The Times & Sharpton: Some Couple

The politically partisan New York Times tells readers today:

Vice President Dick Cheney is embroiled in yet another hunting-related controversy.

The vice president made a daylong hunting trip on Monday to the Clove Valley Rod and Gun Club, an exclusive mountainside establishment on 4,000 acres in Union Vale, N.Y., about 15 miles east of Poughkeepsie, in Dutchess County.

Only members and their guests may hunt on the property; an annual membership is said to cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Reporters who covered Mr. Cheney’s visit on Monday — including Fernanda Santos of The Times — were not permitted to enter the grounds of the hunting estate.

But at least one eagle-eyed photographer captured images of a Confederate battle flag — about 3 feet by 5 feet in dimension — hanging in plain view in a garage attached to the club’s headquarters.[…]

A Confederate battle flag hanging in plain view?

We know we’re in for a “firestorm of controversy” when that sort of thing happens even if the Vice President, as his staff has reported, never saw the flag.

Further along in its story, one of the Times’ favorite “go-to” guys, Al Sharpton, appears and is gvien plenty of "ink.":

The Rev. Al Sharpton issued a statement last night that read, in part:

I call on Vice President Cheney to leave immediately, denounce the club, and apologize for going to a club that represents lynching, hate, and murder to black people.

In this age of Jena, La., events and hangman nooses all over the country, for the Vice President to relax under the flag of the hangman nooses is an unpardonable insult to all Americans, particularly blacks. He ought to leave immediately, call for the flag to be brought down at once, and apologize for being connected to an institution that would be insensitive enough to fly it in the first place.

What is interesting to me is that this is not even in the South that it is flying. The club owners must identify with the philosophy of the Confederacy because they can’t say that they are a historic club that 200 years ago was a part of the Confederacy since New York was never a Confederate state.

In a phone interview today, Mr. Sharpton elaborated a bit further.

He expressed incredulity that Mr. Cheney’s security detail would not have noticed — or been bothered by — the presence of the flag.

“It is hard to believe, with a security team and detail searching everywhere the vice president goes in advance, that he would not want to know how this was there or how the security team could not have seen this as inappropriate and insulting,” he said, adding, “You either have security incompetence or security insensitivity.” […]

Just in case a few readers aren't sure how they’re supposed to feel after reading the story, the Times provides a color photo of a halloween mask of Cheney along with hunting outfit and gun and this photo caption:

A Dick Cheney hunting costume for Halloween on display in Manhattan. Since Vice President Cheney’s infamous 2006 firearms accident, his hunting hobby has provided fodder for many jokes.

The entire Times story is here.

Comments:

Gee, the Secret Service had committed either security incompetence or security insensitivity.

It’s true. I read it in the Times. Reverend Sharpton talked about it.

My goodness, what’s going on?

Does Speaker Pelosi know the level the Secret Service has fallen to?

If the Secret Service can’t do its job, that’s just one more reason the government should give her that jetliner.

That way, when she flies back and forth between Washington and San Francisco on the weekends, her staff and Democratic House colleagues flying with her can protect her from any incompetence or insensitivity the Secret Service might commit in mid-flight.

And the members of the MSM-Dem news organizations flying along to “cover the Speaker” can immediately report what’s happening.

Speaking of what’s happening:

Did you know that during the last five years, the Dow, S&P and Nasdaq have all risen more than 50%?

And did you know that during the same five years, the Times’ Class A stock has fallen more than 50%

You can check both statistics here.

Sharpton’s stock remains very high at the Times and other liberal/leftist news organizations.

But it appears to be falling among sensible people, his desperate “Confederate flag” bid for public attention being one sign of that.

There’s a certain appropriateness to the Times teaming up with Sharpton on this media hyped, not really a story “story.”

Ever since Sharpton and the Times worked together on the Tawana Brawley rape hoax, they’ve become more like each other. They’re now like a married couple who over the years have taken on more and more of each other’s habits and attitudes.

How about Al Sharpton for NYT publisher? He can’t do worse than Pinch Sulzberger.

Meanwhile, does anyone know whether the Times’ Bill Keller is still telling people: “We report straight down the middle?”