MORE UGLINESS AT THE NEW YORK TIMES: Was Sexism Behind Jill Abramson’s Firing?

One of the major explanations offered for her firing is that she started seeking a new manager who would either report to or co-manage with her subordinate, managing editor Dean Baquet, without consulting him. But how often does that result in the subordinate getting his boss fired? Did publisher Arthur Sulzberger view her, consciously or not, as an arrogant woman who shouldn’t be bossing around Baquet?

Some reports said that she was fired after she complained that her predecessor, Bill Keller, had been paid more than she was — a contention that the New York Times disputes. As a good capitalist, I’m sympathetic to any boss who doesn’t want to pay his workers more than the minimum they’ll accept. Still, if you’ve ever met any people on your visit to our planet, you should be prepared for the possibility that this is going to come out — and that on that day, you’re going to have to sheepishly shrug your shoulders and up the pay packet. Especially if you are the New York Times and you have spent so much ink and column space crusading for more equal pay for women. If this report is indeed true, it is deeply troubling.

Most notable of all is the way she was fired. She seems to have been given no opportunity to address the newsroom, no fig leaf to resign, no sinecure consultancy to a department no one cares about. Indeed, management seems to be going out of its way not to say nice things about her. That’s less than Howell Raines got after he presided over the Jayson Blair and Rick Bragg disasters. Which of her offenses was so grave that higher-ups are going to such extraordinary lengths to humiliate her?

Perhaps the reason why people at the New York Times, and in the Obama White House, think that American society is rife with sexism is because that’s how things are — at the New York Times, and in the Obama White House.

But the Times’ problems are much worse than sexism:

The Times currently gets around 6 million page views per day. That is a lot, to be sure. But Power Line averages over 200,000 page views per day. On a big news day, we may get more than 500,000. So day in and day out, the New York Times gets around 30 times the traffic that we do.

No wonder the Times has trouble finding a viable business model! We are four guys running a web site in our spare time. We have no expenses other than hosting fees of around $1,000 a month. We have no payroll and no advertising expenses. And yet the vast, expensive apparatus of the nation’s supposedly premier newspaper can muster only 30 times our traffic.

And the multiple is more like ten or twelve times InstaPundit, which is basically a one-guy operation, with a lot less overhead.

IF THIS WERE A PRIVATE COMPANY, THE EXECUTIVES WOULD ALREADY BE UNDER INDICTMENT: Seventh VA office finds secret wait list — with over 200 veterans on it. But it’s government healthcare, so there’s no real accountability.

TUNKU VARADARAJAN ON INDIA’S ELECTIONS: Modi Crushes Gandhi in India’s Election Landslide. “The overwhelming victory of the BJP sets the country on a new course, burying perhaps forever the dynastic rule of the Gandhis and their Congress party.”

MEDIAITE: Poll Shows Everyone Wants Investigation into Benghazi Except Reporters. “A majority (55 percent) of self-identified Democrats agree with the 67 percent of respondents who approve of the creation of a select committee to investigate the attacks. 66 percent of independent voters share interest in a thorough Benghazi investigation. While Democratic voters disagree with the majorities who believe that both President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have been dishonest with the public in regards to the attack, they clearly want answers to the many outstanding questions surrounding Benghazi. Even if they only seek those answers to exonerate the administration, this implies that even Democrats believe there are more details about the attack that have not yet been revealed to the public. That comes as a surprise only to those who refuse to acknowledge that there are outstanding questions relating to that attack.” Which is to say, reporters.

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IRS SCANDAL UPDATE: Krauthammer: IRS Covered Up Emails For Two Years And Now They Say, “Dude, That Was Two Years Ago.”

JAMES TARANTO: Scientific Authoritarians: The case for skepticism about climate scientists.

Appeals to authority aren’t necessarily fallacious, except in the realm of formal deductive logic, where they entail adopting the unfounded premise that the authority is infallible. In informal logic–such as political debate at its best–an appeal to authority can be a sound argument if the authority is both relevant and trusted. And when dealing with complicated matters in which one lacks specialized expertise. As Michael Gerson puts it in the Washington Post: “Our intuitions are useless here. The only possible answers come from science. And for non-scientists, this requires a modicum of trust in the scientific enterprise.”

Do you see the subtle problem with Gerson’s formulation? The injunction have trust after tossing aside your intuition is at best a contradiction in terms, at worst a con.

This columnist is probably as unqualified as Marcus or Lapidos to evaluate the scientific merits of global warmism. But because we distrust climate scientists, we’re with Rubio in being inclined to think it’s a bill of goods. The trouble for global-warmist journalists like Marcus and Lapidos is that an appeal to the authority of a distrusted source undermines rather than strengthens one’s argument.

When — like Michael Mann and his cohorts — you act like a charlatan trying to hide the ball, instead of like a scientist, people don’t trust you.

OBAMA: Filibusters Are Awful So Long As My Party Is In The Senate Majority.

KEVIN WILLIAMSON: Twisting Libertarianism: Michael Lind either misunderstands it or is intellectually dishonest. Are those mutually exclusive? Because I suspect he’s capable of both. . . .

I do love this, though: “Mr. Lind’s piece contains no analysis. Like a great deal of what currently passes for commentary, it is mostly a half-organized swarm of insults out of which emerges the occasional tendentious misstatement.”

