I’ve Been Trying To Explain The New York Times To People For Years And He Just Tweeted It Out

Atrios points to the following tweet from Clyde Haberman…

@ClydeHaberman
I confess to some ambivalence about Chris Cuomo’s suspension. It’s deserved on many levels. But wouldn’t you help your brother if he fell into trouble, even of his own making?

Yeah. Quite. This is Haberman, who as Atrios points out has a long history with the Times, and is the father of their current White House Correspondent, saying that he’s ambivalent about a fellow Times staffer, and the brother of the governor of New York, helping to cover up his brother’s sex abuse scandal because…family. Atrios responds thusly…

A lot to work with here (“fell into some trouble” lol), but I would submit that most of us would not actually do what Chris Cuomo did, or anything analogous, to help our “brothers.” Sure I would help my brother, but I wouldn’t do *that* to help my brother. Make sure he had a good lawyer. Help him figure out how to stop abusing people. That kind of thing.

And the point here isn’t simply, “oh, well, family is family, you can sympathize a bit,” it’s “since you can sympathize a bit, it seems a bit harsh for the man to be suspended from his job.” This is “there should be no consequences for people who are, in many ways, qwhite like me.”

This is something I would do myself, therefore it isn’t really wrong and there should be no negative consequences for it. QED. Boom!

Who amongst us would not abuse our power to smear victims of sexual harassment and assault (whatever “groping” would legally be in your jurisdiction)? Disobeying my employer’s rules and edicts and lying to them? Why would we ask for anything different from the most powerful people in the country? And should we really face consequences for that? Famiglia.

What would elite journalists do to protect their families and people in their close social circles? People who they cover, but are also quite friendly with, even party with and see on vacation? What happens in the Hamptons… Believe people when they tell you who they are.

This is something that I think many of us who subscribed to the Times figured was what the social strata was like in the top floor offices. Villagers. It’s a term Atrios coined I think, for the Georgetown DC mindset. That DC circuit party schmoozing among media executives, Capitol Hill politicians and their Very wealthy Georgetown money teats. but it can apply to a lot of other places where the same dynamic exists. Villagers. They stick together.

It’s something to keep in mind when you’re reading their newspapers and magazines: You are getting the Villager’s point of view. That’s not always a bad thing, which is why I bought Woodward’s books about Trump. Sometimes you want to know what they’re thinking. But a steady diet of it is disorienting.

Eventually I had enough of it an cancelled my subscription. I’m still subscribed to the Post though.