Liberals bash NY Times for criticizing Biden’s flurry of executive orders
January 29, 2021
Liberals are up in arms after one of their favorite newspapers, The New York Times, after its editorial board criticized President Joe Biden for signing a large number of executive orders in his first week in office.
Every time you think the @nytimes can't get worse, they take it as a challenge.
There is NO MENTION in this editorial that Trump signed 220 goddamn EOs in 4 years, DWAFING the pace set by previous presidents.https://t.co/GBHawUkecg
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) January 28, 2021
The Twitter blue-check-marked Mystal, like many of the Times’ liberal critics, is off-base in her criticism.
The editorial board used the opportunity of Biden’s executive orders to criticize the use of them by all presidents, saying that they are no way to make law and are a “flawed substitute for legislation” – but that Biden may have no choice given that his entire agenda could be held hostage by a polarized and narrowly divided Congress.
As for Mystal’s criticism that the Times didn’t mention the number of executive orders signed in four years — Biden has only been in office for nine days. Not only is it comparing apples to oranges on a statistical basis, the editorial board called Trump’s executive orders “vague and sloppy.”
What the editorial board is saying is that they expect something better from Biden than past presidents — particularly Trump — and on this issue, he hasn’t delivered yet.
“On the campaign trail, he often touted his skill at finding compromise, and his decades as a legislator, as reasons to elect him over Mr. Trump. The country faces significant challenges to recovering from the pandemic, from a global recession, from years of safety nets and institutions and trust being eroded. Now it is time for the new president to show the American people what permanent change for a better nation can look like.”