Far-Left New York City Journalists Horrified By Ted Cruz’s "New York Values" Jab

Mediaite.com:

Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz made a jab against Donald Trump during Thursday night’s debate, saying the Manhattan businessman was ill-suited to be the Republican nominee because he still espoused “New York values.”

That attack provoked angry responses from New York’s journalism and media elites, liberal and conservative alike. There were literally too many tweets from that night to cite here, but Rolling Stone‘s Matt Taibbi summed up New York journalists’ thoughts about Cruz’s rather succinctly.

I’m sure most New Yorkers laughed off or brushed off Cruz’s comments. This column isn’t for you. But to the New Yorkers– especially those in the media– who are legitimately angry at Cruz for his comments: get over yourselves.

First lets nail down what Cruz actually said that got everyone so hot and bothered:

And listen, there are many, many wonderful, wonderful working men and women in the state of New York. But everyone understands that the values in New York City are socially liberal or pro-abortion or pro- gay-marriage, focus around money and the media.
…
You know, the concept of New York values is not that complicated to figure out. Not too many years ago, Donald did a long interview with Tim Russert. And in that interview, he explained his views on a whole host of issues that were very, very different from the views he’s describing now. And his explanation — he said, “look, I’m from New York, that’s what we believe in New York. Those aren’t Iowa values, but this is what we believe in New York.” And so that was his explanation.

I guess I can frame it another way. Not a lot of conservatives come out of Manhattan. I’m just saying.

First of all– and most importantly– note that Cruz points out that Trump himself said once he had different “values” than Iowans simply because he was from New York City. That alone ought to make the attack against Trump a legitimate one; the notion that all New Yorkers think the same is a vast oversimplification, but that is how Trump framed the issue sixteen years ago.

As I read it, the “New York values” line wasn’t intended as an attack on New York City, or even New Yorkers themselves. Instead, he was saying that Republicans (and South Carolinians and Iowans) espouse certain values, and New Yorkers tend not to. He certainly implied “New York values” were a bad thing… but only within the context of the nomination for a right-wing party. I expect Democrats are equally wary of “Birmingham values.”

The notion that it’s somehow outrageous to say New York has different values than the rest of the country is, to put it bluntly, stupid. No less than the public editor of The New York Times recognized this fact a decade ago, when Daniel Okrent said in a column that “of course” the paper had a liberal bias. He argued that the bias didn’t derive from any vast left wing conspiracy or intentional malice. Instead, he noted that the paper’s editors, reporters, and columnists were all New Yorkers, and they simply have a different “value system” than the rest of the country.

[On gay marriage], Times editors have failed to provide the three-dimensional perspective balanced journalism requires. This has not occurred because of a management fiat, but because getting outside of one’s value system takes a great deal of self-questioning.

Thanks mostly to a uber-liberal governor (Andrew Cuomo) and a uber-liberal mayor with a lesbian wife who happens to be in charge of its largest and most popular city (Bill de Blasio), NY/NYC has indeed become a Godless, social liberal cesspool--or in basic terms, the East coast's version of California/San Francisco...and that's what Ted Cruz was referring too, not much else.

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