November 5, 2015 --

Far enough to support suppression of political opponents, including midnight raids by government officials on homes of conservatives. For proof, please see the paper's October 27 editorial "The Revenge of Scott Walker." The editorial indicated that on October 23rd Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker "signed a bill to protect public officials like himself from an effective and well-established tool for rooting out political corruption." The editorial then explained that this "tool, known as the John Doe law, lets prosecutors conduct secret investigations into possible crimes by executing search warrants and compelling people to testify."

The editorial, a few paragraphs on, commented that "there were predictable howls from the right-wing forces about politically-motivated fishing expeditions, search warrants executed in the middle of the night and gag orders against witnesses."

The editorial, in a parenthetical remark, suggested that complaints about "the gag orders" were "reasonable," but the Times, by its silence, gave apparent approval to what The Wall Street Journal, in its October 27 editorial on the subject, called "early morning home raids" on "conservative groups across" Wisconsin.

For The Wall Street Journal, the "John Doe" prosecutions were brought by "Democratic prosecutors in Wisconsin [who] tried to criminalize the political speech of Governor Scott Walker's allies" and, via the "John Doe" method, "used campaign-finance laws to trample the First Amendment."

How far to the left is The New York Times? Far enough to equate being a conservative to "political corruption."