#Tom Cotton hysteria shows cowardice from The New York Times

This week, The New York Times ran an op-ed by United States Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) urging that the military be used to quell the fires, looting and violence gripping the nation’s cities.

A Morning Consult poll from this week found that 58 percent of registered voters agreed with that idea. But apparently it’s an opinion forbidden in the Times.

Black staffers at the paper said the column made them feel unsafe. The day after it ran, the paper folded like, well, The New York Times, and apologized for it.

Once, the separation between the news and Opinion page — church and state — at the Times was held up as an exemplar of objectivity in journalism. Now, reporters are dictating what views the paper is and is not allowed to publish.

Well, opinions of conservatives. If you’re the member of an organization that regularly blows up civilians and keeps women in servitude, come on in!

In February, the Times ran a piece by Sirajuddin Haqqani, a leader with a little organization known as the Taliban.

Let’s hear from someone else and trust readers can make up their mind — how quaint.

The outraged claim they are afraid that Cotton’s words endanger people, but what they are really afraid of is people agreeing with him. Because the only way the words could lead to any action is if Cotton is convincing.

What becomes obvious is that the Times’ Opinion page is no longer a marketplace of ideas, but rather a carnival barker for the far-left circus.

In frantic defense mode, the Times’ leadership is promising to fact-check op-eds, although they have done so for years and nobody claims Cotton got any facts wrong.

What they are likely actually introducing are sensitivity-readers to protect subscribers from problematic thoughts. The newspaper might also consider therapy puppies for its hysterical staff.

The Opinion section already was pretty one-note. After this, I’m sure the Times’ columns will remind me of Johnny Carson’s quip about Don Rickles, “He’s a wonderful comedian, I love his joke.”

Newspapers, of course, are allowed to decide what opinions they publish. There are liberal editorial boards. There are conservative editorial boards. But The New York Times can no longer haughtily pretend to be the public square of American life, to accurately represent the diversity of opinion of a nation. They are not a dispassionate paper; they are an advocacy group.

And if reporters can dictate what opinions the Times runs, how long before they start deciding what news is worthy of publication and not based on their own political beliefs?

That’s a trick question. They already do.