Arizona: A Land of Contrasts

In this crazy, mixed-up world, I suppose there is a weird kind of solace to be found in knowing that The New York Times is just gonna keep right on being exactly the same kind of awful, over and over again, rain or shine.   As mathematically predictable and certain as tides and eclipses.

From today:

Arizona Ruling Spurs Strong Reactions, but Election Impact Is Unclear

This Magic Eight-Ball level of reporting was based on New York Times journalists wandering around the greater Phoenix metro area until they found two people with two different opinions -- y'know anecdotal reporting, which, as everyone knows, all the top-tier J-school hold to be the most accurate, useful and predictive kind of journalism.  

So the Times reporters met some people who thought Donald Trump is disgusting and the abortion ruling in Arizona is barbaric, but they also met a 25-year old-retail manager named Maverick, and that's when they knew they had struck gold in the Grand Canyon state:

“Leave it up to the female,” said Maverick Williams, 25, a retail manager who was walking his dog in the conservative Anthem neighborhood on the northern edge of Phoenix. “It’s her body, then she needs to decide.”

...

But voters like Mr. Williams suggested that it might not be so simple in this closely divided desert battleground. Although he opposed the state court’s abortion decision, he said he was more worried about the rising cost of living, and he called President Biden too old and unfit to serve another term. He said he would vote for Mr. Trump.

Bam!  Right there!  Call the Pulitzer people and tell them the contest is over.

Sure they could have looked at, y'know, all that data from all those other states where the abortion issue had flipped the script and had the anti-woman fanatics on the ropes.  Or all those dozens of polls and focus groups.  But the Time's didn't need any of that.

With "Maverick" in one hand and other people in the other, they had their scoop.

Arizona Ruling Spurs Strong Reactions, but Election Impact Is Unclear

And it's not just the headline.  The article is packed with gems like this:

The decision upending abortion care in a critically important battleground state inspired passionate reactions from Arizonans across the political divide, ranging from elation to disgust. 

And this:

Some conservative voters and the state’s most ardent critics of abortion hailed it as a victory for women. Many Democrats, moderate independents and some Republicans said the Arizona Supreme Court had gone too far. But it was far from clear Tuesday that the decision would tip the balance in the November presidential election.

I can't decide is this is the Times still being so freaked out about being so very, very wrong in 2016 that it's in-house default position is to publish this kind of garbage, or this kind of garbage arises naturally from the Times' decades-old Both Siderist fetish.

Buit one thing I can say for sure.  Arizona is a land of contrasts.  

 

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