Thread by @davekarpf

Bret Stephens's latest NYT column reads like an underwhelming fare-thee-well.

It is half-hearted, poorly researched, and poorly constructed. It defends the indefensible by lazily changing the subject.

It ought to be his last column.
nytimes.com/2020/06/12/opi…

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Stephens weighs in on the aftermath of Tom Cotton's brutal "Send in the Troops" Op-Ed.

It was an Op-Ed so bad that it led to open revolt from New York Times writers and editors. (That doesn't *ever* happen.) It was so bad that it prompted James Bennet to resign.
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Without Bennet, Stephens has to know that his days at the Times are numbered.

Bennet has been Bret Stephens's patron editorial protector. He has been Bret's Audience of One.

So Bret rises in defense of Cotton, but really in defense of a Times culture that let Bret be Bret.(3)

The column is filled with bad-faith sleight-of-hand and abrupt changes of subject.

It is, in other words, vintage Stephens.

He begins by characterizing the Cotton Op-Ed as a call to send in troops to respond to rioting that accompanied "overwhelmingly peaceful protests."
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That's not what Cotton wrote, though. Cotton claimed that there was rioting and looting everywhere -- that U.S. cities were in chaos and the military needed to provide a show of overwhelming force to quell the protests.
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The reality is that the violence at these protests was overwhelmingly police-instigated. These were police riots! And police were also targeting journalists -- particularly journalists of color.

Stephens can't defend what Cotton wrote, so he pretends Cotton wrote something else.

Stephens then poses a rhetorical question:

"Then again, isn’t this the biggest problem these outlets have faced in recent years — being of a single mind on subjects that sharply divide the nation?"

Pause for a beat. Consider.

No, Bret. No it isn't.
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There are a LOT of problems facing news outlets in recent years. The funding crisis. Trump's assault on the media. Physical assaults against journalists. Weaponized disinformation.

Being of a single mind about matters of basic democratic norms isn't on the list.
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Then Bret misreads a poll, claiming that 52% of the American public agrees with Cotton.

That's not what the poll says. But if you misread Cotton and look at the poll from juuust the wrong angle, you could maybe convince yourself of it.

This is why Stephens needs a real editor.

Then we reach the core argument:

"the value of Cotton’s Op-Ed doesn’t lie in its goodness or rightness. It lies in the fact that Cotton is a leading spokesman for a major current of public opinion."

This is clear a statement of Stephens's moral compass as you will ever read.

Bret Stephens's sole conviction is that the American power structure is just, and fair, and deserving of defense.

Tom Cotton is a powerful Republican politician. That makes him deserving of polite consideration. Anything else would be *uncivil.*

What does Stephens think of the criticism that Cotton's call for American fascism is beyond-the-pale and directly puts Times reporters at risk?

Not much at all. He says it's "a vital consideration" and then changes the topic like a coward.

He writes: "But as important as it is to try to keep people safe against genuine threats, it is not the duty of the paper to make people feel safe by refusing to publish a dismaying Op-Ed."

Again, cute turn of phrase. But it's craven if you pause to consider it.

Reporters -- particularly black reporters -- are being randomly shot at by police.

Cotton is egging the police on, and calling for even greater force.

The Times puts its reporters at risk by airing propaganda for American fascism, particularly in this moment.

Protecting the ability of a free press to report on American police violence is, I would say, MORE IMPORTANT than protecting the ability of powerful Republicans to say whatever they want wherever they want.

It is not a close call.

He then concludes by equating Cotton's piece with with "modest intellectual risk-taking or minor offenses against new ideological orthodoxies."

He doesn't actually think Cotton wrote that. He just wants to make the whole ordeal about something in his own wheelhouse.

And there, in a nutshell, is the essence of every Bret Stephens article.

The powerful are powerful for a reason. No viewpoint is out-of-bounds so long as it is upholds the existing power structure.

Any dissent against that power structure is the REAL problem.

It's a boring argument and an unserious argument.

It is an argument that he has repeated ad infinitum since before he arrived at the Times.

Let's hope that he soon is left to write it for some less-serious publication.

In the marketplace of ideas, he lacks any currency.
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