August 26 will mark twenty years of my having lived continuously in New York City. And not only have I read hundreds of columns by Bob Herbert, but I have mercilessly mocked his dishonesty and racism.
In one of my favorite Herbert columns, about ten years ago a twenty-something black man suspected of auto theft had been shot dead by cops in a fusillade in Flatbush, Brooklyn. The officers had reportedly shouted “freeze,” whereupon the victim reached down for something. It turned out that the victim was reaching for “the club,” which of course the psychic officers should have known. The man, it turned out, was wanted for murder, according to Herbert, but the same psychic police who should have known that he wasn’t reaching for a weapon should not have known that.
Oh, and the piece de resistance. Herbert quoted a black hairdresser named Miriam Dorvil, who claimed that while everyone else on the street ate pavement or rolled under a car, she calmly stood in the crossfire, smoking a cigarette. Dorvil added that the officers called the victim the “n-word,” just before shooting him. (Since Herbert did not say the officers in question were black, the reader was led to conclude that white officers had uttered the epithet – in the heart of black Flatbush!) Herbert did not raise a journalistic eyebrow at any of Dorvil’s claims.
That was during Rudy Giuliani’s first term in office (January 1, 1994-December 31, 1997). Also during that term, Herbert penned a column in which he charged Giuliani with targeting black males, and promised race riots, if the (non-existent) practice did not stop.
And yet, after spending eight years demonizing Giuliani’s crime policies, Herbert suddenly became a fan of them. In early 2002, Herbert praised the inroads Giuliani had supposedly made against crime. The reason for the contradiction: Giuliani had just left office, due to term limits, and was succeeded by Michael Bloomberg. Herbert’s praise for Giuliani was as phony as the attacks he had made on him while he was in office. Herbert was already beginning to attack Bloomberg, and so he needed a positive rhetorical straw man.
In May, 2003, five days after New York Times executive editor Howell Raines had publicly confessed that he had only kept incompetent journalistic fraud Jayson Blair at the Times because of the color of Blair’s skin, Herbert announced,
“Listen up: the race issue in this case is as bogus as some of Jayson Blair's reporting.”
A year or two ago, I came across a lefty blogger that considered Herbert an embarrassment, because he so mindlessly repeats Democrat Party talking points.
Article comments
1 - Ruth Hudson
Truly enjoyed this article regarding Michael Moriarty's writing. The call for accountability and lack of some research for statements he makes was excellent. I'm not a writer, but I'm glad you are. My opinion of him as an actor; he's the best, and a favorite of mine.
Thanks, Ruth