Politico Founding Editor: Palin Trial Reveals NYT Publisher Is a Moral Coward

Sarah Palin was the victim of his fury. PoliticoJohn F. Harris was the founding editor and made an interesting discovery in Monday’s column. That’s because Palin discovered the truth through her lawsuit against him. New York TimesWe now have evidence about A.G. Sulzberger’s moral cowardice as the publisher of this periodical.

Harris makes no secret of his complete dislike of Palin in “The Cynical Spectacle of Sarah Palin’s Lawsuit Against the New York Times.” It’s not surprising. Also no surprise that Harris thinks that the former (fired) Times editorial page editor, James Bennet, is an admirable person. The big news is that the lawsuit’s discovery process revealed Sulzberger as a contemptible moral coward for forcing the resignation of Bennet for the “crime” of publishing an op-ed by Senator Tom Cotton that the newsroom’s woke crowd found intolerable:

Bennet, however, is being protected by a news agency that decided to make a panicky move and force him out rather than protect him from an attack of the left led by several members of its staff. The trial’s discovery process made clear that Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger had pressed Bennet to make his page a bolder, faster, more surprising place. In a job evaluation, Bennet urged him to take greater risks. When some of the risks were not comfortable, he raced for his life to get out.

This is a comparison to Harris’ statement about Palin. His slam against Palin does not seem so terrible.

Palin’s motives are not genuinely about seeking redress for a factual error that was quickly corrected. The whole incident has helped to improve her image with the partisans upon which her financial and political fortunes are dependent. She is not more Bennet than her right-leaning confederates, but they are the same news agency that she has fought over since Nixon’s time. Other cheerleaders of her case are hopeful that it will weaken all journalistic legal protections.

Compare these two criticisms. Which do you prefer? Are you being called a moral coward or a hypocrite for having no genuine motives? The former would be the most common criticism.