Clay Waters's blog

A week after the comprehensively nitpicking and partisan "fact-checking" of Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney during the Republican National Convention, the New York Times didn't ignore Democratic misstatements made from the podium Wednesday night under the odd headline: "A Startling Truth Amid the Hyperbole," by Michael Cooper, Scott Shane, and Annie Lowery. The original online headline was sharper: "Democrats Stretch the Truth in Talk and Text."

But the paper made an exception for the rambling speech by Bill Clinton, who the Times actually credited with truth-telling in the headline and the text. (The paper's criticism-free front-page story on Clinton's "stirring plea" nominating Obama characterized it as "poignant evening" for the president.)

Oops. While celebrating in Thursday's New York Times the spotlight shown on gay issues during this week's Democratic National Convention, reporter Adam Nagourney (who is openly gay) wrote that gay Rep. Barney Frank spoke to the convention on Wednesday night. Nope: Frank was actually bumped when the program ran long and will deliver his speech tonight instead.

Gov. Chris Christie's keynote address at the Republican convention didn't warrant a full story last week in the New York Times. Yet when San Antonio mayor Julian Castro delivered the keynote to the Democratic convention, Jeff Zeleny offered a full story in Wednesday's edition, giving the Democrats space from which to blast Republicans: "New Democratic Voice Challenges Republican Vision." Castro was also spared the fact-checking the Times afflicted upon Republicans last week in Tampa.

(Manny Fernandez had previously polished the mayor's resume in a flattering preview of Castro's keynote: "The speculation lately about Mr. Castro’s future has reached fever pitch; there is talk of his running for governor, earning a place in Mr. Obama’s cabinet and even becoming the first Hispanic president. A Fox News Latino headline this summer read: 'Julián Castro: Son of Chicana Activist, Harvard Law Grad, Future U.S. President?'")

A Sunday front-page profile of Obama's top aide Valerie Jarrett by the New York Times's Jo Becker, "The Other Power in the West Wing," was not uniformly positive, but did provide useful cover for her boss by painting Jarrett as pushing the president toward "first principles," which just happen to include (left-wing) priorities like gay marriage and government-funded birth control. But don't call Barack Obama a liberal! (The paper has long insisted he's a moderate and pragmatist.)

Becker opened by reminding readers how "President Obama was in a bind" during last fall's controversy over requiring religious employers to cover birth control, then skillfully wrote around the word "liberal," which in a balanced new story would appear right below the word "counterweight" in the sentence below:

So much for budget and Medicare reform. On Saturday, New York Times congressional correspondent Jonathan Weisman sounded pretty confident that Paul Ryan's budget plan would sink Republican prospects in Congress in November, forwarding confident-sounding Democrats set to bash Ryan's proposals, even naming individual races, in "Ryan's Budget Proposal Is Pitting G.O.P. Troops Against Top of the Ticket." The text box: "A big deal for Romney-Ryan is shunned by the rank and file."

New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, author of a biography of the Obamas, on Tuesday filed a flattering profile of "hugging" Michelle Obama, "First Lady Strives for Caring Image Above Partisan Fray." Kantor excused the first lady's verbal "missteps" ("For the first time in my adult lifetime...I am really proud of my country") but avoided describing them.

The profile appeared the day after a surprisingly critical article from Kantor on the Labor Day front page on President Obama (beyond the complimentary headline): "The Competitor in Chief – In Politics, and About Everything Else, Obama Plays to Win."

Sunday brought an overload of New York Times columnists, including former reporters, calling the previous week's Republican National Convention a celebration of lies and extremism on abortion and gay marriage.

Times columnist and former White House correspondent Maureen Dowd was given more room than usual to rant about Paul Ryan and the Republicans in her Sunday column, "Cruel Conservatives Throw a Masquerade Ball." After calling the Republican Convention "a colossal hoax," she said of Paul Ryan's speech, "the altar boy altered reality, conjuring up a world so compassionate, so full of love-thy-neighbor kindness and small-town goodness, that you had to pinch yourself to remember it was a shimmering mirage, a beckoning pool of big, juicy lies...." Dowd concluded that "....Ryan’s lies and Romney’s shape-shifting are so easy to refute that they must have decided a Hail Mary pass of artifice was better than their authentic ruthless worldview."

