Nick Kristof is from New York and Kevin Cooper is guilty
“One of the best things that can happen to you is to have this type of person criticize you."
Former New York Times columnist Nick Kristof has been disqualified for running for Oregon governor because of this pesky state constitution that requires candidates for governor to have lived in the state for three years. Problem for Kristof: Among other ties to the Empire state, Kristof voted in New York in 2020.
You can watch Kristof here as the former New York Times scribe frames himself as “outside the political establishment” — which I am guessing Oregonians might find improbable given the Gray Lady’s ties with many institutions.
If you are not familiar with Kristof — better yet, if you are familiar with him — you have to read this Kristof take-down by Carl Cannon in RealClearPolitics. (Every graph has a prize inside.)
There’s a sad tale inside that says everything about Kristof
In 2002, Kristof was instrumental in stoking a lynch mob mentality against a private citizen whom the columnist identified as a likely suspect in the deadly anthrax attacks that killed several people and targeted key members of Congress. The innocent man, Steven Hatfill, was ultimately exonerated and paid a handsome settlement by the Justice Department and some media outlets. Hatfill’s lawsuit against the New York Times was dismissed for the Catch-22 reason that he was by then (thanks to the newspaper) a public figure. As I wrote in 2011, an FBI supervisor investigating the case, Robert Roth, placed Kristof's more outlandish statements on a wall in the Washington field office. To buck up his agents, Roth added a statement of his own: “One of the best things that can happen to you is to have this type of person criticize you.”
This is so familiar to me as I’ve watched Kristof claim that authorities wrongly convicted Kevin Cooper in the 1983 slaughter of Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and Christopher Hughes, 11, who was sleeping over with his friend Josh Ryen, 8, who was left for dead. The evidence against Cooper is overwhelming and courts repeatedly have upheld his guilty verdict.
Kristof nonetheless maintains, “A man who is very likely innocent appears to have been framed for that crime and remains on death row today.”
Kristof blames racism for the conviction — as police chose to focus on “a black man with a huge Afro who fit their narrative of an incorrigible criminal.
Apparently the fact that Cooper had escaped from prison and holed up in a house next to the Ryens’ rural home before he fled to Mexico had no bearing whatsoever.
Kristof repeatedly and without proof has argued that law enforcement personnel doctored evidence to convict Cooper. In a 2018 piece, Kristof also fingered someone else.
“That’s a remarkable element of this case: Not only has the evidence against Cooper largely been discredited, but evidence has accumulated against another individual, who happens also to be a convicted murderer. Fletcher, the federal judge, wrote a long section in a judicial opinion implicating this man, whom I’ll identify only by his first name, Lee.”
See how careful Kristof is not using the guy’s full name, which had been all over the press?
To clear his name, Lee later allowed the Cooper team to swab him so that forensics specialists could test his DNA against evidence samples. These are the sorts of tests the Cooper team have claimed would clear the death row inmate — except they didn’t. DNA evidence placed Cooper at the scene of the crime, but not Lee. (Maybe that’s because he had an alibi that night)
Oops, as Kristof might say.
Debra J. Saunders is a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Contact her at dsaunders@discovery.org.
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Kristof is one reason the media has its current reputation.