Thursday, July 24, 2008

Boundless Arrogance - NYT Update II (Heh)


I blogged below on the Drudge Report's story about the NYT editor, David Shipley's decision not to run a McCain opinion piece that responded to Obama's "My Plan for Iraq" editorial that the NYT published last week. I updated that with Mr. Shipley's incredibly arrogant e-mail reposnse to the McCain Camp in which he, in essence, only would agree to publish a McCain response if it was substantailly reworked to mirror Mr. Obama's call for timetables for withdraw. It was a display of arrogance and bias writ large. I thought that the matter ended there, but that is not the case. TNOY has obtained the notes of David Shipley wherein he has helpfully edited the McCain editorial to show them what he would find acceptable

In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command of the dismal situation in Iraq, he called the situation “hard”, but not bordering on “hopeless.” Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to only 80% to the lowest levels in four years leaving much work to be done to eliminate the final 20%. Sunni and Shiite terrorists freedom fighters, battling valiantly to protect their homeland, are reeling from a string of defeats minor set-backs. The situation now is full of hope uncertain, but and considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains. rebuild the country we destroyed.

Progress has been due primarily to an increase in the number of troops and a change in their strategy recent polls showing Senator Obama as the clear front runner for the presidency, as well as fears of a Hillary Clinton victory. I was an early a bloodthirsty advocate of the surge at a time when it had few supporters in Washington most rational people were questioning my ability to make toast, let alone run the country. Senator Barack Obama was an equally eloquently vocal opponent. “I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to completely solve the sectarian violence there,” he said on January 10, 2007. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse predict only an 80% reduction in violence, leaving 1 in 5 Iraqis sadly disenfranchised by the surge.” . . .

Read the entirity of Mr. Shipley's proposed edit. There is much more.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This cannot possibly be real. Can Shipley really be dumb enough to write this down and let something like this get out? This note must be fake. It may reflect Shipley's true feelings, but I thought only liberal newspapers and liberal blogs posted "fake but true" items.

GW said...

Hello Vinny:

I think it was Krauthammer not long ago that said the hardest thing to do in the written word is to convey satire. The problem is mixing satire with the real stuff. TNOY, which is where this piece is linked from, is the best satire and humor site on the web. The work shown is purely from the quill of the web site owners, not Mr. Shipley - though I do not doubt that it quite nicely captures Mr. Shipley's thoughts were we able to hear them through his cranium.