NYT's Linda Greenhouse shows herself a travesty

Another refutation of the "liberal" NYT myth here.

But, an informal proof of how much the Peter Principle works at major news organizations.

In a special set of mini-columns on the 10th anniversary of Bush v. Gore, columnist and former SCOTUS reporter Linda Greenhouse says this of Bush v. Gore:

I’m often asked for my thoughts on Bush v. Gore, and liberal audiences are often disappointed when I describe the decision not as a travesty or tragedy, but as a bad hair day. By this, I mean that it was just something that happened, a weird gust of wind that blew through the court

Bush v. Gore was "just something that happened"? The "Brooks Brothers mob"? The armada of lawyers, led by James Baker? That all was "just something that happened"?

Of course, earlier on in her comments, Greenhouse shows how idiotic she was back then:

I assured my editors that the court’s conservative majority believed too deeply in federalism ever to entertain a challenge to how Florida was counting the votes.

Right. Sure. The court wasn't quite as activist then as now, because it wasn't as far right. But, Nino Scalia, above all, already showed plenty of activism more than a decade ago.

Here's more the truth, from Larry Tribe:

I was then stunned when questions from the bench to my co-counsel David Boies, who argued the second and ultimate case, hinted that the court might make permanent its earlier decision to stop the recount temporarily.

But not even those hints prepared me for the 5-4 late-night decision in which the court announced that equal protection demanded a more uniform approach to counting the ballots — only to add that, having itself run out the clock, it sadly had no choice but to end all the counting that very night (Catch-22!).

But, nooooo .... this all was "just something that happened." At least the NYT op-ed page, overall, isn't quite as bad as the WaPost. Certainly not on house editorials.