DAVID BERNSTEIN: Are affirmative action preferences “worse” than other sorts of admissions preferences?

Put another way, the other sorts of preferences that universities use in determining admission or may not be sound policy, but they are not inherently dangerous to society. To my knowledge, there have been no civil wars, riots, or genocides sparked by government seeming to favor athletes, university alumni, musicians, people from remote states, and other groups preferred in university admissions. By contrast, world history and current events are filled with example of racial and ethnic hostility causing violence, war, and destruction. Indeed, affirmative action itself has sparked violence, especially in India, where ethnic tensions coexist with caste tensions. As Thomas Sowell points out, “complacency is never in order when racial or ethnic relationships are concerned, for even generations of peaceful coexistence can turn ugly when the right circumstances and the right demagogue come together.”

And the demagogues are always out there, ready to spread racial poison and destroy the polity, so long as it enhances their power and position.

WAVE OF THE FUTURE: Title IX Suit Filed Against University of Oregon On Behalf of Male Students.

Former Eugene City Councilor Kevin Hornbuckle has filed a civil rights complaint on behalf of three University of Oregon students who were kicked off the basketball team in the wake of sexual misconduct allegations.

Hornbuckle said he submitted his Title IX complaint against the UO on Monday through the website of the Office of Civil Rights of the U.S. Department of Education.

“The basic problem is that rape accusations are effectively forever,” Hornbuckle said Tuesday. “And the University of Oregon as well as the media have gravely harmed these three players, probably for the rest of their lives.”

In failing to defend the three players, and by “publicly impugning their character and morals,” the UO administration “participated in generating a climate of hysteria,” Hornbuckle wrote in his complaint.

If this flies, a lot of schools will be at risk.

#HILLARYFAIL: Head Of ‘Benghazi Truth Squad’ Comes Up Short On Answers To Basic Questions. I wonder if the Clintons’ 1990s-era machine is ready for the 21st Century.

ELIZABETH PRICE FOLEY: V.A. Scandals Raise The Specter Of Healthcare Rationing.

The obvious question to ask about the VA scandal is: Why? Why would a VA hospital administrator direct doctors not to perform colonoscopies until patients had three positive tests for bloody stools? Or why were VA employees ordered to “cook the books” and hide long wait times that veterans faced when seeking care from heart, cancer, or other specialists? Why did some VA administrators go so far as to create a secret waiting list to hide year-plus wait times?

There’s only one plausible answer to these questions: rationing. The VA is but a smaller version of the sort of government-run, single-payer health care with which the political left is so enamored.

When individuals receive care through the VA, it becomes the only payer and hence, the only decision-maker. The VA decides who gets care, when, and how much. Moreover, as the single payer, the VA bears the risk of loss: If tax dollars aren’t enough to pay for the care demanded, there’s only one result — rationing of care.

Rationing care can take many forms. It can be overt, like the Canadian or British health care systems, which have unambiguous, publicly-announced waiting times and coverage denials for certain procedures. Or rationing can be more subtle, with little or no public participation. This latter, covert form of rationing is what the VA has adopted.

And lied about.

IT’S CERTAINLY NOT ABOUT EQUALITY ANY MORE: Natasha Devon: Today’s feminism teaches women to see themselves as victims and men as perverts, bullies and misogynists. “Today’s feminism teaches British women to see themselves as victims and victims cannot exist without a villain, in this instance – men. In order for this thesis to have any kind of logic, feminists have made sweeping, inaccurate judgments about an entire demographic, based on nothing more than their gender. Ironically, the exact practice they claim to be fighting.”

Pretty much all of lefty politics seems to involve projection.

WELL, NOT WITH A DEMOCRAT IN THE WHITE HOUSE, ANYWAY: “Watergate wouldn’t make page three today.”

THE 1970S REALLY ARE BACK: The return of the 5″ Short.

Ann Althouse is not amused, but I think these make more sense than “shorts” that go below the knee.

IT’S FROM DEAN BAQUET: WaPo: In one sentence, a heap of New York Times arrogance.

Some Baquet history.

IF THIS WERE DONE TO A WOMAN, IT WOULD BE PORTRAYED AS A SEXIST INVASION OF PROCREATIONAL AUTONOMY: Court forbids deadbeat dad from having more kids. But, then, men don’t have procreational autonomy. Men have procreational responsibilities.

GLEICHSCHALTUNG! Climate Science Defector Forced to Resign by Alarmist ‘Fatwa.’

ED DRISCOLL: Video: The Second Annual Walter Duranty Prize.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, LEGAL EDUCATION EDITION: Charleston Law School Faculty Oppose Sale to InfiLaw.

CHANGE: How 3-D Printed Guns Evolved Into Serious Weapons in Just One Year.

Related: Should We Be Afraid Of The 3D Printed Gun?

AT AMAZON, Deals Galore at the Headphone Store.

Also, markdowns on Stanley Tools.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Rape Culture is a ‘Panic Where Paranoia, Censorship, and False Accusations Flourish.’

I look forward to the “disparate impact” lawsuits brought on behalf of male students.

THE HARD TRUTH ABOUT boiled eggs.