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New York Times Botches Key Fact in Chris Christie Editorial

Times quietly tries to fix mistake

Chris Christie
Chris Christie / AP
October 29, 2015

The New York Times editorial board called on Gov. Chris Christie to withdraw from the presidential race and to "go home and use the year left in his term" to focus on New Jersey.

However, much to the dismay of the liberal New York Times, New Jersey's Republican governor has much more than a year left in his term.

Despite being just across the river, the New York Times appears to be unaware that New Jersey won't vote on a new governor for almost 24 months on November 7th, 2017 and that Christie won't vacate his seat until January 2018 (assuming he does not win the presidential election).

The New York Times wrote incorrectly in its highly critical editorial that Christie's second term "ends in 2017."

"This is his moment, all right: to go home and use the year left in his term to clean out the barn, as Speaker John Boehner would say," wrote the original version of the editorial, which has been stealth-edited to fix this mistake.

The new version calls on Christie "to go home and use the rest of his term to clean out the barn."

There is no note suggesting the story was changed, and the incorrect statement that Christie's term ends in 2017 remains.

Christie says that he didn't even read the article because he doesn't pay for a subscription, and also that he will not be taking the editorial board's suggestion to quit the race.

This attack on Christie from the New York Times could play into his campaign's latest success. He was praised for the way he challenged the biased CNBC moderators during Wednesday nights presidential debate.

This is also not the first time that the New York Times has botched the facts in its coverage of the Republican presidential candidates.

It embarrassingly reported in a story on Sen. Marco Rubio's (R., Fla.) finances that he purchased a "luxury speed boat" that turned out to be a relatively inexpensive fishing boat. It was also heavily criticized when evidence indicated that it had written a critical story on Rubio based on information supplied to it by a Democratic opposition research firm.