TimesWatch

European-based New York Times reporter Nicholas Kulish filed a big-think off-lead Wednesday from Madrid, “As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around Globe,” and became the latest Times reporter to suggest that the rioters who burned and looted shops in London for shoes and smart phones were actually impoverished outcasts engaged in political protest.

Hundreds of thousands of disillusioned Indians cheer a rural activist on a hunger strike. Israel reels before the largest street demonstrations in its history. Enraged young people in Spain and Greece take over public squares across their countries.

New York Times White House correspondent Mark Landler followed President Obama out West on what certainly felt like a partisan campaign tour. Landler acknowledged Obama’s partisanship and “acidic words” for the G.O.P., but also protected the president’s right flank by characterizing his appeals for higher taxes and his class rhetoric as “populist,” not liberal, and by failing to correct the false impression Obama gave of shameful audience behavior at two Republican presidential debates.

Landler led off his Tuesday piece, “After Feisty Fund-Raising, a More Sociable Obama,” with a focus on the media’s new favorite rich guy, Doug Edwards.

President Obama met his dream date on Monday at a town hall meeting in Silicon Valley: a balding, soft-spoken former Google employee who said he was so rich he did not have to work anymore and begged Mr. Obama to raise his taxes.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman showed his usual class when discussing Republican Rep. Paul Ryan, whose comprehensive budget plan calls for transforming Medicare into a voucher system in order to preserve the financially imperiled program and to trim the deficit. For his efforts, Krugman claimed that Ryan’s “voucher would kill people, no question.”

Krugman featured as a talking head in a CNN “Up Close” profile of Ryan by CNN journalist Gloria Borger that aired Sunday night.

[Video below the break.]

Political dissent on campus – acceptable when it involves left-wing protesters shouting down conservative speakers, but hurtful and possibly dangerous when performed in a peaceful, parodic nature by conservatives. That’s the impression left by the New York Times.

Malia Wollan visited the campus of the University of California at Berkeley for Tuesday’s report, “A ‘Diversity Bake Sale’ Backfires on Campus.” The parody “bake sale,” mocking affirmative action in California college admissions, has not in fact taken place yet, but the threats and intimidation are already pouring in on the Republican activists -- things the Times isn't overly bothered about.

A bake sale sponsored by a Republican student group at the University of California, Berkeley, has incited anger and renewed the debate over affirmative action by asking students to pay different prices for pastry, depending on their race and sex.

New York Times reporter Jennifer Steinhauer showed typical Times labeling slant in her Saturday update on Congress’s so-far-failed attempts to keep the government open after the end of the month.

After House approval of its stopgap bill after midnight on Friday, the Senate voted 59 to 36 to set aside the House bill, with a handful of conservative Republicans joining with Democrats to deliver a quick and decisive rejection. Democrats opposed the measure because the disaster relief effort was offset by spending cuts to other programs dear to them. Conservatives appeared to feel their House colleagues had failed to cut short-term spending deeply enough.

New York Times Jerusalem Bureau Chief Ethan Bronner took some friendly fire from the paper’s Public Editor Arthur Brisbane in his Sunday column, “Tangled Relationships in Jerusalem.” Brisbane forwarded complaints from a left-wing anti-Israeli blogger about Bronner's business relationship with a conservative Israeli, Charley Levine. But Bronner's history of slanted reporting, especially his hostile coverage of "angry rampag[ing]" Jewish settlers in the West Bank, proves he can hardly be credibly accused of sympathizing with Israeli conservatives.

Conflict of interest, or the appearance of it, is poisonous in journalism. This is particularly so when it relates to reporting on Israel and the Palestinians, a subject that draws a steady stream of skepticism about New York Times coverage from readers and partisans on all sides.

Classless Krugman on "Fake Heroes" of 9-11 like Bush

“What happened after 9/11 -- and I think even people on the right know this, whether they admit it or not -- was deeply shameful. The atrocity should have been a unifying event, but instead it became a wedge issue. Fake heroes like Bernie Kerik, Rudy Giuliani, and, yes, George W. Bush raced to cash in on the horror. And then the attack was used to justify an unrelated war the neocons wanted to fight, for all the wrong reasons.” – Columnist Paul Krugman in a blog post at nytimes.com the morning of September 11.
 

