How to introduce Dominic Cummings? I’d say he has a decent claim to be one of the most influential figures in modern European history, whatever you think of him. He innovated Brexit, led the Leave campaign, then guided Boris Johnson into a stinking election victory in 2019. The two allies then fell out, Cummings quit — and he is now “having a think.” He almost never gives interviews — let alone chat for an hour and a half. So this is a bit of a Dish coup. And be sure to check out the Dominic Cummings Substack.
Andrew, I've read you for 30 years now, and I must say your statements are becoming ever more hyperbolic. You wrote that the NYT's editors want 'to “teach” readers how to absorb the lessons of critical race theory (which is literally how the NYT executive editor explained his support for the 1619 Project and every story in the paper).'
Reading the link you provided, we find that executive editor Dean Baquet was referring to "race and understanding of race", and then went on to say "one reason we all signed off on the 1619 Project and made it so ambitious and expansive was to teach our readers to think a little bit more like that."
"Think a little bit more" about "race and understanding"...what the heck is wrong with that? "...every story in the paper"? I don't see that interpretation or anything close to that. And, for some reason, you commit similar exaggerations over and over again. It is a significant flaw in your writing.
You too have an agenda, and all too often it is clear that it is not based on a "gimlet-eyed" understanding of current events. You may believe that the 1619 project was so corrupt that any defense of it is "illiberal", but that attitude is illiberal in itself. Please, some journalistic ethics in your posts would be appreciated.
I think you have a good point about the "legacy MSM," and I think JVL has a good point that you have overstated it to a degree that makes a difference. I see the Steele Dossier as a good example. My reading of MSM coverage was that it did consistently convey the idea that the dossier was likely to contain bad information, but also that it probably contained enough good information to offer support to the basic claim of "collusion." Since we like black/white outcomes, it looks like the Danchenko arrest will discredit the whole thing, but, like your dissenter here, I never perceived the dossier as being a central part of MSM reporting on the "Russian collusion" story. In that respect I think your characterization is overstated. But I agree that references to the dossier were much more frequent than the dossier's credentials warranted, and the purpose often seemed to be to keep the dossier in the public eye--it worked, but not to the intended ends.
You've published here a dissenter who weighs the recent Central Park rape case against Cooper v Cooper, and you seem to affirm the comparison. I think that many violent rape cases featured in the tabloids are not covered in the Times. My assumption is that your reader is not suggesting that the problem isn't that the Times doesn't behave like a tabloid; rather they're using the contrast as a way of magnifying a complaint about the treatment of Amy Cooper. But the Cooper affair was not about its minimal crime; it was about dangerously overwrought racial profiling. You may object to the Times's coverage of it (and to the level of consequences for Ms. Cooper), but it has nothing in common with the Velez rape other than Central Park. It would be as logical to contrast the tabloid rape coverage to the Times's coverage of the Charlottesville trials. I think your response not only affirms this poor parallel, it goes to some lengths simply to wave away the Cooper affair. "Microaggression" refers to minor, everyday slights that align with stereotypes of race, gender, etc. Dismissing Amy Cooper's attempt to sic the police on Chris Cooper as an everyday slight seems to reflect the lack of balance you're bringing to the broader MSM issue.
I think the message to send is that we're currently faced with a unique political threat fueled by attacks on MSM reliability and fairness. Mistakes that feed more fuel enlarge the threat. The MSM needs to do better at avoiding them--the cost to the country is far too high to justify the risks of self-righteousness or self-indulgence. I don't think it's a good idea to line up the MSM's avoidable mistakes in a way that encourages taking part for whole; that too seems to me an unjustified risk.
Except a friend of Rittenhouse testified at the trial that there was no request from the car dealership. That was a lie. The car dealership that Rittenhouse says made the request denied it. It changes the narrative considerably. You make this sound like an innocent child wanting to "clean up graffiti and garbage and put out fires." It doesn't take an AR-15 to put our fires but they can certainly be used to start one. I've helped our community clean graffiti and no one was armed with an AR-15. I believe we need to have a long hard look at what's considered self defense and set a standard. If I was on the jury, the idea that this was self defense is preposterous.
We have a standard for self-defense: it's whether a reasonable person would fear death or grievous bodily harm. Rittenhouse's defense team proved conclusively that he met that standard. The evidence showed that he was attacked at every turn, even as he attempted to flee. All of that other stuff - whether the gun was legal, whether he "should" have been in Kenosha that night, whether a black kid would be treated fairly - is legally irrelevant to the self-defense question.
Wanting to add subjective political and moral standards when assessing the validity of a self-defense claim is deeply illiberal.
So if you attempt to disarm an active shooter and he shoots you, it's in self defense?
