The New York Times is the most ideologically—riven and ruined media outlet in the nation. Today, their  contemptuous editorial  opposing the nomination of John Bolton as America's Ambassador to the United Nations stands in stark contrast to other liberal newspapers' approaches today.

The Los Angeles Times editorial writer Jacob Heilbrunn  and the Washington Post's Anne Applebaum  strike a few mild cautionary notes regarding the appointment but go on to note that Bolton might be the bracing sort of shock therapy that the UN needs.

Instead the New York Times takes the posture of selecting a few past quotes of his to disparage him and then engages in an absurd ad hominen attack by suggesting his appointment would be comparable to Bush appointing Martha Stewart to run the Security and Exchange Commission, Donald Rumsfeld to negotiate a new set of Geneva Conventions and Kenneth Lay for Energy Secretary.

While there may be some leeway granted to editorial writers to use pungent prose, two of the figures compared to Bolton have been associated with criminal wrongdoing and one has been demonized (unfairly) as a human rights abuser. Bolton has never been accused of being involved in any scandals.

This sort of character assassination would be comparable to any new hire by the Times being compared to ...hmmm...let's say Jayson Blair, Rick Bragg, or Judith Miller.

Ed Lasky