Remember WMDs? Judith Miller?

Mastheaders like David Brooks carried water for the far right for decades until he couldn’t keep up with them. He’ll still wax philosphical about Reagan, Gingrich or W at the drop of a hat.

But I guess they’re all “centrist” now.

There isn't really a mainstream left wing in the US. Since the times of Reagan, the right moved steadily rightward, and the left "compromised" its way towards the center.

Note for example that the mid-90s GOP health care proposal was eventually the basis for the Obama plan 20 years later, which the more recent GOP called some kind of communism.

Chomsky is left of the mainstream American "left", and it is common in that crowd to refer to the latter as center-right.

What you write is only true on the economic axis. E.g. attitudes towards LGBT or immigration (as measured by number of immigrants, not hot air spouted by politicians) certainly haven't moved rightward.

20 million illegal migrants and legal gay marriage in many states still not enough?

That doesn't mean NYT and WaPo are far-right. Just that they will regularly publish far-right opinions (eg Bret Stephens) and rarely, if ever, far-left opinions. The bulk of both papers content is dead center but by constantly using far-right opinion to contrast their own opinions against, NYT and WaPo establish themselves as the left-wing of "acceptable discourse".

There are many matters upon which the NYT takes a right wing stance, Israel being a pretty key one.

Because he is a full on Communist. Its not that hard to understand.

Technically he's an anarchist. https://www.alternet.org/2013/05/noam-chomsky-kind-anarchism...

Technically, he's an anarcho-syndicalist.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Noam_...

By what measure is he, or indeed anyone really, a "full on Communist"? I have always believed there have never been any real ones.

Sure there were -- thousands died fighting Franco, in Spain. See George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, or Whitaker Chambers' Witness.

"communist" in the singular is kind of an auto-oxymoron, isn't it?!

By Western standards, any publication that doesn't fully support Medicare for All is far right.

If by Western you mean US, then probably. Because in any other part of the world, being pro universal health care is not considered a left-wing position per se. Even most Tories support it in the UK for example.