Some of us have been noticing how even some of the most liberal news outlets have recently been forced to concede that Joe Biden could be in trouble this year as voters are no longer able to ignore his cognitive issues and the terrible results of his policies. This includes the New York Times where, over the weekend, they issued the results of some of their own polls. Those results were admirably in keeping with many other recent polls, showing large majorities who believe that Biden is "too old" (read as too cognitively challenged) to serve another term and that people were very worried about immigration and crime. Unfortunately for the Gray Lady, that sort of reporting does not sit well with the progressive left. Yesterday, Lucian Truscott took to the pages of Salon to issue a blistering critique of the Times, calling out the paper's right-wing bias and faulty reporting in favor of Republicans. It sounds like an article from The Onion, but he's apparently serious.

Two things…check that…three things appear to have gone off the rails at the paper we used to call the Gray Lady. First, whoever is in charge of the paper’s polls is not doing their job. Second, whoever is choosing what to emphasize in the Times coverage of the campaign for the presidency is showing bias. Third, the Times is obsessed with Joe Biden’s age at the same time they’re leaving evidence of Donald Trump’s mental and verbal stumbles completely out of the news.

Let’s start right there. At a rally on Saturday night in Virginia, Trump confused former president Obama, who left office seven years ago, with President Biden for the third time over the last six months. “Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word,” Trump said, as his crowd of rabid supporters suddenly fell silent. “You heard that. Nuclear. He’s starting to talk nuclear weapons today.” You won’t find that verbal stumble and the crowd’s stunned reaction in the Times coverage of the campaign over the weekend.

Later in the article, Truscott warns readers that if they are in the vicinity of Times Square they might want to hold their nose because "something is fishy at the New York Times." 

The complaints about the New York Times being raised here could only come from someone who is so accustomed to the paper's traditional, blatant slant to the far left that they were driven into some sort of systemic shock when the paper began reporting actual news about Donald Trump. Truscott declares that the Times editorial board is "obsessed with Joe Biden's age," while ignoring what he sees as equally serious concerns over Trump's mental acuity. For evidence of this alleged problem with Trump, he cites the fact that Trump inserted Barack Obama's name for Joe Biden's a few times over the past six months.

For someone who spends as much time giving speeches and answering questions as Trump, that's little more than a few understandable gaffes that anyone can make from time to time. Of course, there is one key difference between Trump's slip-up and so many of the ones we hear from Biden. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are both still alive and both held the same office. Biden has conversations with dead people on a regular basis. But you're apparently not supposed to talk about that at Salon. 

Truscott takes issue with the Times' polling methodology, claiming that it also suggests an inherent conservative bias. To create this line of attack, he points to their poll showing that people believe Biden is too old, questioning how the poll used a polling sample that included 36 percent rural voters when the percentage of Americans living in rural areas in 2020 was 19 percent. I've complained about the cross-tabs in polls quite a bit myself, but that's a fairly subjective data point to pick out. The word "rural" is always subject to interpretation. 

Truscott is similarly suspicious of poll results indicating that Trump is now leading among women by one percent. He claims that can't possibly be true because Biden won with women by eleven points in 2020. He then goes on to note that Trump-appointed justices on the Supreme Court supported the Dobbs decision and many states have since imposed restrictions on abortions. But what in the Sam Hill does that have to do with a poll conducted by the Times and Sienna this month? People say what they say and sometimes their opinions change over time based on their recent experiences. 

Rather than encouraging the New York Times to engage in some actual reporting, the left is setting its hair on fire. Demanding media bias isn't a good look, but the level of self-awareness at Salon seems to be reaching a dangerously low mark.