He says that’s okay, so I go: Sarah Palin.
Idiot, he says.
I’m like, Right on, so why don’t you just say that? Every time you write her name, put “idiot” after it? Like it’s a title? Like “Sarah Palin, Idiot.” Or, put it in front of her name, like, “Idiot Sarah Palin said today …” Or just use it as a subordinate clause. “Sarah Palin, who is an idiot, today called for …”
He goes, Look, I’m impressed that you know what a subordinate clause is, but we can’t do something like that. Because think where it leads us. Every time we write about you we have to say, “Steve Jobs, who is a total insufferable dick.” You see?
I tell him I wouldn’t mind one bit if people wrote that about me, and he says he realizes that, which is why he knows that I truly am a total insufferable dick. The point, I tell him, is that the Times needs to just be open about its liberal bias, and revel in that. It’s what makes the Times the Times. You need a point of view. Without it you’re just the AP on sheets of paper.