I consider that a stretch. He was an active shooter and those who were trying to disarm him would have been heroes if, in fact, they had disarmed him and kept him from more killing. Instead, he killed them so we will never know their intent. Were they trying to kill him or protect others from being wantonly murdered? I guess the best case for self defense is to kill anyone trying to disarm you so you can never lose in court. The fact that the prosecution botched the case doesn't negate the fact he shot three people, killing two of them.
You're just misinformed about the basic facts of the case. We absolutely do know the intentions of Rittenhouse's attackers.
The first attacker (Rosenbaum) verbally threatened to kill him, chased him down, and attempted to take the rifle. Rittenhouse had in no way threatened or attacked Rosenbaum; indeed, he was trying to run away from him. This is all on tape. The second attacker (Huber) swung a skateboard at Rittenhouse's head. The third attacker (Grosskreutz) aimed a pistol at Rittenhouse, and later wrote on social media that his only regret was not killing him. He also testified in open court that Rittenhouse only fired on him when Grosskreutz aimed his Glock at Rittenhouse. Again, this all happened as Rittenhouse was attempting to run away.
Rittenhouse was also never an "active shooter", which isn't even a legal term. He wasn't firing indiscriminately into a crowd, he was attempting to make his escape and only fired at the men who were unlawfully assaulting him and who initiated the violence. Grosskreutz and Huber didn't even directly witness the incident with Rosenbaum, so they had no legal right to attempt to detain or violently confront Rittenhouse. It's actually quite similar to the Ahmed Arbery case, where three white men are being charged with murder for (as the state argues) unlawfully attempting a citizen's arrest on a black man they suspected of committing theft. The black man defended himself and died in the confrontation, and the white men are being held responsible for his death. A guilty verdict is likely and would be correct.
If you don't think Rittenhouse had the right to defend himself under those circumstances, then you simply don't believe in the right of ANYONE to defend themselves. Put bluntly, he was not obliged to take a bullet to the head.
To blanket indict the entire mediasphere for the actions of a few is pretty shallow I believe. Some are liars, generally Fox News and its would be imitators. Now add AON to the mix. But not all corporate owned news is the same. Some still adhere to the Fairness Doctrine. community standards and the like. When there is even a scintilla of doubt, most won't publish. Called into question on facts, they are quick to correct the error. We hold mainstream media to a much higher standard than right wing media.
And BTW, I never thought (I see you're on a first name basis) Rittenhouse was Dylan Roof 2.0 but I still believe he was in the wrong here and nothing you can say will change my mind on that. I will always believe the dead men were heroes trying to disarm an active shooter who could have (did) create carnage. They paid with their lives trying to protect others. Rittenhouse has become a right wing media darling. It promotes the shoot first mentality which we don't need any more of in this country.
Andrew, I've read you for 30 years now, and I must say your statements are becoming ever more hyperbolic. You wrote that the NYT's editors want 'to “teach” readers how to absorb the lessons of critical race theory (which is literally how the NYT executive editor explained his support for the 1619 Project and every story in the paper).'
Reading the link you provided, we find that executive editor Dean Baquet was referring to "race and understanding of race", and then went on to say "one reason we all signed off on the 1619 Project and made it so ambitious and expansive was to teach our readers to think a little bit more like that."
"Think a little bit more" about "race and understanding"...what the heck is wrong with that? "...every story in the paper"? I don't see that interpretation or anything close to that. And, for some reason, you commit similar exaggerations over and over again. It is a significant flaw in your writing.
You too have an agenda, and all too often it is clear that it is not based on a "gimlet-eyed" understanding of current events. You may believe that the 1619 project was so corrupt that any defense of it is "illiberal", but that attitude is illiberal in itself. Please, some journalistic ethics in your posts would be appreciated.
I think you have a good point about the "legacy MSM," and I think JVL has a good point that you have overstated it to a degree that makes a difference. I see the Steele Dossier as a good example. My reading of MSM coverage was that it did consistently convey the idea that the dossier was likely to contain bad information, but also that it probably contained enough good information to offer support to the basic claim of "collusion." Since we like black/white outcomes, it looks like the Danchenko arrest will discredit the whole thing, but, like your dissenter here, I never perceived the dossier as being a central part of MSM reporting on the "Russian collusion" story. In that respect I think your characterization is overstated. But I agree that references to the dossier were much more frequent than the dossier's credentials warranted, and the purpose often seemed to be to keep the dossier in the public eye--it worked, but not to the intended ends.