Bogus media "fact-checking" continues, and the New York Times's Michael Cooper is leading the pack. His Saturday "Political Memo," "Fact-Checkers Howl, but Campaigns Seem Attached to Dishonest Ads," marks Cooper's second foray into the burgeoning genre in two days, focusing on the alleged false statements emanating from Mitt Romney's ads and the Republican National Convention podium. Cooper heralds the "Pulitzer Prize-winning" fact-check website Politifact as the gold standard of objectivity, though conservatives point to analysis like this:

White House reporter Jackie Calmes talked to Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod for a strong hit of Republican Convention bashing in her Friday New York Times story "Obama Team Sharpens Attacks on Rivals' Character." Calmes cited liberal media analysis to bolster her contention that even "independent fact-checkers" think the Republicans are lying.

As the Obama campaign heads into its convention next week, Democrats see openings both to fill in unpopular details of Mitt Romney’s agenda left unsaid by Republicans in Tampa this week and to raise new questions about Mr. Romney’s character after widespread criticism of misstatements by him and his running mate, Paul D. Ryan.

The latest entry in the media's obsession with picayune and partisan "fact-checking" of the Republican National Convention: New York Times reporter Michael Cooper's Friday "Check Point," "Facts Take a Beating In Acceptance Speeches." The original web headline was ridiculously partisan for a news story: "Ryan's Speech Contained a Litany of Falsehoods."

Representative Paul D. Ryan used his convention speech on Wednesday to fault President Obama for failing to act on a deficit-reduction plan that he himself had helped kill. He chided Democrats for seeking $716 billion in Medicare cuts that he too had sought. And he lamented the nation’s credit rating -- which was downgraded after a debt-ceiling standoff that he and other House Republicans helped instigate.

New York Times "TV Watch" columnist Alessandra Stanley focused Friday on MSNBC's embarrassingly partisan coverage of the Republican National Convention and tried to contrast it with the struggle of NBC's more objective reporters to remain above the fray: "MSNBC, Arch Counterprogramming to Fox." The online head was more interesting: "How MSNBC Became Fox’s Liberal Evil Twin." Stanley even accused MSNBC host Chris Matthews of "thuggish" behavior in an interview with a female Republican governor.

But do NBC reporters Andrea Mitchell and Chuck Todd (or anchor Brian Williams) really "keep their opinions to themselves" as Stanley claims? Hardly. In fact, they fit in quite well with the liberal partisans at MSNBC.

Leave it to former New York Times political correspondent (now Los Angeles bureau chief) Adam Nagourney to find bad news for Romney in his running mate's Paul Ryan's rapturously received convention speech. "With Speech, Ryan May Have Helped Himself More Than Romney," Nagourney nagged in a Thursday afternoon "Caucus" post.

By every measure – the cheers in the hall, the praise from commentators across the country, the elation among aides to Mitt Romney – Representative Paul D. Ryan’s speech accepting the vice-presidential nomination was a hit. He aggressively framed the campaign against President Obama, signaled that he, unlike some previous vice-presidential candidates, had no compunctions about leading the attack, and anchored Mr. Romney in a conservative school of thought that has come to define the Republican Party.

Running scared? New York Times editorial board member and former Times reporter David Firestone, who has never hidden his liberalism in either position, accused vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan of "dishonesty" and "cowardice" on the Opinion Editor's blog early Thursday afternoon, "Beyond Factual Dishonesty."

New York Times reporter Michael Cooper took elaborate pains to emphasize just how far to the right the GOP has come from those moderate days of -- Ronald Reagan's election? -- in Wednesday's, "Platform’s Sharp Turn to the Right Has Conservatives Cheering." The jump page included side-by-side text comparisons of "Republican Party Platforms, Then and Now." Yet Democratic Party platforms are hardly ever scrutinized by the Times for extremist stands on issues like abortion.

