Who's afraid of the New York Times?

Had Thomas Jefferson been edited by The NY Times, his first draft of the nation's founding document would have read, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, it appears that all men are created equal." (This assumes the Grey Lady's editors stopped short of a second alteration: "We seem to hold these truths to be self-evident.")

I'm unclear on precisely when the Times developed a fear of straightforward declarative sentences, but that it plays to Donald Trump's advantage, I'm quite certain. For this fear — or whatever the cause of its reportorial indirectness might be — produces an irresponsible softening of the scofflaw's untoward realities.

The failing may be limited to Trump. I've not gone back to look, but I doubt the Times ever reported, for instance, that convicted felon Bernie Madoff's business activities don't appear to have been legal. And yet the paper of record reports that in this week's transition proceedings, Trump's ethics plan "does not appear" to "address his own conflicts of interest."        

There's a more informative way of reporting the story, which even the cowardly Washington Post managed to pull off: "[His plan] does not include an ethics pledge for the president-elect." The Times could not have been unaware of this unequivocal fact; after all, the plan is online. Moreover, the Times linked to it.

Why, then, would the paper report that said plan does not appear to include the president-elect? There's more. In the same story, the paper writes that "the plan may run afoul of the Presidential Transition Act, which mandates that such plans detail how a president-elect himself will address his own conflicts of interest."

If the Transition Act mandates this detailing, which it does, then Trump's averting the detail runs afoul of the act, full stop. So again we must ask, why would the Times report that his omission may run afoul of the act?   

Of these two journalistic transgressions, the second is more severe. Though running afoul of an unenforceable statute is a relatively insignificant malfeasance, in Trump's case it is characteristic of his chronic wrongdoing and thus the first of his own declarations of independence from statutes on the books. And they too will become more severe once he's in office.      

As Trump proceeds to commit one incontrovertibly criminal or unconstitutional act, it appears The NY Times will be there, reporting that each blatancy may have run afoul of the law. In answer to my own questions of why, I must confess, I'm at a loss.

As for the question I posed in the post's title, I do have answer. It sure as hell isn't Donald Trump. 

Comments

[ssdd]

I briefly skimmed the Transition Act and as far as I can tell, there are no penalties for not obeying its requirements. And if that’s the case, I really can’t blame Trump for ignoring it. If I were confronted with some law I had allegedly broken, but there was no penalty attached to breaking said law, my own response would probably be the same.

As for the NYT’s mealy mouthed appraisal of Trump’s actions, it’s just another sign they’ve already surrendered.

[PM]

But I doubt you would have ignored the law for the same reason as his, which is to continue cleaning up financially as POTUS. Anyway, I'm trying to avoid writing about all of Trumps' corruptions for another four years. Everyone is aware of them, especially you and other readers of this site. Some may be less aware of how the press, the media, has already, as you say, surrendered. And will persist.

[ssdd]

No argument at all. It’s just that writing “laws” that aren’t actually enforceable irritates me. I know that wasn’t your point, I’m just venting.

[VoiceOfReason]

It's what the MAGA Congress specializes in--writing toothless laws, or unnecessary (because redundant) laws for the sake of their (lack of) virtue signalling to their base. Other than tax cuts, it's all performance art, not artistically performed.