Enemy of the people – bad.
Enemies of the state – good.
That’s the message suggested by The New York Times by its silence over a provocative tweet by one of its reporters.
On Tuesday, as Democrats and the Pelosi Republicans joining them carried on the special commission investigating the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, a NYT reporter suggested that former President Donald Trump’s supporters were “enemies of the state.”
On Twitter, Katie Benner, who covers the Justice Department for the Times, wrote, “Today’s #January6thSelectCommittee underscores the America’s current, essential natsec [national security] dilemma: Work to combat legitimate national security threats now entails calling a politician’s supporters enemies of the state.”
“As Americans, we believe that state power should not be used to work against a political figure or a political party,” Benner added. “But what happens if a politician seems to threaten the state? If the politician continues to do so out of office and his entire party supports that threat?”
“This dilemma was unsolved by the Russia probe and 2 impeachments,” she continued. “With many Republicans denying the reality of the Jan. 6 attack, I doubt the #January6thSelectCommittee will resolve it either. That leaves it up to the voters, making even more essential free, fair access to the polls.”
No mention, of course, of how Democrats, including those on this same Jan. 6 committee, worked to “threaten the state” by lying about Trump being a Russian plant in 2016 or cheering on the abuse of power by the FBI, NSA, and CIA in pursuing Trump allies because of phony allegations in a concocted dossier.
Interestingly, although not all that surprising, The Daily Wire reported that Benner, before joining the Times, wrote for a propaganda outfit called the Beijing Review, which is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and created some 70 years ago to promote the party’s ideas to the rest of the world.
The Times conveniently leaves that off Benner’s resume on its website, Daily Wire noted.
Benner later deleted her offensive tweets, claiming they were “unclearly worded.”
Yet she apparently has made no effort to clarify what she meant, which suggests that her original tweet reflects her view of Trump’s backers.
Fox News reported that the NYT refused repeated requests for comment on Benner, particularly whether she violated the paper’s policy on reporters’ tweets. “In social media posts,” the policy says, “our journalists must not express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates, make offensive comments or do anything else that undercuts The Times’s journalistic reputation.”
Well, Benner could not do any more damage to the NYT’s reputation than what the rest of the paper has done with its brazen anti-Trump, anti-Republican coverage of the last six years.
But it is worthwhile to note how fickle the Times is on this matter.
In August 2018 the Times joined more than 200 other newspapers across the country in a coordinated, one-day attack on Trump’s use of the phrase “enemy of the people” to describe the national media.
The paper highlighted many of those editorials with links to them, and in its own noted, “Insisting that truths you don’t like are ‘fake news’ is dangerous to the lifeblood of democracy. And calling journalists the ‘enemy of the people’ is dangerous, period.”
Two weeks before that, the Times allowed opinion columnist Bret Stephens to assert that Trump’s rhetoric would get journalists killed – by his followers.
In a column, Stephens wrote, “Some of them didn’t get the memo about taking Trump seriously but not literally. A few hear the phrase ‘enemy of the people’ and are prepared to take the words to their logical conclusion. … We are approaching a day when blood on the newsroom floor will be blood on the president’s hands.”
That day, of course, never came – showing once again the constant hyperventilating about Trump’s language was without merit.
But one wonders what the NYT will say if, or when, some of President Joe Biden’s supporters take things to the “logical conclusion” after its own reporter calls Trumpsters “enemies of the state,” when Speaker Nancy Pelosi looks at GOP lawmakers and declares “the enemy is within,” and hosts on CNN and MSNBC perpetually argue that, or encourage others to call, all Republicans are terrorists and traitors.
Given the Times’ reaction to Benner, probably not much.
Android Users, Click Here To Download The Free Press App And Never Miss A Story. It’s Free And Coming To Apple Users Soon.
Support journalism by clicking here to our gofundme or sign up for our free newsletter by clicking here