The Wrath Of New York Times Editorialists

Is it me, or have the columnist for the Times become strikingly more abrasive toward John McCain lately? Not just the ones you'd expect, like Frank Rich:

SARAH PALIN makes John McCain look even older than he is. And he seemed more than willing to play that part on Thursday night. By the time he slogged through his nearly 50-minute acceptance speech — longer even than Barack Obama’s — you half-expected some brazen younger Republican (Mitt Romney, perhaps?) to dash onstage to give him a gold watch and the bum’s rush.

Still, attention must be paid. McCain’s address, though largely a repetitive slew of stump-speech lines and worn G.O.P. orthodoxy, reminded us of what we once liked about the guy: his aspirations to bipartisanship, his heroic service in Vietnam, his twinkle. He took his (often inaccurate) swipes at Obama, but, in winning contrast to Palin and Rudy Giuliani, he wasn’t smug or nasty.

The only problem, of course, is that the entire thing was a sham.

But the typically more sclerotic Bob Herbert has eaten his Wheaties:

Ignorance must really be bliss. How else, over so many years, could the G.O.P. get away with ridiculing all things liberal?

Troglodytes on the right are no respecters of reality. They say the most absurd things and hardly anyone calls them on it. Evolution? Don’t you believe it. Global warming? A figment of the liberal imagination [...]

Why liberals don’t stand up to this garbage, I don’t know. Without the extraordinary contribution of liberals — from the mightiest presidents to the most unheralded protesters and organizers — the United States would be a much, much worse place than it is today.

Even Republican David Brooks offers a throwaway line in an otherwise banal column that ought to prick up America's ears:

The Republicans are intellectually unfit to govern right now, but balancing with Democrats, they might be able to do some good.

Editorialists from the NYT often appear on chattering class shows and other journalists look to them to understand the themes of the campaign. It'll be interesting to see if lines like "The Republicans are intellectually unfit to govern right now" get repeated.