The Graying Lady

{Written by John Steele Gordon, originally posted by Commentary Magazine}

If you want to see, in an instant, what the New York Times has become, just consider the lead headlines in this morning’s editions of the Times and the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal headed its story on the Trump tax proposals: “Trump Unveils Broad Tax-Cut Plan.” The Times headline was: “Tax Overhaul Would Aid Wealthiest.”

That headline is, of course, pure propaganda. It’s the sort of headline Pravda would have used in the glory days of the Soviet Communist Party.

It is the received idea of good tax policy on the left that the tax code should always sock it to the rich so that they pay their “fair share.” But notice that that phrase is never, ever defined. To do so would set an upper limit to what the rich could be taxed. (And, of course, whenever taxes are raised on the rich–the majority of whom now vote Democratic–loopholes are quietly slipped in to make sure they don’t actually pay punitive rates.)

So even though the Trump Plan would greatly lower taxes for the middle class as well as the rich, that fact is hardly mentioned in the Times‘ coverage of a major news event.

It is truly sad to see what was once incomparably the greatest newspaper the world has ever known become nothing more than a mouthpiece for the decaying American far left.