Hillary Clinton and thousands of others roasted a now-corrected story and tweet from the New York Times claiming the last time there was a mixed-gender presidential ticket for the Democratic Party was in the ‘80s.
“It’s hard to fathom, but it has been 36 years since a man and a woman ran together on a Democratic Party ticket,” the New York Times’ Opinion Twitter account wrote, linking to an article by columnist Maureen Dowd, which included the same quote.
How does an error this significant get past an editor? pic.twitter.com/yiCKdXDXLY
Clinton, who was on the Democratic ticket with Tim Kaine as her running mate in 2016, was one of the first to express shock at the bizarre and untrue claim, wondering whether Dowd had “too much pot brownie” before writing her story.
“Either Tim Kaine and I had a very vivid shared hallucination four years ago or Maureen had too much pot brownie before writing her column again,” she tweeted.
Either @TimKaine and I had a very vivid shared hallucination four years ago or Maureen had too much pot brownie before writing her column again. https://t.co/J3SSwtkg7x
The Times then corrected the tweet to say that in fact it had been 36 years “since a man chose a woman to run as his vice president” – a ‘correction’ which also included a mistake, since the late John McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his running mate on the Republican ticket in 2008.
The Times eventually corrected the mistake properly to clarify that it had been that long since a male Democratic candidate had chosen a female as his vice presidential running mate.
Clinton’s 2016 vice presidential pick Kaine also responded to the Times’ original flub.
2. The NYT’s poorly worded correction manages to erase Sarah Palin. pic.twitter.com/c6CqkcwFIi
Many tweets targeted Dowd herself, who has long been critical of Clinton. Dowd’s column focused on Geraldine Ferraro, who was the first vice presidential candidate for a major political party in 1984. She ran with Walter Mondale against Ronald Reagan and lost by a wide margin. A correction was added to the bottom of Dowd’s piece acknowledging her error.
Dowd’s piece examined the pushback Ferraro had received as a female VP pick and wondered whether a woman picked by Joe Biden in 2020 would face similar criticism – but also completely ignored criticism targeted at Clinton herself in 2016.
The number of women Maureen Dowd has undermined is incredible
In case you were wondering, in the entire article there’s no mention of Hillary & Tim Kaine. So it wasn’t just a bad tweet or awkward phrasing — this article by Maureen Dowd claims a man & woman haven’t run together on a Dem presidential ticket in 36 years, & the NYT just ran it.
Others roasted the New York Times itself, wondering how it was possible that such a glaring error had made it past an editor and into publication.
Layers and layers of fact checkers https://t.co/DzkJQ4UO8F
The New York Times forgot about the Hillary/Tim Kaine ticket in 2016. You couldn’t make this up. https://t.co/dlcFEylCTe
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