You've published here a dissenter who weighs the recent Central Park rape case against Cooper v Cooper, and you seem to affirm the comparison. I think that many violent rape cases featured in the tabloids are not covered in the Times. My assumption is that your reader is not suggesting that the problem isn't that the Times doesn't behave like a tabloid; rather they're using the contrast as a way of magnifying a complaint about the treatment of Amy Cooper. But the Cooper affair was not about its minimal crime; it was about dangerously overwrought racial profiling. You may object to the Times's coverage of it (and to the level of consequences for Ms. Cooper), but it has nothing in common with the Velez rape other than Central Park. It would be as logical to contrast the tabloid rape coverage to the Times's coverage of the Charlottesville trials. I think your response not only affirms this poor parallel, it goes to some lengths simply to wave away the Cooper affair. "Microaggression" refers to minor, everyday slights that align with stereotypes of race, gender, etc. Dismissing Amy Cooper's attempt to sic the police on Chris Cooper as an everyday slight seems to reflect the lack of balance you're bringing to the broader MSM issue.
I think the message to send is that we're currently faced with a unique political threat fueled by attacks on MSM reliability and fairness. Mistakes that feed more fuel enlarge the threat. The MSM needs to do better at avoiding them--the cost to the country is far too high to justify the risks of self-righteousness or self-indulgence. I don't think it's a good idea to line up the MSM's avoidable mistakes in a way that encourages taking part for whole; that too seems to me an unjustified risk.
Except a friend of Rittenhouse testified at the trial that there was no request from the car dealership. That was a lie. The car dealership that Rittenhouse says made the request denied it. It changes the narrative considerably. You make this sound like an innocent child wanting to "clean up graffiti and garbage and put out fires." It doesn't take an AR-15 to put our fires but they can certainly be used to start one. I've helped our community clean graffiti and no one was armed with an AR-15. I believe we need to have a long hard look at what's considered self defense and set a standard. If I was on the jury, the idea that this was self defense is preposterous.
We have a standard for self-defense: it's whether a reasonable person would fear death or grievous bodily harm. Rittenhouse's defense team proved conclusively that he met that standard. The evidence showed that he was attacked at every turn, even as he attempted to flee. All of that other stuff - whether the gun was legal, whether he "should" have been in Kenosha that night, whether a black kid would be treated fairly - is legally irrelevant to the self-defense question.
Wanting to add subjective political and moral standards when assessing the validity of a self-defense claim is deeply illiberal.
So if you attempt to disarm an active shooter and he shoots you, it's in self defense?
I consider that a stretch. He was an active shooter and those who were trying to disarm him would have been heroes if, in fact, they had disarmed him and kept him from more killing. Instead, he killed them so we will never know their intent. Were they trying to kill him or protect others from being wantonly murdered? I guess the best case for self defense is to kill anyone trying to disarm you so you can never lose in court. The fact that the prosecution botched the case doesn't negate the fact he shot three people, killing two of them.
You're just misinformed about the basic facts of the case. We absolutely do know the intentions of Rittenhouse's attackers.
The first attacker (Rosenbaum) verbally threatened to kill him, chased him down, and attempted to take the rifle. Rittenhouse had in no way threatened or attacked Rosenbaum; indeed, he was trying to run away from him. This is all on tape. The second attacker (Huber) swung a skateboard at Rittenhouse's head. The third attacker (Grosskreutz) aimed a pistol at Rittenhouse, and later wrote on social media that his only regret was not killing him. He also testified in open court that Rittenhouse only fired on him when Grosskreutz aimed his Glock at Rittenhouse. Again, this all happened as Rittenhouse was attempting to run away.
Rittenhouse was also never an "active shooter", which isn't even a legal term. He wasn't firing indiscriminately into a crowd, he was attempting to make his escape and only fired at the men who were unlawfully assaulting him and who initiated the violence. Grosskreutz and Huber didn't even directly witness the incident with Rosenbaum, so they had no legal right to attempt to detain or violently confront Rittenhouse. It's actually quite similar to the Ahmed Arbery case, where three white men are being charged with murder for (as the state argues) unlawfully attempting a citizen's arrest on a black man they suspected of committing theft. The black man defended himself and died in the confrontation, and the white men are being held responsible for his death. A guilty verdict is likely and would be correct.
If you don't think Rittenhouse had the right to defend himself under those circumstances, then you simply don't believe in the right of ANYONE to defend themselves. Put bluntly, he was not obliged to take a bullet to the head.
To blanket indict the entire mediasphere for the actions of a few is pretty shallow I believe. Some are liars, generally Fox News and its would be imitators. Now add AON to the mix. But not all corporate owned news is the same. Some still adhere to the Fairness Doctrine. community standards and the like. When there is even a scintilla of doubt, most won't publish. Called into question on facts, they are quick to correct the error. We hold mainstream media to a much higher standard than right wing media.
And BTW, I never thought (I see you're on a first name basis) Rittenhouse was Dylan Roof 2.0 but I still believe he was in the wrong here and nothing you can say will change my mind on that. I will always believe the dead men were heroes trying to disarm an active shooter who could have (did) create carnage. They paid with their lives trying to protect others. Rittenhouse has become a right wing media darling. It promotes the shoot first mentality which we don't need any more of in this country.