It is time for today's versions of Boss Tweed, Walter Duranty and Tammany Hall to meet today's equivalents of Thomas Nast, George Jones as well as the rule of law.
Thomas Nast Cartoons: Boss Tweed and Tammany HallThe New York Times accomplishments have ranged from admirable to deplorable. But no matter how questionable the "newspaper of record" can be, it's always been esteemed by fashionable people.
A regrettable phase occurred in the early 1930s when most everyone from hairy intellectuals to society matrons admired Communism. A 1990's FEE article outlined that the USSR in the 1930s had a persuasive lobby going on the East Coast. And the NYT published a series of articles about how wonderful full-on central planning was in Russia. In publishing glowing articles, the editors ignored the atrocity of deliberate famine.