The Latest News About the Antisemitic Attacks on University Campuses? "Republicans Pounce."

More propaganda from the New York Times

For President Biden’s troops in the media, the important thing to know about the organized anarchy on occupied university campuses nationwide, the attacks and terrorism of Jewish students and faculty, and the lack of any action by either the President or his Department of Justice to do anything about it, is that Republicans are “pouncing” and unfairly using the situation as an opportunity to attack poor Joe Biden.

The latest example is The New York Times article yesterday (May 3) by its “national political correspondent,” Lisa Lehrer. Confronted with the undeniable organized anarchy on occupied university campuses nationwide, and the lack of any action by either the President or his Department of Justice to do anything about it, the Times had to write something. But the focus of Lehrer’s article is not the President’s failure to take affirmative steps to deal with the situation. No, it is that Republicans are taking advantage of the “demonstrations” and nationwide campus chaos to “pounce” on Biden.

The Times weighed in with the “Republicans pounce” theme from the beginning of its article. In its heading, The Times announced that in his abbreviated speech on Thursday, Biden attempted to distance himself from what The Times called “more radical activism on colleges.” But Biden did so “[w]ith tensions escalating and Republicans pouncing.”

The Times then continues its theme in its lede:¹ “Protests and arrests on college campuses exploded into the forefront of the presidential race this week, opening up a new line of attack for Republicans ….” As the Wall Street Journal has explained, “Attentive students of the journalistic arts can train themselves to recognize liberal media bias…. When Republicans ‘pounce’ in the New York Times or the Washington Post, you can be sure the real story is that a Democrat has done something foolish or outrageous.” So, with that opening paragraph, the Times makes its focus clear: If Biden is acting foolishly, the story must be that Republicans are pouncing.

Like other Times writers, Lehrer attempts to portray herself as totally neutral and unbiased, even apolitical. Like many (most?) things you may read in The Times, that is highly suspect, to put it mildly. Here is how Lehrer describes her journalistic ethics:

“The Times has a detailed ethics policy, which all Times journalists follow to ensure our independence and credibility. For my work, that means I strive for fairness, accuracy and discretion. I do not make political donations, endorse political candidates, sign petitions or participate in political causes. I do not attend political rallies, fund-raisers or protests unless I am covering them. I vote but I make a personal choice not to register as a member of a political party. My personal political opinions are irrelevant to how I do my work. I am covering the story of America; not myself.”

Hogwash. This is the same New York Times that, in the words of its former editorial page editor, “could not bear to publish the views of Americans who supported Trump” and then fired that same editor for daring to publish an op-ed by a U.S. Senator that ruffled the feathers of its ultra-woke newsroom staff.

But Lehrer’s supposed accuracy and fairness do not extend to any attempt to analyze either the horrendous illegal and anti-American uprisings on many campuses or Biden’s failure in his Thursday speech to announce any positive action to deal with it. She just refers generally to “protests” and “campus unrest.” Here are just some of the matters that President Biden and Lehrer left unaddressed:

• The physical assaults on Jewish students and faculty.

• The students prevented from going to classes.

• The exclusion of non-approved personnel from the “encampments.”

• Universities charging the price of a nice home for a degree and then cancelling commencement exercises.

• The take-over of university buildings and campus areas by the radical terrorists.

Etienne Laurant/APF/Getty Images/CNN

• The destruction of university property.

A masked occupier breaking windows at Columbia’s Hamilton Hall to chain the doors together to keep out the police. Alex Kent/Getty Images/CNN

• The obvious nationwide coordination of such “occupations.”

• The solicitation of naive students to support anti-American and murderous objectives.

Useful idiots. Photos by Vonderhaar/Boomberg/Getty Images/CNN and Bryan Snyder/Reuthers

• Financial and logistical support by enemies of the U.S.

• Organization, instigation, and participation by non-student actors.

• The release and immediate return to campus of terrorists who were arrested and booked for minor misdemeanors.

• A supportive wink and nod by “progressive” prosecutors.

• What should the appropriate punishment be to deter future criminal acts of this nature by the same actors and their imitators.

• The failure of the supposedly “elite” universities to take strong action to protect their Jewish students.

• The failure of the DOJ and FBI to take any meaningful action. Remember how swiftly they launched a very public investigation of the phony “hands up, don’t shoot” incident in Ferguson Missouri?

• Any strong action by the President to use his bully pulpit to induce university presidents to stop appeasing the terrorists.

• The unconcealed and unapologetic support for the Hamas terrorists who murdered civilians, raped women in front of their husbands and children, and roasted babies in ovens.

Photo The Daily Mail

• The unabashed support for the for intifada, i.e., more murders, both in Israel and here, and the sick calls for a “final solution.”  

• Biden’s obliviousness to the problem by proposing to bring more culturally unassimilated Palestinian immigrants into the U.S. with extra-special treatment for them.

• The reprehensible defacement of a statue of the Father of Our Country.

George Washington Draped with Palestinian flag, keffiyeh, and pro-Hamas stickers. Photo Daily Signal

Do any of these omissions by Biden justify “pouncing” by Republicans?  Lehrer and the Times do not even attempt to analyze and answer that. But these unaddressed examples expose their “Republicans pounce” motif for the propaganda that it is.

Lehrer also links to another supposedly unbiased Times article by one Anni Karni, who says that her writing focuses on “House Republican leadership.” Karni’s article, published on Tuesday, is more of the same. It purports to address Speaker Mike Johnson’s and other Republicans’ condemnation of the mayhem and antisemitic terrorism on the so-called “elite” campuses and their threat to withhold “millions of federal dollars from universities that fail to keep Jewish students safe.”

But the substance and merits of that proposed action are not the story. According to Karni, this was just the latest example of “Republicans finding fresh ways to publicly condemn the unrest that has erupted on campuses across the country over Israel’s war in Gaza, and to exploit the divisions the conflict has exposed among Democrats.” That is another way of saying “Republicans pounce.”

And in Karni’s world, the “protests” [sic] were not antisemitic to begin with but somehow just went off course and “veer[ed] into antisemitism.” Karni does not explain how this sudden departure from the original purpose of the illegal occupations and terrorism occurred. Just an accident of nature, I suppose.

1. All journalism students are taught that the lede (usually the opening paragraph) should grab the reader’s attention and set the theme for the remainder of the article.