Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) mocked the editors of the New York Times for capitulating to liberal employees who demanded the paper pull an op-ed by Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.).
"One of our nation's most storied newspapers just had its intellectual independence challenged by an angry mob, and they folded like a house of cards," McConnell said Wednesday on the Senate floor. "A jury of people on Twitter indicted them as accessories to a thought crime, and instead of telling them to go take a hike, the paper pleaded guilty and begged for mercy."
Cotton's essay, titled "Send In the Troops," made the case for using the military to help quell rioting.
The paper added an editor's note lamenting the "needlessly harsh" tone of the piece, and Times opinion editor James Bennet was forced out Sunday. The ongoing drama has earned the paper derision from Cotton, McConnell, and other freedom defenders.