Letter to the Editor: Ashamed of POTUS and the NY Times

Feb 21, 2019 by Susan Rosenbluth

Dear Editor,

I am dismayed by the recent confrontation between the President of the United States and the New York Times.

They seem to be conducting their relations like a schoolyard scrap.

I urge the President to break his unfortunate habit of insulting and attempting to intimidate journalists and publications who disagree with him.

On its part, the Times acted egregiously by declaring Trump to be a “radical despot” and comparing him to the “dark tyrants” and “dictators” of history. He is neither. But he does act like a neighborhood bully.

The Times should also correct its imbalanced reporting. They display political bias when the great majority of their reports regarding the President are negative.

This behavior (of both) is detrimental to our beloved country. I am ashamed!

Jerrold Terdiman MD

Woodcliff Lake

jterdiman@aol.coml

SLR Responds: For many years, the pro-Israel community has decried and bemoaned the coverage of the Jewish state in the pages of the New York Times, treatment not unlike the almost daily smears President Trump endures at the hands of the so-called Paper of Record.

We find the President’s reaction refreshing and endearing. He has not in any way threatened the Times or its reporters’, editorialists’, or editors’ freedom of speech. He does not call for violence against them. He does not call for anyone connected with the Times to be arrested or jailed. All he does is mock and belittle them, using words which are still his to employ under his own freedom of speech.

If he chooses to sue the Times for libel, he is talking about taking them to court, where, as any lawyer would tell him, he would undoubtedly lose (unless Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s call for reconsideration of the law that currently makes it much too hard for a public official to win in court gets some traction).

The President’s criticism of the Times does not sprout de novo as if from the head of Zeus. It always comes as a reaction to something outrageous the paper has published.

When the Times moderates its coverage of those people and countries its journalists and editors hate (i.e. Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, and President Trump), it will be appropriate to call on its victims to mind their tongues–and pens.