Over the weekend, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. published a statement denying that unequal pay or gender played a role in Jill Abramson’s firing and providing more details on what happened. Here’s the Times write-up of the statement. And here’s the statement itself. But weirdly, as far as I can tell, the Times does not itself link to the statement or, again as far as I can tell, have the statement on its own website. (I wrote most of this post on Saturday. It’s possible it’s since appeared somewhere on nytimes.com.)
That is weird.
Pop Quiz: Why is Mississippi next door to Louisiana? Because the politics there are almost as weird and dirty as they are in Louisiana. Also, both heartlands of American music. But that’s another story.
I’m inclined to say this is what happens when you’ve got a Tea Party candidate who dabbles in neo-confederate and supremacist politics. But boy is this one weird and dirty. Here are the key facts. Incumbent Sen. Thad Cochran’s wife has been in a nursing home for more than a decade. Precise details are sketchy but she appears to suffer from some form of advanced dementia and is in precarious health. The Tea Party candidate McDaniel has been dishing out an avalanche of oppo over recent days including a very weird article in Breitbart which in the guise of talking about spending on congressional trips was clearly intended to suggest that Cochran is having an affair.
If you buy a bullet proof vest, don’t test it by having someone shoot you.
Police Chief of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire: “I believe I did use the ‘N’ word in reference to the current occupant of the Whitehouse (sic),” Copeland wrote in an email to the resident, as quoted by WMUR. “For this, I do not apologize — he meets and exceeds my criteria for such.”
Wolfeboro has 6,300 residents, twenty of whom are African-American.
First, don’t miss this essay by Amanda Marcotte on Abramson’s rough defenestration. We’re always excited to have her in our pages.
Second, it may get lost in all the high-octane drama but in Ken Auletta’s second dispatch on Abramson’s dismissal, Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy, appears to concede explicitly a fairly clear case of wrongful termination.
If this is true, it could be one of the most damaging things for Gov. Chris Christie to emerge from BridgeGate yet.
Read Amanda Marcotte on why Jill Abramson’s firing “speaks to the deep, immoveable, and totally realistic fear many women have that there’s nothing they can do to overcome sexism in the workplace.”
After Ann Coulter’s first try at hijacking the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag failed in spectacular and hilarious fashion, she’s apparently decided to try it again.
As I noted below, Ken Aulleta at The New Yorker puts a heavy emphasis on Jill Abramson finding out a male predecessor and a male subordinate both had higher compensation then she did. She purportedly approached senior management about this and this, in part, led to her dismissal.
The Times version of the story puts considerably more focus on an issue Aulleta treats in passing: Abramson’s desire to Janine Gibson from The Guardian to the paper to oversee digital with at least nominally the same title. Aulleta said it was understood that Gibson would report to Baquet. The Times has this point rather differently …