NY Post slams NY Times for failure to report on Van Jones scandal

Columnist Kyle Smith lays the smackdown on what should have been a huge story in MSM circles – and what would have been a huge story in MSM circles – had the occupant in the WH been named “George W. Bush”:

“This is not an excuse,” the managing editor of The New York Times said after offering the following excuse for completely missing the Van Jones story, except in a blog post: “Our Washington bureau was somewhat short-staffed during the height of the pre-Labor Day vacation period.”

Here’s how long-staffed The New York Times actually is. Long after Glenn Beck reported — back in July — that Jones was history’s first communist czar, and even after Gateway Pundit reported, on Sept. 3, that Jones had signed a wackadoodle 9/11 “truther” petition, The Times sent two reporters to Boston (in a story published Friday, Sept. 4) to pre-report the non-story of Joseph P. Kennedy II’s run for Ted Kennedy’s seat. (He later said he wasn’t interested. Also, the picture of Joseph the Times ran was actually of his brother Max.)

On Sept. 5 (still no word about Van Jones being a Red Green), the Times’ crack political team informed us that the Naked Cowboy was dropping out of the mayoral race.

On Sept. 6, The Times broke the story that “Diane Sawyer, coolly regal, is a born anchor, albeit in an ever-evaporating sea” and, under a piece headlined “Reading Underground,” gave us all food for thought with the subhed, “Even while pressed against strangers, even while stumbling home from a party, New Yorkers read on the subway.”

Granted, the Times must devote a lot of personpower to its vast corrections column. But if it is so flush that it can afford to hire, like the boy with the shovel who follows the elephant in the parade, a personal fact checker for TV critic Alessandra Stanley, surely it can scrounge up an intern to report that there’s a communist truther working as the president’s green jobs czar, or that a congressman was demanding his resignation (Sept. 4).

Jill Abramson, the managing editor, admitted only to being “a beat behind” the story but added that the paper had caught up — after the saga was over. The EMS equivalent of this statement would be, “Sorry I didn’t take your 911 call for four days. At least I was in time for the funeral.”

Although Abramson’s excuse was not an excuse, she proceeded to offer another one: “Mr. Jones was not a high-ranking official.”

Oh. And here I was, thinking that he was “one of Mr. Obama’s top advisers,” as I was told by, well, The Times, on its Caucus blog on Sept. 5. Confusing, confusing.

Ed Morrissey cuts to the chase:

The Times’ lament appears to appeal to the journalistic community rather than the readership. Poor us, it says; this is what happens when readership disappears. We can’t cover the hot stories. No, this is why readership disappears — because editorial decisions get made for political pandering instead of actual news. The Van Jones story could have been written from New York anyway. After all, it doesn’t take a Washington DC IP address to see Van Jones’ name on the 9/11 Truther site. Even putting that aside, did it take two reporters to get the breathless update on Joe Kennedy II and his non-existent political ambitions next year?

The Times didn’t want to cover the story of Van Jones because it made Barack Obama look bad. They didn’t want to cover Eason Jordan’s scandal until he resigned because it made the Left and journalists look bad. They don’t want to cover news — they want to make a political impact on behalf of their own biases.

And here’s another thought: Did the NYT not report on Van Jones’ 9/11 Trutherism beliefs because, gulp, they might agree with him that Bush “KNEW” and thus to them it wasn’t really a “scandal”? Hmm …