Former Defense Dept. Official: NYT Has 'Deep-Seated Anti-Catholic Bigotry'
Former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Jed Babbin said Friday that there is a deep-seated anti-Catholic bigotry at the New York Times.
Speaking with Clayton Morris on "Fox & Friends," the former George H.W. Bush administration official also called the Gray Lady "a hub of liberal thinking" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
CLAYTON MORRIS: Last month, the New York Times asked readers to dig up dirt on former Alaska governor Sarah Palin writing quote "Help us review Sarah Palin email records." Then the paper tried to prove Clarence Thomas unethical. Then the Gray Lady picked a fight with Archbishop Timothy Dolan. Joining us from our DC bureau this morning former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense under George H.W. Bush and contributing editor for the American Spectator, Jed Babbin. Nice to see you this morning, Jed. Welcome to “Fox & Friends.”
JED BABBIN, AMERICAN SPECTACTOR: Hi, thanks, guys.
MORRIS: So what facts do you have to support this claim that the New York Time, and I'm sorry, Babbin, I called you Babin, my apologies.
BABBIN: Anything close.
MORRIS: Your piece on what you called The Pinch, going after the New York Times, basically saying they've been in the bag for the left. Why do you say that?
BABBIN: Well, it's a very long track record that they have and there's two important facts that you go on. Number one, the fact that they do not report important stories critical of Democrats. They are only critical of the Republican Party. Then number two, their bias is long established. If you read their columns, they are really a hub of liberal thinking. And if you look at what's going on with the Catholic church right now, there is a deep-seated anti-Catholic bigotry going on in the pages of the New York Times. It all comes down to the publisher, Pinch Sulzberger, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. He took over in about 1992.
MORRIS: Right.
BABBIN: He took out most of the people who had built the New York Times post-World War II, very established journalists. He's put ideological reporters and editors in their places and now what you have, you have Maureen Dowd, you know, some person now just bashing the Catholic church in her spare time. And you have, again, this Jill Abramson now coming on as executive editor who is by all reports and by her own track record a very liberal activist. And if you look at Sulzberger himself, all you need to do is go back to his speech at State University of New York, New Paltz, a couple of years ago where he was just histrionic in telling the graduates, “Oh, my gosh, you poor children. We grown-ups were supposed to be leaving you with a world that was not beridden by war and disease and global warming and discrimination and oh I’m so sorry that we’re leaving this to you." It is the histrionic liberalism in Pinch Sulzberger that’s playing out in the Times.
MORRIS: What you mentioned earlier about Catholics, I want to take you back to that in a second. Apparently the New York Times has a problem with Catholics. Here's Timothy Dolan, take a look at this, says, “The common casual way that the New York Times offends Catholic sensitivity is something they would never think of doing – rightly so – to the Jewish, Black, Islamic or gay communities.”
BABBIN: Well, that's absolutely right. Look, if you look at the New York Times track record, they are more eager to publish national secrets than they are, for example, to republish the Danish cartoons making fun of Muhammad. These people have a deep-seated bigotry against the Catholic Church. It's reflected in their reporting. If you look at the way they report on art exhibits, on plays, the way they criticize the church and when Timothy Dolan, Archbishop Dolan tries to put in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, they reject it. There's a bias there. There's a bigotry and there’s a very big problem in the New York Times.
MORRIS: Well, if you want to read Jed’s piece, it's called "Pinch Happened" in the American Spectator. You won't read it in the New York Times. Jed Babbin, thanks so much for joining us this morning, and have a great Fourth of July.
In May 2006, NewsBusters reported Sulzberger's absurd commencement address that Babbin referred to. Those that can stand it can watch the full video at C-SPAN's website.
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Comments
'Gray Lady Down!'...and down...and down...
Submitted by Soldat44 on Sat, 07/02/2011 - 5:23pm.
'Gray Lady Down!'...and down...and down...
Jed Babbin's oxymoron-
Submitted by big.league.slider on Sat, 07/02/2011 - 7:55pm.
Jed Babbin is funny. He used the words "liberal" and "thinking" in the same sentence.
And speaking of anti-Catholic bias, it looks like Sinead O'Conner shops at the same store as Hillary Clinton.
The Catholic Church's four mortal sins
Submitted by CO2Maker on Sat, 07/02/2011 - 8:04pm.
1. The Church opposes homosexual behavior and, most important, gay marriage. The Church has to do many years of penance in Purgatory for that.
2. The Church covered up and didn't clean out pedophile priests. That's a serious and grave offense, and even conservative-minded people recognize the failings of the Church in this matter.
3. The Church opposes the ordination of women priests. More time in Purgatory for this, plus many novenas to Mary, who was almost proclaimed Co-mediatrix of Grace.
4. But the sin that cannot be atoned for in liberal eyes and that justifies all the vilification and smears of the Church, is that the Catholic Church opposes any form of elective abortion.
And Maureen Dowd is the ringleader....
Submitted by motherbelt on Sat, 07/02/2011 - 10:20pm.
George Wiegel analyzes her obsession her in a National Review column
The principal example of this new, Catholic anti-Catholicism — indeed, the Platonic form of the new Catholic anti-Catholicism — is Maureen Dowd, op-ed columnist of the New York Times. Six times since February, and thrice in the past three weeks, Ms. Dowd has lifted her poison pen and, serially, mocked the Church’s practice of sacramental confession and its settled conviction on the inadmissibility of women to Holy Orders; portrayed the cases of abuse recently brought to light in Philadelphia as part of an ongoing pattern of crime in the Church; deplored the beatification of John Paul II on the grounds that he failed “to protect innocent children”; charged that the Vatican “preferred denial to remorse” and was deliberately stonewalling the reform of the Church in Ireland; mocked the conversion to Catholicism of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich while suggesting that prominent churchmen, who “have a fuzzy grasp on right and wrong,” had been Gingrich’s toadies; and then committed calumny against New York archbishop Timothy Dolan in a Fathers’ Day column that took anti-Catholic-bitchery-as-commentary to a new low.
Read the whole thing.
Where have I read similar comments before, hmm, where was it...
Submitted by Chris Norman on Sun, 07/03/2011 - 3:02am.
Comments about the liberal bias of the NYT are made here on NB, day in and day out, by posters and commenters alike, but when Jed Babbin says it on Fox, it's news? :)