Sometimes the jokes just write themselves. After spending four days mired in controversy over some of the sloppiest journalism in an era of sloppy journalism, The New York Times decided to jettison its last vestiges of being a serious news source with a long article on the bowel movements of women:

No, you are not being punked. You may need to shake your head a few times just to make sure that you aren’t mistakenly looking at a link to The Onion or The Babylon Bee, I know that I did.

Those of you who are younger may not know this, but The New York Times was once a very respected news source — many would say the most respected in the country. Sure, that was a long time ago, but it was true. Though it long-ago became the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party, it hadn’t completely descended into tabloid hack journalism.

Now it employs social media people who make up words like “pootriarchy” and fancy themselves clever.

What might be even more embarrassing than the subject matter of this article is that the Times assigned two writers to write it. That they thought they needed two adult writers to cough up a thousand words on a subject that any moderately-functional five-year-old can expound upon for an hour is indicative of the editorial disarray at the paper.

Having already taken it on the chin for days on end, the Times probably should have thought about exposing itself to further embarrassment. The Twitter reaction to this was a bit rough for them.

NY Times mocked for "women poop" at work story https://t.co/EvmahqR7Oh pic.twitter.com/VQcLd4u5tm — The Hill (@thehill) September 17, 2019

It’s a tough day when other mainstream media outlets are joining the pile-on like that.

My editor had a very valid question:

My old friend Michael Walsh offered a plausible response:

The mainstream media in the United States likes to keep blaming President Trump for their many woes. In reality, they are all suffering from self-inflicted wounds like this.

As long as the Times is in the market for this kind of “journalism” I may as well pitch them the 2000-word think piece I wrote about the fact that men like to belch when drinking beer.