News Flash: Paying Taxes Now Voluntary, According to New York Times

“Obama Tax Plan Would Ask More Of Millionaires – Called ‘Buffett Rule’ – Populist Sales Pitch to Press the G.O.P. in Budget Talks.” –  Headline to lead story of September 18.
“President’s Plan On Deficit Mixes Cuts And Taxes – Foes See Class Warfare – Trimming Entitlements and Asking the Rich to Pay More.” – Headline to lead story of September 19.

In a Thursday morning post setting the table for last night’s Republican presidential debate in Orlando, New York Times chief “Caucus” blog reporter Michael Shear became the latest Timesman to falsely finger the Tea Party audience at a CNN debate last week as cheering on the prospect of letting a hypothetical man die for lack of health insurance.

Shear listed six things to watch for in Orlando last night. The last item:

Former New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse really let her liberal feelings show in her online column Wednesday, “Breaking News: The Civil War Is Over,” in which she linked opposition to the constitutionality of Obama-care to the U.S. Confederacy.

Greenhouse, who notoriously delivered a left-wing commencement speech at Harvard in June 2006, while still a reporter for the Times, was also offended to the core at a bumper sticker opposing national health care: “I don’t understand the moral compass of the owner of the fancy car I saw the other day that sported the bumper sticker: ‘Repeal Obamacare.’”

New York Times reporter Ashley Parker provided another spray of nitpicking at the Romney presidential campaign: “Mitt Romney Has Some Down-to-Earth Tastes, He’d Like You to Know.” Plus: Jalapeno-gate!

Parker took a swipe at Romney August 23 for expanding his house: “Mitt Romney has never claimed to be a middle-class man of the people. But the news that he is planning to quadruple the size of his $12 million oceanfront property in the La Jolla section of San Diego, first reported by The San Diego Union-Tribune on Saturday evening, came at a particularly awkward time.”

New York Times White House reporter Jackie Calmes seemed to like President Obama’s new combative pose over his new big-spending, tax-hiking “stimulus” proposal. Her lead story Tuesday, “Obama Confirms New Hard Stand With Debt Relief,” framed the political battle as a personal conflict as a disrespected president betrayed by House Speaker John Boehner once too often.

With a scrappy unveiling of his formula to rein in the nation’s mounting debt, President Obama confirmed Monday that he had entered a new, more combative phase of his presidency, one likely to last until next year’s election as he battles for a second term.

Former New York Times editorial page editor turned columnist Gail Collins made the front of Sunday Opinion with a (what else?) condescending and stereotype-filled story on Republican Gov. Rick Perry and Texas, rounded out with a cartoon of Perry as a cactus and an undignifying stack of headlines: “Rick Perry, Uber Texan – Meet the lone wolf of the Lone Star State. To him, Texas has all the answers and Washington is the enemy. Go Aggies!”

Clearly the Times isn’t afraid of offending those particular regional sensibilities.

In Sunday’s lead editorial, New York Times editors express their frustration over why the public doesn’t realize how much it truly agrees with President Obama on things like taxes and stimulus and compromise: “Leadership Crisis – Americans agree with Mr. Obama on a great deal. Why don’t they know it?”

At least the public can be comforted in knowing it has met with the approval of the liberals at the Times.

New York Times columnist Joe Nocera last made headlines for his August 2 rant comparing the Tea Party to terrorists. He later apologized in print. Now he's accusing the congressional G.O.P. of food terrorism. Nocera preemptively blamed Republicans in Congress for the next E.coli outbreak in his Saturday column, “Killing Jobs And Making Us Sick.”

“In January, Mr. Obama signed a food safety law that provides broad new authority to the Food and Drug Administration,” wrote Robert Pear in Friday’s Times, in an article about the Congressional appropriations mess. But House Republicans, he added, had voted “to cut the agency’s budget.”

Bill Keller, who earlier this month stepped down as New York Times executive editor, wrote a column for Monday, September 19, 2011 (32 months into Barack Obama’s presidency, or two-thirds of his term), blaming George W. Bush and “Republican resistance amounting to sabotage” for Obama’s political decline.

