Even with what Michael Kinsley says is his own diminished mental capacity owing to age and disease, he is one shrewd observer. He writes:
It would be nice, I have long thought, to have an openly opinionated press as Britain does, with papers such as The Guardian in London. Instead of hiding their biases, writers and correspondents could say what they think, and readers could discount accordingly.
Well, since Mr. Trump became a serious possibility for president, we have had that world I longed for, and I'm not so sure I want it.
The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN and other establishment outlets have been brazenly, laughably hostile to Mr. Trump, in their news pages as well as their opinion sections. Maybe this hostility is justified. In fact, I think it probably is.
But that doesn't justify reaching out to twist stories or looking for the anti-Trump angle. Nor does it justify the open hoping — if not assuming — that something will come along to rid us of this turbulent hotelier. Impeachment is supposed to be an occasional tragic necessity, not just another tool for replacing the results of an election.
When Mr. Trump won, I prepared myself for an orgy of self-criticism by the liberal media, all wondering how they missed the amazing phenomenon of Mr. Trump's popularity. We have seen some of that, of course. But not as much as one would imagine. Instead, there has been endless vilification of the guy and speculation about how we might get rid of him.
It's interesting that Kinsley's article itself appeared in the New York Times; one wonders if the paper's management agrees with its own writer's characterization of its own coverage as "brazenly, laughably hostile...endless vilification." And if management doesn't agree, why publish an inaccurate characterization?