New York Times White House reporter Jackie Calmes trailed the Obama campaign to the University of Virginia, "In College Town, Obama Jokes at G.O.P.’s Expense," where the president tried to convince adoring college students to vote by portraying Mitt Romney as a threat to their college loans.

Typically, Calmes praised Obama's "thoughtful" answer to a question he received during a website Q&A session, and became the latest Times reporter to defend Obama from Romney's charge that he gutted work requirements for welfare recipients.(Short answer: Obama did. Here's a longer answer, courtesy of journalist Mickey Kaus.)

New York Times Editorial Page editor Andrew Rosenthal displayed his usual class, charm, and mastery of current events in his Twitter posts leading up to and through the start of the Republican National Convention in Tampa.

Before Tuesday night, Rosenthal didn't seem very clued in to the news, posting this on Monday: "If the GOPers love Chris Christie so much, why is he scheduled to speak tomorrow after 10 pm, when no one will be watching? Some keynote." He later stated: "Was wrong before about the timing of Christie speech. 10-11 is prime time for convention. Hope nothing really good on at that time." Oops.

New York Times reporter Michael Cooper's brief "Caucus" story for Wednesday's edition (not yet online), "'You Didn't Build That,' But He Wasn't Saying That," is yet another tiresome defense of the president from the paper's objective journalists, claiming Obama didn't really mean what came out of his mouth in a speech in Roanoke, Va.: "If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

(Cooper's cop-out follows similar strained efforts by Times reporters Trip Gabriel and Michael Shear to defend the president against an effective line of attack from the GOP.)

Tuesday's lead New York Times editorial, which cynically used what is now Hurricane Isaac to make pro-Democratic political hay, also displayed the paper's galling hypocrisy on emergency natural disaster spending: "The Storm, Again – As high winds approach the gulf coast, Republicans advocate a less prepared government." Perhaps they were reading old Times editorials on flood control, which questioned the wisdom of building levees in flood plains.

Tropical Storm Isaac is more than just a logistical inconvenience for Republicans gathered in Tampa: it is a powerful reminder both of Republican incompetence in handling Hurricane Katrina seven years ago, and the party’s no-less-disastrous plans to further cut emergency-related spending.

How painfully predictable: The New York Times filled the news gap caused by the cancellation of Monday's events with rumors of party discord. In fact, the Times first tried to gin up controversy at the 2012 Republican National Convention long ago. Here's a May 13, 2010 report from Damien Cave on how toxic beaches in Tampa might ruin the Republican convention, then over two years away:

The wrong mix of poverty juxtaposed with Republicans partying - perhaps against a backdrop of oil-stained beaches – could give Democrats just what they need to portray their opponents as woefully disconnected from the middle class."

When the New York Times sends reporters to compare and contrast the Romney and Obama campaign styles, little surprise who comes off looking best. The banner headline on the front of Monday's special Campaign 2012 section set the scene: "Two Campaigns With Styles as Similar as Red and Blue."

Ashley Parker and Michael Barbaro trailed the Republica candidate in Iowa and found that while "Earnest and Efficient, Romney Spares the Subtlety." (Because electoral campaigns are typically known for subtlety.)

Even the weather is tilting against the GOP, Jim Rutenberg (pictured) and Michael Shear reported from the Republican National Convention in Tampa for Monday's New York Times. They cynically employed the threat of Tropical Storm Isaac, shaping it into a desperate pro-Obama weapon to use against Republican principles of limited government: "Storm Rewrites G.O.P.'s Script For Convention."

Sunday's lead New York Times story by the political team of Jeff Zeleny (pictured) and Jim Rutenberg accused Romney of playing the race card with false ads on welfare reform: "Romney Adopts Harder Message For Last Stretch – Nod To White Workers – A Tropical Storm Threat Forces Party to Delay Convention by a Day."

The Times accused the Romney campaign of ads "falsely charging that Mr. Obama has eliminated work and job training requirements for welfare beneficiaries," claiming such "moves reflect a campaign infused with a sharper edge and overtones of class and race." Yet the claim made in Romney's ad holds up -- unlike the Times's claim that Romney's recent joke about Obama's birth certificate was playing the race card.

