Josh Marshall makes the key point, using the New York Times as his target:
I wanted to point your attention to this recent article from the Times on the battle between Trump and Harvard University. It captures the Times’ feature quality. It contains good factual detail, but it radiates what I can only describe as a Chernobyl-level condescension and contempt, not so much for anything “liberal” but anything not conservative, or not in line with what it terms the “rightward shift of the country” — anything that can be construed as a posture of opposition to Donald Trump. The Harvard board is portrayed as reflexively and out-of-touchedly liberal, repeatedly shocked in a weak-kneed sort of way and yet also, paradoxically, headstrong in its inability to resist outmoded Trump I-era “resistance” thinking. In a few words, weak, out-of-touch and contemptible.
There’s not a single mention of the fact that the entire campaign is illegal on its face and an unprecedented and corrupt power grab with no antecedent in the U.S. government’s almost 80-year research-focused partnership with the country’s leading university. But why get stuck in the nitty gritty?
The NYT has found the courage to refer, correctly, to Trump's repeating lying about the 2020 election. Every article should begin by noting that Trump's demands on the universities violate both Title VI and the Constitution, that just as Trump lies he also makes unambiguously unlawful demands on universities, law firms, and othres. He is a serial law breaker, and always has been (he is, after all, the Holmes Bad Man).
(Thanks to Keith Nightenhelser for the pointer.)
UPDATE: Today's NYT, as luck would have it, at least has a strong piece in the opinion section on Trump's lawlessness. This qoute from Columbia law professor David Pozen sums things up quite well:
More important than any specific example of unconstitutional conduct is the overall pattern. The depth and breadth of this administration’s disregard for civil liberties, political pluralism, the separation of powers and legal constraints of all kinds mark it as an authoritarian regime. That is the crucial thing to see.
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