Sometimes I think the New York Times must be doing this intentionally. Sometimes I think its editorial staff must sit around, laughing, and saying to each other "let's try one even more ridiculous than the last one, and see if any of these bozos who still read what we have to say even notices, let alone calls us on it".
Today the Times' lead editorial sarcastically assails Mitt Romney for his "flip-flop" on whether ObamaCare is a penalty or a tax. You can read the entire editorial by clicking here, but let me show you a few excerpts:
Mitt Romney Changes His Mind, Again
Massachusetts residents who file a state tax return have to provide proof that they have health insurance. If they can afford insurance but don’t have it, they must “pay a penalty through their tax returns,” according to the state Department of Revenue’s Web site.
This is all thanks to former Gov. Mitt Romney, who set up the system — the best of its kind in the country — and is now trying to pretend he doesn’t remember how it works. On Monday, his campaign said Mr. Romney believed the identical requirement in President Obama’s health care law was a penalty, paid through the tax system. Two days later, Mr. Romney rushed to the cameras to contradict the campaign and insist the mandate was a tax.
Why the switch? As he has on so many issues, Mr. Romney caved to Republican conservatives who want him to campaign on the falsehood that the mandate is a vast tax increase on the middle class. The Supreme Court’s decision that the law is constitutional was disastrous to their cause, so they distorted its basic reasoning. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. wrote that the mandate is legal under the Congressional taxing power, which Republicans took a step further, saying the mandate must now be a tax. And not just a tax, but a huge, oppressive tax, one of the largest in history.
It is, of course, no such thing...
Let's start with the fact that Mitt Romney did not switch a thing. He said that he agreed with the dissent - which called it a penalty - but the supreme court ruling supersedes his personal opinion on the matter - which, of course, it does. Can someone show me the switch in his position? Because I am looking closely and can't find it.
Then we have the Times' claim that Mr. Romney's non-existent switch was a cave-in to conservatives, who are calling it a tax which, according to the Times, it isn't.
Translation: Mitt Romney is owned and operated by those terrible conservative bogeymen, which is why he switched a position that he clearly did not switch, and because of the bogeymen, he is now calling a mandate, that was declared constitutional specifically on the grounds that it comes under congressional taxing power, a tax. Can you imagine? He's calling a tax a tax, and everyone knows that the ruling, which says it is constitutional only because it falls within congressional taxing power is not a tax. What's wrong with him?
We can go on, and explore the rest of the Times' labyrinthine "logic" - or whatever word you would use to define it. But I think you get the message.
Ok, now, just for fun, let's travel back in time to May, when President Obama, after specifically being against gay marriage his whole public life, but desperately in need of the $$$$$ that can be supplied by gay-friendly rich Hollywood types, suddenly "evolved" and said he supported gay marriages. Not as a civil right, you understand - Mr. Obama said it should still be up to the individual states - but just as an...er....evolved position.
This, of course, is ridiculous, except as a nakedly political strategy. If President Obama wanted to actually do anything about gay marriage he would have said it is a civil right and therefore legal under federal law. But, since every state that has had a gay marriage referendum has voted it down, including several swing states, that would anger lots of voters he needs. So all Mr. Obama did was weasel out a statement of support, with no offer of any federal means of backing it up.
In short, he offered gay people nothing.
With this in mind, let's see how the New York Times editorialized on Mr. Obama's gay marriage "position (more exacty, his flip-flop on gay marriage - to be replaced by a politically savvy statement with no offer of anything that would make it legal). You can read the entire editorial by clicking here, but let me show you a few excerpts below:
President Obama's Moment
It has always taken strong national leadership to expand equal rights in this country, and it has long been obvious that marriage rights are no exception. President Obama offered some of that leadership on Wednesday. “I think same-sex couples should be able to get married,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with ABC News that the White House arranged for the purpose of giving Mr. Obama a forum to say just that.
With those 10 words, Mr. Obama finally stopped temporizing and “evolving” his position on same-sex marriage and took the moral high ground on what may be the great civil rights struggle of our time.
Mr. Obama consciously presented his change of position (he used to favor so-called civil unions but not marriage) as a personal journey.
That process will seem familiar to Americans of his and older generations who have reached the same place, or are still getting there.
We have one major point of disagreement with Mr. Obama: his support for the concept of states deciding this issue on their own. That position effectively restricts the right to marry to the 20 states that have not adopted the kind of constitutional prohibitions North Carolina voters approved on Tuesday.
Mr. Obama should remember that, in 1967, the Supreme Court said no state could prohibit mixed-race marriages because “marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man.’ ” Those rights are too precious and too fragile to be left up to the whim of states and the tearing winds of modern partisan politics.
A federal judge in California, supported by an appellate court panel, has ruled that a ban on same-sex marriage violates the 14th Amendment right to equal protection. That decision will probably reach the Supreme Court, and, when it does, we expect Mr. Obama, if he is still president, will take the final step in his evolutionary process and direct the Justice Department to support that ruling and urge the court to uphold equality in every state.
Amazing difference in tone, wouldn't you say?
Look at the titles of the two editorials. Look at the attack on Romney for simply stating what the Supreme Court decision means, and the deference to Barack Obama for selecting a politically beneficial time to change positions on an issue that generates tons of $$$$$ for him, while not offering even the slightest way of implementing his supposedly changed position.
The title of this blog refers to the New York Times' editorials as being self-satirical. That, friends, is the kindest description I can come up with.
Calling the Times' editorial staff a bunch of left wing lackeys who have forsworn all professionalism, honesty and common sense in an effort to prop up the failed Presidency of their lord and savior, Barack Obama is a bit too unseemly for me.
True, but a bit too unseemly.....
