challenges norms” rather than “behaves lawlessly, abuses his power, has no decency.”

The Times deserves this criticism and more, but will they listen? The record suggests otherwise.

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AK had enough trouble with its Palin Problems.

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Authoritarian violence is the ultimate expression of fear. The urgency, emergency and burning need Cotton feels to crush these protests with overwhelming force is borne of his fear of the change they might finally bring, both in terms of the disassembly of the system of racist law enforcement upon which his privilege, supremacy and dominance rest but also the undoing of decades of propaganda upon which the GOP’s entire ideology and platform has been based. In his and their minds, a massive sea change in public perception and societal mores on these issues is the ultimate existential threat, and must be attacked violently, without mercy, subjugated and stopped before anything can quicken. They view reforms and systemic change as something less threatening because it can ultimately be corrupted. A wakening of our society to the realities of the situation, the abhorrent wrongness of it and a wholesale cultural rejection of it, however…that’s much much harder for them to “fix” and perhaps cannot be. This all must be made something temporary and forgettable, our memories blurred by the narratives written by the “winners” who crushed it in its nascency lest it exit the womb fully formed and viable.

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