In anticipation of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, the New York Times Sunday Review section, edited by liberal veteran reporter Andrew Rosenthal, was crammed with articles, interviews, and features hostile toward Republicans.

Los Angeles bureau chief Adam Nagourney found the GOP in danger of losing the South and maybe even Texas one day in "The Sun Belt, Eclipsed."

Don't believe in global warming? Are you pro-life? Then you're an idiot, says Timothy Egan, a former liberal New York Times reporter turned left-wing Times columnist. In his Friday online column "The Crackpot Caucus" he said of the Republican Party: "...if intelligence were contagious, [the GOP] would be giving out vaccines for it."

Egan strings together quotes of some congressional Republicans making missteps on matters of science and religion, before lumping creationist Republicans with pro-lifers and climate skeptics into one big bag of GOP anti-science stupidity.

On Friday, New York Times political reporter Mark Landler pushed Bill Clinton as Barack Obama's hope to win the white working class, and dubiously defended the Obama administration's gutting of the welfare reform law pushed by Republicans and signed by Clinton in 1996: "It’s the President’s Message, With President Clinton."

Thursday's New York Times front page included a report by Michael Cooper (pictured) and Dalia Sussman on a new CBS News/Quinnipiac University/New York Times poll of likely voters in the crucial states of Florida, Ohio, and Wisconsin after Romney's choice as running mate Medicare reformer Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin: "In Poll, Obama Is Given Trust Over Medicare."

Showing how the same findings can be interpreted in politically slanted ways, the Times even squeezed in a front-page graphic of Obama's superior standing on Medicare in the swing states of Ohio, Florida, and Wisconsin, but downplayed the tightening of the actual electoral race in Florida and Wisconsin, which was picked up on by other outlets reading the same poll data.

Is the New York Times trying to change the subject from the bad economy to social issues, for Obama's sake? On Thursday Michael Shear (pictured) and Jonathan Weisman did their best to tie controversial comments by Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin to Mitt Romney's running mate Paul Ryan: "Romney Strategists Say They’ll Stay the Course Amid Focus on Abortion."

Mitt Romney’s campaign advisers have concluded that they do not need any major adjustments in strategy to respond to the new focus on abortion and reproductive rights caused by Representative Todd Akin, betting that their candidate’s economic message will still resonate with female voters after the controversy over Mr. Akin’s remarks about “legitimate rape.”

New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel posted Wednesday on "Chris the Baker" -- Chris McMurray, a cookie store owner who made waves when he turned away VP Joe Biden from a prospective shop visit. Yesterday he joined Rep. Paul Ryan at a campaign rally in Roanoke, Va., site of President Obama's infamous "You didn't build that" remark, widely seen as dismissive of individual initiative and entrepreneurship.

Gabriel predictably accused McMurray and the GOP of "willfully twisting the president's remark" and blamed Ryan for having "continued the misrepresentation" of what Obama actually said. But do Obama's actual words help him at all?

The New York Times extended the controversy over offensive comments made by Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin to indict the entire Republican Party, misleadingly conflating Akin's remark about "legitimate rape" with the party's traditional pro-life stance. Wednesday's two connected lead stories were ushered in under the banner headline "Ignoring Deadline to Quit, G.O.P. Senate Candidate Defies His Party Leaders: Unexpected Twist in the Election Campaigns."

The headline over Jennifer Steinhauer's story nationalized the firestorm in Missouri: "Unexpected Turn in Campaign for President," and the story's headline on the jump page crystalized Democratic wishful thinking: "Missouri Controversy May Endanger Republican Chances in the Fall."

For the third time in three columns, the New York Times's Maureen Dowd brutally assaults Paul Ryan, this time calling him "a fresh face on a Taliban creed" of He-Man Woman-Hating.

Other Republicans are trying to cover up their true identity to get elected. Even as party leaders attempted to lock the crazy uncle in the attic in Missouri, they were doing their own crazy thing down in Tampa, Fla., by reiterating language in their platform calling for a no-exceptions Constitutional amendment outlawing abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and threat to the life of the mother.