The decline in Obama’s political fortunes, the Great Disappointment, can be attributed to four main factors: the intractable legacy bequeathed by George W. Bush; Republican resistance amounting to sabotage; the unrealistic expectations and inevitable disenchantment of some of the president’s supporters; and, to be sure, the man himself.

Sunday’s lead New York Times story by White House correspondent Jackie Calmes pushed the president’s new plan to raise taxes on “the wealthy.” The president, in what the Times seems to think is a bright idea, is calling his proposal the “Buffett rule,” after the billionaire who made waves with his complaint, printed in the Times, that uber-wealthy investors like him were not being taxed enough. Here is the stack of headlines: “Obama Tax Plan Would Ask More Of Millionaires – Called ‘Buffett Rule’ – Populist Sales Pitch to Press the G.O.P. in Budget Talks.”

Why write “Ask More of Millionaires”? Are these tax increases going to be voluntary?

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman just can't stop offending of late. Krugman confounded even liberals with his ill-timed blog post on the morning of September 11 decrying President George W. Bush and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as “fake heroes” in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks. In his Friday column “Free To Die,” he suggested Republicans would prefer people die for lack of health insurance, using as evidence the dubious claim that the audience watching CNN’s Republican debate “erupted with cheers” at the prospect of a (hypothetical) man dying for being unable to afford intensive care. Has Krugman actually watched the clip?

Back in 1980, just as America was making its political turn to the right, Milton Friedman lent his voice to the change with the famous TV series “Free to Choose.” In episode after episode, the genial economist identified laissez-faire economics with personal choice and empowerment, an upbeat vision that would be echoed and amplified by Ronald Reagan.

But that was then. Today, “free to choose” has become “free to die.”

After last week’s Republican presidential debate at the Reagan presidential library in Simi Valley, Calif., reporter Adam Nagourney took advantage of the spotlight to review on Tuesday both the Reagan and Nixon libraries, located some 80 miles apart on opposite sides of Los Angeles: “An Admiring Approach at the Reagan. History, Warts and All, at the Nixon.” His main concern: Not enough critical coverage and mentions of scandal at the Reagan library.

The result at the Reagan library is a decidedly modest accounting of the Iran-contra affair, the major scandal that hit the administration, which avoids laying blame on anyone. There is also a sympathetic accounting of the impact of Reagan’s economic policies that has drawn questions from Democrats and economic historians.

New York Times White House reporter Jackie Calmes and Binyamin Appelbaum reported Wednesday on Obama’s latest big-spending “stimulus” proposal, “Bigger Economic Role for Washington,” enthused that the chance of some of it coming law “could have a substantial effect on economic growth and unemployment....could add 100,000 to 150,000 jobs a month over the next year, according to estimates from several of the country’s best-known forecasting firms.”

Calmes had consistently hyped the administration’s stream of vague, liberal spend-now-pay-later economic “plans,”only to see the proposals die in Congress. This front-page headline from her July 20 story captures her typical cheerleading tone: “Bipartisan Plan For Budget Deal Buoys President – House Republicans Face Intensifying Pressure to Avoid Isolation.” (It has not aged well.)

The front of Wednesday’s New York Times Arts section featured Dwight Garner’s review of the new book by left-wing documentary film-maker Michael Moore, “Here Comes Trouble -- Stories From My Life.”

Garner, a fan, called Moore (infamous for his anti-conservative conspiracy theories and vicious, purposely misleading mockery of Republicans) a “necessary irritant,” and in one nauseating paragraph suggested Moore’s book belonged alongside works by the revolutionary founding activist Thomas Paine.

Jill Abramson, the paper’s new executive editor, talked with the Times’s public editor Arthur Brisbane on Sunday, and touched on the paper’s perceived liberal slant. Abramson didn't quite deny it.

Brisbane: The legendary Times executive editor A. M. Rosenthal once told a colleague he felt the need to steer The Times to the right to compensate for the leftward political leanings of some staff. Will you do that?

Tuesday's New York Times's “Check Point” was the latest liberally slanted fact check of a G.O.P. presidential debate, this time by two liberal reporters, Michael Cooper and Nicholas Confessore, “Perry’s Criticism of Social Security as ‘Ponzi Scheme' Dogs Him in Debate.”

