It's Hard to Write Headlines

Over at First Thoughts, Matthew Franck delves into the minds of the hapless writers who inhabit the offices of the New York Times.  Franck explains the Times' latest show of intellectual skill:

Today [the Times has] a story in the news pages with the following lead: “A bake sale sponsored by a Republican student group at the University of California, Berkeley, has incited anger and renewed the debate over affirmative action by asking students to pay different prices for pastry, depending on their race and sex.”  The College Republicans announced that they planned to charge $2 per pastry to white customers, with declining prices for Asians, Latinos, African Americans, and Native Americans, and a 25 cent discount for women of all races.

Obviously the Berkeley College Republicans (an oxymoron, no?) were highlighting the effectual truth of affirmative action.  They knew that their act would cause mass denunciations, rage, and psychologists and grief counselors being brought in to help those affected.  But with all of the attendant rage, no one could quite explain what wrong the CR's had committed.  But that was whole point.  In order to explain the wrong, the angered students and faculty, the champions of diversity that they are, would have to explain the unjustness of the affirmative action policies themselves.  Brilliant.     

And the best part of this whole story is the headline the Times writers choose for this story:  "A 'Diversity Bake Sale' Backfires on Campus."  Ummm...