Liberty Exposé: Tom Cotton Brouhaha With NY Times Reveals State of Political Discourse

Senator Tom Cottom - Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call

Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas set journalists’ hair ablaze with his most recent article published in The New York Times. What was so outrageous? What unbelievable opinion did he hold that when it hit newsprint led to an editor’s resignation, a revolt in the newsroom, and a 5-paragraph editor’s note preceding the article in question?   

In Send in the Troops, Cotton describes in detail  the violent riots that have plagued the country of late, and states that if the violence and looting  continue unabated, the President should call in the national guard or (as a last resort) the military to safeguard the lives and livelihoods of the communities being destroyed.  

Cotton cites past precedent, saying “For instance, during the 1950s and 1960s, Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson called out the military to disperse mobs that prevented school desegregation or threatened innocent lives and property. This happened in my own state [of Arkansas]. Gov. Orval Faubus, a racist Democrat, mobilized our National Guard in 1957 to obstruct desegregation at Little Rock Central High School. President Eisenhower federalized the Guard and called in the 101st Airborne in response. The failure to do so, he said, ‘would be tantamount to acquiescence in anarchy.’”  

He goes on to say that fears of martial law are overreactions due to a fundamental misunderstanding of the Insurrection Act of 1807. This Act gives the president authority to mobilize the military or National Guard only in particular circumstances, “such as to suppress civil disorder, insurrection and rebellion.”  

“Throughout our history, presidents have exercised this authority on dozens of occasions to protect law-abiding citizens from disorder. Nor does it violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which constrains the military’s role in law enforcement but expressly excepts statutes such as the Insurrection Act.”

Nowhere in the article does Mr. Cotton conflate the peaceful protestors with the rioters. Instead, he criticizes governors for sitting on their hands and doing nothing as buildings burn and people are killed.   Does this seem like an outlandish point of view?  Whoever might be reading this is at liberty to think so. The point of this article is not to get you to agree with Cotton on anything.  It is to show that The New York Times (and many other mainstream news outlets) seem to think that any right-of-center political opinion has no place within their newspapers and are unfit to print..  

After journalists picked their jaws off the floor, many staff members took to Twitter to protest Cotton’s article, while many participated in a “virtual walkout” days later. It didn’t take long for the Times to issue an apology, saying the article was rushed and not up to their standards. In response,  Cotton joked “I will say, my Op-Ed didn’t meet the Times standards, it far exceeded their standards.” 

 Ironically, the first time the public ever heard of Cotton was when he wrote a letter to…the New York Times. While serving  on the frontlines in Iraq in 2006, he sent an email to the newspaper’s editors, excoriating them for reporting on a classified terrorist finance tracking program called SWIFT—a move he said recklessly put his fellow soldiers in danger. The Times didn’t publish the letter, but the blog Powerline did, and it ended up going viral.

After his military service, he went on to serve in Congress, and now is currently serving in the Senate. He attended Harvard and Harvard Law School, and at the age of 43, he is considered by many to be a shoo-in as a future Presidential candidate. 

The day after Cotton’s article was published, the editor posted an article about it—defending why it was published in the first place. It seemed written by a man humiliated; a half-hearted attempt to explain to a vitriolic mob the reason for giving voice to an alternate point of view. It was disheartening to read,  as he apologized for having the gall to publish something with which he himself did not agree. He closed his statement with  “But it is impossible to feel righteous about any of this. I know that my own view may be wrong.”   

With all due respect, the righteous feelings of journalists pales in comparison to their duty to give the American public an accurate picture of  the political landscape, at home—and abroad.   More than ever, it is important to read and encounter opinions with which you disagree. To take sides and live in echo chambers is a fools errand, indeed! 

To be annoyed, affronted—appalled even—at reading what others have to say about politics is par for the course, and to eschew opinions espoused by representatives isn’t merely discourteous, but a dereliction of duty.  

Artistole famously said,  “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Ladies and gentlemen, let us entertain the far-reaching and outlandish thoughts of many, so we can better know our own mind and what it is we wish to fight for. 

As the editor of the article James Bennet said himself, “Cotton and others in power are advocating the use of the military, and I believe the public would be better equipped to push back if it heard the argument and had the chance to respond to the reasoning. Readers who might be inclined to oppose Cotton’s position need to be fully aware of it, and reckon with it, if they hope to defeat it. To me, debating influential ideas openly, rather than letting them go unchallenged, is far more likely to help society reach the right answers.”

As the time of this writing—June 18, 2020—there is a six-block area of Seattle that has been taken over by protestors. They have partitioned themselves off from the rest of the city—and only like-minded ideologues are welcome there. Has The New York Times likewise partitioned themselves off from intellectual diversity of thought?

In response to the events chronicled above, Tom Cotton took to the floor of the Senate  to discuss cancel culture and censorship. “The New York Times has made itself a laughing stock, but this is no laughing matter; because cancel culture threatens the very principles of free inquiry and open debate upon which our society is based.”  

When did the opinions of others pose such an existential threat to our own? Let the American public hear all sides and decide for themselves.