NEW YORK TIMES ON NEW ABORTION LAWS: RALPH NORTHAM WHO?
Mr. Trump is using the issue to rouse his base, including the crucial voting bloc of Christian conservatives for whom abortion is an overarching issue. His false statements that Democrats would “execute” newborn babies — which he has repeated on his Twitter feed, during his State of the Union address and at campaign rallies, sometimes as he mimics swaddling a baby — are being picked up and repeated by conservatives all over the country.”
Catch that description? That the President is making “false statements that Democrats would ‘execute’ newborn babies.”
And right there this story becomes a jewel of an example of left-wing journalism by omission, in this case from the New York Times.
Missing entirely from the article was the name of Virginia Democratic Governor Ralph Northam. It was Northam, appearing on a radio show, who stirred the hornets nest by saying this about aborting babies when the mother is in labor. The direct quote was this, as reported here at National Review Online:
“If a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen,” he continued. “The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”
Here’s video of Northam uttering those words shortly before his medical school era blackface scandal erupted.
Speaking of the latter, as a Times headline noted in early April: ‘‘It Just Went Poof’: The Strange Aftermath of Virginia’s Cascade of Political Scandals.
The passive tense in the headline is telling. The Times can keep a story alive when it wants to, such as when the Gray Lady ran nearly 100 stories on the Augusta National Golf Club between 2001 and mid-2003. Similarly, the paper in Northam’s backyard ran approximately 100 stories in the fall of 2006 on George Allen’s “macaca” gaffe. The media’s selective amnesia on Northam’s blackface and endorsement of infanticide might lead a cynical person to conclude that they’re Democratic Party operatives with bylines, or something.