Sorry about that: NYT on Obama beheading op/edcolumn

[Miss Authoritiva]

The point at which I should have stopped reading but continued anyway

This is the laugh of the day so far.

The Times Op-Ed page, quite properly, is home to a lot of provocative opinions. But all are supposed to be grounded on the bedrock of fact.

That’s from the New York Times Public Editor’s response to the public response to Edward Luttwak’s incredibly bat-shit crazy column, “President Apostate.”

To briefly summarize Luttwak’s column: A President Obama would be marked, so Luttwak alleged, for assassination by Muslims, so Luttwak alleged, because Obama was a Muslim by birth, so Luttwak alleged, and would be considered, so Luttwak alleged, an apostate by devout Muslims, so Luttwak alleged, who, under Muslim law, so Luttwak alleged, would not be punished for killing an apostate, so Luttwak alleged.

As best decoded, the point to Luttwak’s column was that the humane thing would be not to vote for Obama so that he wouldn’t get his head whacked off.

Clark Hoyt, the Public Editor, now admits that, regarding Luttwak’s column, the NYT did less due diligence in its fact-checking and vetting than is done for a typical episode of Cash Cab. In professional terms, Luttwak’s column was bullshit.

With a subject this charged, readers would have been far better served with more than a single, extreme point of view. When writers purport to educate readers about complex matters, and they are arguably wrong, I think the Times cannot label it opinion and let it go at that.

Can you hear me laughing….

Grace Nearing @ Scriptoids

[Aloha Spirit]

1. This has been bugging me for two weeks! Thanks. Glad to know that the other guy was crazy, not me...

Too funny...

Luttwak said the scholars with whom I spoke were guilty of “gross misrepresentation” of Islam, which he said they portrayed as “a tolerant religion of peace;” he called it “intolerant.” He said he was not out to attack Obama and regretted that, in the editing, a paragraph saying that an Obama presidency could be “beneficial” was cut for space.

[Miss Authoritiva]

2. Sure, the good stuff...

Sure, the good stuff always gets cut for space, and always by the lowliest of copyeditors and page layout editors. And when that fails, it's all because of a transcription error or scanning error (blame Microsoft Vista!). And when all else fails, blame the freelancer or temp employee who just happened to be passing through that week.

So the fault lies not in Luttwak's bizarre askewniverse or in the impaired judgment of the NYT's op/ed page editor for runnning the piece at all, but in the editing. Which, as I recall, was the reason the NYT gave for its appalling pre-Iraq War coverage. An entire year's worth of reporting and op/ed writing was simply one huge editing error.

[Captain Hilts]

3. So was Bob Herbert's reference to Clinton Admin "vandalizing" the White House. No fact checker. nt