The New York Times puts an anti-Semitic cartoon on its pages, apologizes and the backlash is mild. Can you imagine if a media outlet less beloved by the liberal hate mob had done the same thing?

The apology talked about a lack of oversight, a tired editor, and the paper even commissioned a self-flagellating opinion piece to tell itself how naughty it has been. The fact that the anger came in a whimper more than a wave was telling, because liberals find it hard to shout at themselves.

The NYT is suggesting that only one mid-level editor had seen the offensive page before it was published. If this truly was a case of a lack of oversight, then the question that must be asked is just how much oversight does this bastion of liberal values need in place to filter out anti-Semitism before it’s published?

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In case you haven’t seen the cartoon, which ran in the international print edition of Thursday’s paper, it featured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu depicted as a guide dog wearing a Star of David on his collar, leading President Donald Trump, wearing dark glasses and a skullcap.

If this was printed in an outlet which does not get a liberal pass, then the anger would be visible and seething, and would not only come from the Jewish community or conservative opportunists.

There would be the predictable outrage on Twitter, but it wouldn’t stop there. Liberal activists would set up picket lines accusing the NYT’s editors of being Nazi sympathizers.

There would be demands for people to be sacked, for human sacrifices to appease the self-righteous anger of the liberal mob.

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Companies would see the writing on the wall and their adverts would be pulled from the NYT’s pages. And finally, there would be op-eds everywhere decrying conspiracies of latent fascism at the NYT.

Yes, the reaction would be extreme, usually ill-informed and often unfair, but that wouldn’t stop the liberal outrage from happening.

However, when one of their own have erred, the burden of apology is much less, and they tend to give themselves a free pass. Liberal champions can put it down to an unfortunate mistake, human error, say they’re sorry, self-flagellate in public a little, and think no more of it.

And if the scale of the reaction to a clear display of anti-Semitism is anything to go by, it has worked. Did they even need to apologize at all?

By Simon Rite