Here is the letter I've just sent to the public editor of The New York Times and to its letter section:
Mr. Hoyt,
I am well aware that opinion columnists in The Times are granted more leeway in their writing than reporters. Even so, tomorrow's Maureen Dowd column on the sexual roles of the major Democratic candidates for President is well beyond the pale for a family newspaper, and for any paper of national repute that claims to be a major voice of the republic.
Her explicit and wholly imagined "account" of the sexual motivation behind how the candidates behaved in a televised debate brings nothing but shame to the Times, and betrays the newspaper's long-held responsibility for public discourse. Her two-bit "analysis" of a specific sexual fetish as the reason for the candidates' lively give-and-take during the CNN debate coarsened that discourse and the reputation of The New York Times.
How can a paper like The Times continue to run these strange sexual imaginings week after week and refer to them as political coverage? What a disgrace.
Sincerely,
Tom Watson
Mount Vernon, NY
