N.Y. Times Hates Drugstore-Chain Protest: Customers Can Refuse 'A Magazine That Offends Them, Like Guns & Ammo'

The New York Times editorial board is really unhappy at the outrage over the Hip Dreamy Terrorist cover of Rolling Stone. "Maybe the hysteria about Rolling Stone’s August issue is heat-wave induced. That’s the only charitable explanation." Boston's liberal mayor "hyperventilated," they sneered in print.

Worst of all, "The drumbeat became so feverish that Walgreens, CVS and a few other stores have refused to sell the magazine." The Times thinks it would be better if merchants simply let  the customer have the right to avoid buying an offensive magazine, and they suggested.....Guns & Ammo magazine:

Stores have a right to refuse to sell products because, say, they are unhealthy, like cigarettes (which Walgreens and CVS, oops, both sell). Consumers have every right to avoid buying a magazine that offends them, like Guns & Ammo or Rolling Stone.

But singling out one magazine issue for shunning is over the top, especially since the photo has already appeared in a lot of prominent places, including the front page of this newspaper, without an outcry. As any seasoned reader should know, magazine covers are not endorsements.

"Seasoned readers" would never attack Rolling Stone for a cover. So every liberal who fulminated at The New Yorker magazine in 2008 for trying to mock conservatives by cartooning the Obamas as black radicals wasn't a "seasoned reader."

The editorial concluded by suggesting the drugstore protest will never work: "One thing seems certain about the Tsarnaev cover. Thanks to the outcry on social media and the reactions of a few timid merchants, this issue should sell quite well."