Print this article Only a few days after Judge Laurence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals warned in a widely discussed dissent that the U.S. media’s bias in favor of the Democratic Party was dangerous to democracy, the New York Times showed how correct he was. In an article on March 25, the New York Times attacked GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin in much the way that Johnson’s Wisconsin predecessor, Joseph McCarthy, used to attack adversaries, with innuendo and outright falsehoods. However, as Silberman pointed out, under the 1964 Supreme Court ruling in New York Times v. Sullivan, a public figure such as Johnson cannot sue the