New York Times sinks to new lows with hit piece on Edwards

Refuses to interview beneficiaries of his work

The New York Times published a hit piece on its front page today that tried to suggest through innuendo that there was something tainted about John Edwards's work to raise awareness about poverty. Closer analysis of the piece reveals that no serious allegations have been made.

The logical reaction to the New York Times's nontroversy was expressed by Jonathan Prince, Edwards's deputy campaign manager.

“One of the Center for Promise and Opportunity’s main goals was to raise awareness about poverty and engage people to fight it,” Jonathan Prince, deputy campaign manager, said yesterday. “Of course, it sent Senator Edwards around the country to do this. How else could we have engaged tens of thousands of college students or sent 700 young people to help rebuild New Orleans? It’s patently absurd to suggest there’s anything wrong with an organization designed to raise awareness about poverty actually working to raise awareness about poverty.”

“Of course, some of the people who worked for Senator Edwards in the government and on his campaign continued to work with him to fight poverty and send young people to college,” he added. “Perish the thought: people involved in politics actually trying to improve peoples’ lives.”

You'd think a paper with a reputation like the New York Times has would have more than innuendo before publishing allegations against a public figure on its front page. You would think that they might have done things like interview people who had benefited from Edwards's work before publishing such a piece. Apparently, if you thought that, you'd be wrong.

TPM Café is reporting that the New York Times refused to speak with any of the beneficiaries of Edwards's anti-poverty work.

But we've just learned something new and surprising about the story. The Edwards campaign has just told us on the record that The Times refused the chance to talk to any real, live beneficiaries of Edwards' programs.

So much for the "liberal" media.