Excerpts from a New York Times front page article this morning:
"Karl Marx," "unfettered leftist," "Sandinista," "Barricades," "Marxist Agenda," "Communists, traitors, radicals," "ragtag peace activists," "anarchists," "democratic socialist."
Quick! Hide the children!
Whom are they talking about? Abbie Hoffman? Angela Davis? Che Guevara? George McGovern (gasp!)?
Nope. It's Dante's Dad and mild-mannered Democratic Mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio. The NY Times today threw as many scary "dog-whistle" words as possible into a profile of de Blasio's '80s activism in an apparent effort to validate the terror of Hedge Fund billionaires that the Democratic candidate is a radical Marxist re-distributionist who might increase their taxes by a thousand or two to finance universal pre-school. (The Horror!)
But not only is De Blasio a leftist, says the Times, he's also an opportunist, willing to sell out to "the Man" by seeking elective office.
Over time, he became more focused on his city job, and using the tools of government to effect change. The answering machine messages stopped changing. He no longer attended meetings about Nicaragua.
His friends in the solidarity movement were puzzled. At a meeting early in 1992, Mr. de Blasio was marked absent. A member scribbled a note next to his name: “Must be running for office.”
Great work, NYT -- tracking down a guy who wrote something on a piece of paper in 1992.
But somehow, in an article chock full of references to the '80s and Nicaragua, the article never mentions Iran-Contra.
How long before the Times feature about the new "Swift-Contra" group formed to tell the truth about Big Bill Haywood. Oops, I meant de Blasio.
h/t Martin Longman at Washington Monthly.