New York Times political reporter Michael Barbaro made Friday's print edition with his gushy mini-profile, on the paper's political blog, of Ivy Ziedrich, the college student and Young Democrats member who was made an instant left-wing heroine for her testy exchange with Jeb Bush over ISIS and his brother's presidential legacy: "Student Who Stood Up To Debate ISIS With Bush." The online headline commemorating the confrontation at a Jeb Bush town hall in Reno, Nevada was even "warmer": "Ivy Ziedrich, College Student, Warms to Role as Jeb Bush Critic on ISIS."
On Wednesday afternoon, just as she sat down to watch TV and eat a corn dog, Ivy Ziedrich’s phone rang. It was her sister in Montana.
“I am so proud of you,” her sister said, “for yelling at a politician.”
It was the first inkling that Ms. Ziedrich, a 19-year-old college student with a passion for the debate team and the finer points of Middle Eastern policy, had gone viral.
Her confrontation with Jeb Bush, in which she told the former Florida governor a few hours earlier, “Your brother created ISIS,” was suddenly everywhere online, casting an unwelcome hue on President George W. Bush’s legacy from the war in Iraq.
....
In an interview, Ms. Ziedrich described a dizzying 24 hours of social media frenzy, her upbringing in a conservative Republican family, and the circumstances that prompted her to approach Jeb Bush, who was in Reno for a town hall-style meeting on Wednesday.
....
Her question and his reply seemed to distill deep, lingering anger of the war in Iraq and encapsulate Mr. Bush’s political challenges as the brother of George W. Bush. Much online commentary has focused on her somewhat aggressive tone, a fact that Ms. Ziedrich finds a bit baffling.
....
Ms. Ziedrich, a high school debater who specialized in the parliamentary style and still helps coach her former team, said that all the attention she is garnering from those on the right (who thought she was rude) and those on the left (who want to canonize her) is confounding given her own political journey. Growing up in Northern California, she considered herself a conservative like her mother and father, who is a loyal Fox News viewer.
Then she identified as a libertarian and, ultimately, as Democratic, influenced by her time spent debating and by books like Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States.”
Citizens who dare criticize Barack Obama get much harsher scrutiny. Remember the paper's treatment of Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber?
Barbaro's print version of his Ziedrich profile muddied the political waters, leaving off that Ziedrich herself identified as being a member of the local Young Democrats, a point he included in his initial online posting on the confrontation Wednesday. That previous post from Barbaro, whose hostility toward Republican candidates has been amply documented, included more of the student's hard-left rant, sanitized away in print:
“Your brother created ISIS,” the young woman told Jeb Bush. And with that, Ivy Ziedrich, a 19-year-old college student, created the kind of confrontational moment here on Wednesday morning that presidential candidates dread.
....
Mr. Bush interjected. “All right. Is that a question?”
Ms. Ziedrich was not finished. “You don’t need to be pedantic to me, sir.”
“Pedantic? Wow,” Mr. Bush replied.
Then Ms. Ziedrich asked: “Why are you saying that ISIS was created by us not having a presence in the Middle East when it’s pointless wars where we send young American men to die for the idea of American exceptionalism? Why are you spouting nationalist rhetoric to get us involved in more wars?”
Barbaro's last line gave the impression Bush was cruelly cutting off an idealistic student, as opposed to ending an unconstructive exchange with a hostile opponent.
Mr. Bush turned away. The conversation was over.
