The New York Times building in Manhattan. (Photo by Eduardo MunozAlvarez /VIEWpress/Corbis via Getty Images)
(CNSNews.com) – Taking a dig at the furor over the New York Times’ publication of an op-ed he penned, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Tuesday drew a hearty laugh from conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt after the sound of children yelling could be heard during a phone interview.
“That sound you hear in the background is actually the New York Times newsroom, just getting started,” Cotton quipped.
The two discussed the backlash at the newspaper following its publication last week of an op-ed by the senator, a U.S. Army combat veteran, calling for troops to be deployed “to disperse, detain and ultimately deter lawbreakers” in cities where violent rioting erupted during George Floyd protests.
More than 800 staff members signed a letter protesting the decision to run the piece. On Sunday the Times’ editorial page editor James Bennet resigned, and deputy editorial page editor Jim Dao was reassigned in the newsroom.
Hewitt compared Cotton to the Hindu deity Shiva, known as “the destroyer.”
“Shiva the destroyer of worlds. That’s the only comparison I can come up with,” he said. “There’s this vast, ruined, smoking heap of credibility where the New York Times used to be. Did you intend to set them on fire, internally?”
Cotton said he knew the op-ed would be controversial “in their ‘woke’ newsroom,” given his past experiences with the paper, “but I don’t think anybody could have predicted that they would have had the complete meltdown that they have.”
“I would say that a ‘woke’ child mob is now running the New York Times, as against its senior leaders, but their publisher [A.G. Sulzberger, 39], as you may know, is a ‘woke’ young child himself, who didn’t take much pressure to throw in with the mob and demand the heads of his older, more senior leaders at the New York Times.”
Bennet, 54, worked in the newsroom for 15 years before becoming editor-in-chief of The Atlantic. He was Times editorial page editor for the past four years. Dao, who joined the Times 28 years ago, was appointed deputy editorial page editor in 2016.
Hewitt then looked beyond the immediate situation.
“If Joe Biden becomes president we’re going to find the equivalent of those journalists who burned down their internal newspaper – because they could not read a column that was I think deftly argued and perfectly appropriate and made good points – we’re going to have journalists who do the same thing to the Constitution.”
As Cotton replied, children’s voices could be heard in the background. Cotton and his wife have two young sons.
Hewitt said he loves hearing the sound children in the background during interviews. “That’s actually my favorite cacophony since the quarantine began is that of children speaking in the background, for all of my guests, because that means parents are with their kids.”
He then asked Cotton about the defund-the-police calls.
Cotton prefaced his reply by saying, “Yeah, Hugh, that sound you hear in the background is actually the New York Times newsroom, just getting started.”
As Hewitt laughed, he continued, “It shows the, you know, the completely craven abdication of any responsible leadership at the New York Times, what you see in the – Democratic Party as well, giving in to the far-left ideological extremes.”
“The New York Times, it’s demanding heads on pikes of senior experienced editors because they published an opinion with which 58 percent of Americans agree.”
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