WARNING: This blog post discusses and links to offensive content a New York Times senior editor deemed fit to print.
The New York Times employs an avowed antisemitic senior political editor. That’s not my opinion but rather the admission of Tom Wright-Piersanti, whose decade-old tweets this week were uncovered by Breitbart News and the New York Post.
Here’s a sample:
I was going to say “Crappy Jew Year,” but one of my resolutions is to be less anti-Semitic. So…Happy Jew Year. You Jews.
Wright-Piersanti’s tweet ridiculed India immigrants, Asians, the Amish, the “Fat, frog-looking bitch” he worked for at the Newark Star-Ledger, and the “douche zest” spiced stories of the New York Times. “Douche” is one of Wright-Piersanti’s favorite labels. The Post identified more than a dozen instances when he used it.
Wright-Piersanti has since apologized – but not disavowed – his comments. He’s deleted many of his more controversial quotes. The New York Times said Wright-Piersanti’s comments are a “clear violation” of the newspaper’s standards and the newspaper is deciding “next steps.” The statement was issued two days ago, so likely the newspaper is looking to see if the controversy is contained in the conservative media and hoping to avoid meaningful action.
New York Times reporters are required to maintain a social media presence and the newspaper has a social media desk, so presumably the newspaper was aware of Wright-Piersanti’s tweets before hiring him. He doesn’t have to worry about getting canned. I’ve already identified the Top-10 jobs for which Wright-Piersanti is uniquely qualified.
10) The Daily Stormer Managing Editor
The Stormer is a Holocaust denial commentary and message site that advocates the genocide of Jews. Wright-Piersanti can commiserate with Quinn Norton, a technology writer the New York Times fired six hours after announcing her appointment because some folks on Twitter were outraged over Norton’s proud friendship with Andrew Auernheimer, one of the site’s founders.
9) Hallmark Copywriter
Hallmark promotes family values, but e-cards have gained acceptance and the company needs new revenue streams. With antisemitism on the rise why not let Wright-Piersanti head up a card division for neo-Nazis who care enough to send the very best? “Happy Jew Year,” shows a natural talent for the business.
Oh, before I forget, Tom: A belated Happy Fourth of Jew-ly.
8) Trump Commission on “Good” White Supremacists
The conservative media is correct: Donald Trump never said that white supremacists parading in the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally were “good people.” What he actually said was there were some “good people” attending the rally.
You know, the sort of good people who attend rallies where marchers in Nazi uniforms are chanting “Jews will not replace us” and hold responsible day jobs like overseeing political coverage at the New York Times.
Trump should appoint Wright-Piersanti to head a commission identifying and profiling the “good people” Trump was referring to.
7) Spokesperson for Rep. Ilan Omar
Wright-Piersanti would be a natural for this job, and he could introduce Omar to the antisemitic cartoonists whose work previously appeared in the New York Times. It’s known that Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib delight in anti-Jewish cartoon stereotypes.
6) Product Tester for Summer’s Eve
Wright-Piersanti’s tweets make clear he fashions himself an authority on douche products. He’s a natural for the quality control department at Summer’s Eve.
5) GQ India Style Editor
Wright-Piersanti has an issue with males from India wearing mohawks. Makes him a perfect fit for GQ India’s style editor position.
4) Greeter at New Jersey’s Golden Rail Club
Wright-Piersanti’s tweets included a shout out for New Jersey’s Golden Rail Club as a good place to find women from India grinding. The bar should offer him a greeter job for the free promotion.
3) Jewournalism Professor at UCLA
Antisemitism is rife at UCLA and many faculty members and students would embrace Wright-Piersanti’s disdain for Jews and argue that his hateful rhetoric is protected under the guise of “academic free speech.”
2) Ethics Czar for the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce
Wright-Piersanti boasted that he was working on a “tell-all” expose on the Pennsylvania Amish. After he publishes it, the Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce should appoint Wright-Piersanti its first Executive Director of Ethics Oversight.
1)Executive Editor of the New York Times
Most readers of the Times don’t yet realize it, but the newspaper isn’t their father’s New York Times. The Times’ idea of diversity includes hiring an editorial writer who says she delights in seeing old white men suffer, a reporter who slept with her sources and withheld from the newspaper that she was interviewed by government investigators, an editorial writer who says the First Amendment doesn’t apply to Senator Ted Cruz, and a contributor to the newspaper’s opinion pages who recently tweeted, “the audacity and entitlement of white men is fucking incredible.” Not exactly the prose of William Safire.
A leaked tape of a Times town-hall meeting revealed that Executive Editor Dean Baquet has lost control of his newsroom. Staffers who weren’t even born when Baquet began his journalism career were lecturing him on racism. Baquet is a Louisiana-born, African-American editor who reached the highest echelons of U.S. journalism when there were virtually no black people in journalism, let alone senior management. Yet he was the one who worried if the meeting went well.
Like my father who remained loyal to the Oldsmobile brand even after it touted its disassociation with people from his generation, New York Times readers will remain loyal based on perceived editorial standards of ethics and fairness the newspaper has abandoned. That there were no loud newsroom protests demanding the ouster of Wright-Piersanti suggests many are proud to have him in their midst.
For those people I have a message in advance of the upcoming Rosh Hashanah holiday: Happy Jew Year 5780.