Confessore, who once worked for the liberal journals Washington Monthly and American Prospect, once again staunchly defended Social Security. In a December 2004 post for the Prospect, he praised the Times, the paper he was about to join, for its harsh coverage of President Bush’s attempt at free-market-based Social Security reform.

The headline to a New York Times editorial Saturday sounds like a conservative parody of liberal sanctimony: “The Enlightened Want to Be Taxed.” The content is no better, another boost of the paper's favorite multi-billionaire Warren “tax me more” Buffett, whose crusade was launched on the Times opinion page August 15, while offensively crediting the left-wing threat of property destruction as a reasonable response to “cuts to social welfare programs” in Europe.

Some of the world’s wealthiest people are calling for higher taxes on the rich. They seem to recognize that the burden of the economic downturn cannot be borne entirely by the poor and middle class.

The New York Times printed a special section on the 10th anniversary of the World Trade Center terror attacks: “The Reckoning: America and the World a Decade After 9/11.”

Though the 40-page section was mostly respectful, focusing on the victims and personal remembrances of that horrible day, there was some scattered politicized reporting within the section, and some objectionable editorializing elsewhere in the Times September 11 edition.

In the wake of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, New York Times reporters overcame enormous danger and duress to perform often-heroic feats of journalism, as proven by the Pulitzer Prize winning “Portraits of Grief” series, which commemorated the lives of every single victim of the terrorist attacks. But in the months and years that followed the paper reverted to partisan and liberal ways, even when the subject was the deadly attack on their hometown.

On Sunday the Times will print a special section marking the 10th anniversary of 9-11 (you can read it online now). In anticipation of the paper's commemoration, here’s a sampling of the paper’s years of slanted coverage related to the attacks.

President Obama’s jobs speech led Friday’s New York Times, the paper portraying his $447 billion melange of payroll tax cuts and infrastructure spending portrayed as “Seeking a Tax Cut and Spending as Stimulus.”

Reporter Mark Landler had previously commiserated with President Obama over “frustrating,” “unreasonable” Republican “intransigence” in a Times podcast in July, and on Friday offered support for Obama’s latest  “moderate” big-spending dreams (accompanied by typically vague ideas of actually paying for it all).

Mixing politically moderate proposals with a punchy tone, President Obama challenged lawmakers on Thursday to “pass this jobs bill” -- a blunt call on Congress to enact his $447 billion package of tax cuts and new government spending, designed to revive a stalling economy and his own political standing.

The New York Times vs. fiscal discipline, once again. Monica Davey reported emotional anecdotes from Michigan Wednesday against attempts by the state to rein in costs: “Families Feel Sharp Edge of State Budget Cuts.”

Here in Michigan, more than 11,000 families received letters last week notifying them that in October they will lose the cash assistance they have been provided for years. Next year, people who lose their jobs here will receive fewer weeks of state unemployment benefits, and those making little enough to qualify for the state’s earned income tax credit will see a far smaller benefit from it.

Three liberal New York Times reporters teamed up Thursday morning to fact-check the Republican debate (and defend Obama) at the Reagan library.

John Broder, Nicholas Confessore, and Jackie Calmes cowrote “Attacking the Democrats, but Not Always Getting It Right,” which was not labeled or presented as "news analysis" (a label the Times is using less of lately) but as a factual news story. The text box read: “The candidates’ arguments run into factual hurdles.”

“G.O.P. Stands On Health Mask Records As Governors,” Kevin Sack’s story Sunday on how three current or former G.O.P. governors implemented health care in their states, led the Sunday national section of the New York Times. As usual, Gov. Perry got his share of brickbats, this time for supposedly depriving his citizens of health insurance and prenatal care through state stinginess. (The subject also came up at the Republican presidential debate Wednesday night.)

The three most prominent current or former governors running for president -- Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Jon M. Huntsman Jr. -- are firmly united in their commitment to repealing President Obama’s health care law. But that unanimity masks a broad divergence in their approaches to the issue while in office, spanning the spectrum of Republican positioning.

New York Times editorial board member Brent Staples, who reviewed Randall Kennedy’s “Persistence of the Color Line” for the Sunday Book Review, discussed race, Obama, and “rabid conservatives” at the front of the section.

Staples said his view of President Obama is partly shaped by what they have in common: