5 Feet of Fury

Jill Abramson and the NYT: My NEW Taki’s column

Comments shouldn’t be too “JOOOOO!”-y this week, right?

Observers seem determined to imbue Abramson’s dismissal with Some Kind of Meaning. Like everything else of alleged import that occurs within the liberal universe, this cosmically trivial event must surely be Symbolic of Something Else, some despicable (and probably imaginary) systemic cardinal sin of world-historic proportions. In this case, Abrahamson was let go because patriarchy, as the kids say these days.

I hate to say it, but maybe they’re onto something, for once. Staffer Dean Baquet reportedly threw “a temper tantrum after one meeting with Abramson. Upon leaving her office he ‘slammed his hand against a wall and stormed out of the newsroom.’”  That’s the sort of behavior that can get you escorted out of the building by security, carrying the contents of your desk in a brown banker’s box.

Except at The New York Times. Abramson’s old job went to Dean Baquet.