[PMCarey]

The recent example is Jayson Blair - the general meme on the right has made it a collective failure of blacks rather than the failure of an individual - something that didn't happen with Steven Glass for example.

Nonsense. The general meme on the right is that it was a failure of affirmative action policies which make it politically and culturally difficult, if not impossible, to fire a black worker even when it is widely known that the worker is filing false stories, abusing expense accounts, and so forth. I have never read a single column in which the right attacks blacks as the culprit in the Jayson Blair case. Their vitriol has been reserved exclusively for the NY Times editors.

[garbanzo]

The whole issue of affirmative action is one of race - that blacks only get jobs because of their race - it is impossible (in this view) for an affirmative action hire to be competent. While it is true that achieving diversity was a goal of the NYT (as a private employer this isn't of necessity a bad goal - employers should decide what is necessary and good for their business model) the issue as I see it isn't "imcompetent black kept on by affirmative action" but rather that of a charmer and suckup who wheedled his way around until he was caught. As we are seeing now, the issue with the NYT goes deeper than race and has more to do with a management culture. But race is at best a minor issue here although, it's become more of major issue especially on the right.