New York Times Caught Lying Again

The New York Times was caught lying again. In the now time-honored tradition of the Times' Jayson Blair, Howell Raines, Paul Krugman and Maureen Dowd, James Dao took a story, selectively edited it, omitted vital information that utterly contradicted the thrust of the story and created a tale designed to undermine America's efforts to protect itself from Islamic, fascist terror.

In this latest case, Dao "reports" on a letter found on the laptop of a Marine killed in Iraq. In Dao's tale, Cpl. Jeffrey Starr writes -- in a note intended only to be read upon his death -- of his fatalistic attitude towards the unjust war in Iraq.

The only problem is that Dao's spin, in the grand tradition of the New York Times, was exactly the opposite of the truth. In a touching and terrific letter, Cpl Starr, in fact, wrote: "I don't regret going, everybody dies, but few get to do it for something as important as freedom." Line after line in Starr's last testiment spoke equally eloquently of his pride in helping to make the world a better place through America's efforts in Iraq.

Dao, of course, leaves all of this out of his tale. Instead he cherry-picks, spins and manipulates the fallen heroes last words and portrays the man's testimony as exactly the opposite of what it is.

Did Dao not get the thrust of Starr's letter? That's hard to believe. Starr could not have been clearer in his pride and sense of rightness in helping to bring freedom to millions.

So why did Mr. Dao do it? Why did he cherry-pick, spin and manipulate the last testiment of a fallen hero in a way that so distorts a man's last words that he seems to be arguing against his own most deeply held convictions?

The answer can be found in Mr. Dao's correspondence with a reader who took exception to Dao's trickery. In e-mails (as reported by Michelle Malkin)
Dao defends his behavior thus: "...you should know the anxiety and fear parents, spouses, and troops themselves feel when they deploy to war."

In other words, in the piece in which he falsely portrays a fallen hero's last words, Dao wasn't acting as a legitimate journalist but rather as an advocate for his "war is not the answer" ideology. To honestly and accurately report on the contents of Starr's letter would have been to ennoble the cause. To spin and manipulate the letter allowed Dao to "offer testimony" from no less a knowledgeable source than a (fallen) Marine, that war doesn't feel good (and to folks whose entire mantra is "if it feels good, do it" this is a powerful point.)

Dao, like the rest of the folks in the Old Media, is engaging in advocacy journalism and the thing they are advocating is leftwing dogma.

This is the same force behind Dan Rather's use of forged documents and his attempts to pawn off a mentally disturbed Democrat party partisan with multiple direct contacts to the highest level of the Kerry campaign as "an unimpeachable source." The corrupt Rather also had a "message" for his viewers, that George Bush is a bad man. When there was no legitimate evidence to support Rather's "message" he simply took what he could get.

It's the same reason that the New York Times refuses to print positive stories about American troops in Iraq. Leftist dogma is that America is always wrong.
Thus when stories come along -- such as the fact that the American goal of immunizing 95 percent of all Iraqi children against horrific diseases has been met -- the Times supposedly can't find room for it in their pages but the tale of the misdeeds of a handful of night guards at a prison for suspected terrorists makes the front page every single day for literally a month-and-a-half.

Folks like Dao and Rather are utterly unapologetic. To them their leftist dogma is truth and since their job is to report the truth they think themselves great journalists for advance their leftist agendas. If this higher calling requires them to employ forged documents, or to manipulate the last testiment of a fallen hero fighting for freedom then, according to the likes of Mr. Dao, so be it.