The Gray Lady’s Madness

Someone famous or other once said that madness was doing the exact same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Or something like that. If you ask us, this means that The New York Times, in offering its unsolicited advice to President Bush and Israel, presents a quintessential display of madness.

Don’t believe us? Well, one need only gander at their staff editorial “A Viable Palestinian State,” which appeared in the May 25 number of the paper. For starters, check out this annoying line:

…Mr. Bush should not punish the Palestinian people by endorsing any unilateral proposal—doing that would punish them for exercising their democratic right to vote.

Oh, for the love of all that is holy. How many times must we repeat this? When polities vote, they make choices. If other polities don’t like these choices, they may legitimately respond to the outcomes in a variety of ways. This is not related to threatening democracy per se.

For instance, if (say) Germany voted for another Hitler, and this Hitler started a war, we think the US would be duty bound to stop this guy. We suppose the Times might say, if it were to be consistent, “The USA should not punish the German people by endorsing any unilateral policy of war—doing that would punish them for exercising their democratic right to vote.”

Obviously, this is complete insanity. Thus, just because the Palestinians vote for fanatical terrorists, this does not mean that they should suffer no repercussions for doing so. Can’t someone inform the knuckle-dragging idiots at the Paper of Record of the dimwittedness of their argument?

Apparently not. For, as the “Viable Palestinian State” editorial continues, it becomes crystal clear that the Times rejects a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank because it does not allow the Palestinians to “have a say in creating a state that can function.”

And there’s the crazy part: After umpteen Palestinian rejections of peace offerings, after incessant Palestinian intransigence and violence, the morons at The New York Times want President Bush and Israel to try the exact same thing over again. That is to say, they believe that doing the exact same thing can lead to different results.

It’s idiocy of this magnitude that nearly makes us pine for the good old days of Jayson Blair. Hey: At least he knew he was a fraud.