Washington Post

"Virginia's assault on abortion claims a victim," lamented the WashingtonPost.com headline for an April 28 editorial -- headlined "Virginia's assault on abortion" in the print edition -- savaging the new regulations on clinics in the Old Dominion.

It seems the Post, generally no opponent of government regulation, is staunchly pro-free enterprise when the business in question is killing unborn children for a fee. Here's how the liberal editorial board began its overwrought piece:

Every now and then a liberal newspaper can pleasantly surprise us. Today is one of those days, although as I explain later, our praise is qualified. In a 27-paragraph story in Monday's edition, staffers Sandhya Somashekhar and Lena Sun noted a recent sting video by pro-life group Live Action wherein Washington, D.C. abortionist Cesare Santangelo admitted that "in the unlikely event that an abortion resulted in a live birth, 'we wouldn't help it.'"

"[T]echnically, you know, legally, we would be obligated to help it, you know, to survive, but it probably wouldn't," Santangelo told the 24-week pregnant woman in the Live Action video. In a subsequent interview with the Post, Santangelo sought to spin what folks could see on the hidden camera expose.

Did anyone notice anything missing during Diane Sawyer’s interview with President Bush last night?  She didn’t mention his surge in the polls, which was conducted by ABC News.  Yes, ABC decided to omit their poll in order to have Sawyer bait President Bush with left-leaning questions, like his views on gay marriage.  The American people are now giving the forty-third president a second look, and it seems to be driving liberals crazy.

On April 23, the Washington Post’s Fix blog reported that Bush’s approval ratings have hit a seven-year high.  They are equal to that of President Obama’s at 47%.

Wednesday's New York Times story by Cairo correspondent David Kirkpatrick about a car-bombing in Libya buried an important new development in the Benghazi scandal. A report from House Republicans accused then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of rejecting a call for additional security for U.S. diplomats in Libya before the Benghazi terror attack that killed four Americans last year on the anniversary of September 11.

But the accusation was buried deep inside a breaking terrorism story, "Blast Strikes French Embassy in Rare Attack in Libyan Capital." Meanwhile, the Washington Post ran a full story.

The Washington Post tried to turn the camera lens around on the violent Tsarnaev brothers. Their arrogant liberal assumption: the real question is what this says about us backwards Americans, not about the bombers. The headline in huge type was “Who do we think they are? The answer says a lot about who we are.”

What we are, apparently, is a sad gathering of “Islamophobes,” because the story is a collection of quotes from Muslim activists and authors who tweeted “please don’t be a Muslim” and feared that Muslim assailants would spur Americans to practice “discrimination or retaliation or shame.” Even after the Tsarnaevs were found, the Post reported “Brown Muslims” were relieved:

Well that didn’t last long. In fact, it barely happened at all. After a month of ignoring the trial of Kermit Gosnell, the Philadelphia abortionist accused of murdering one woman and seven infants, it looked like the media had been shamed into covering the story. 

Barely. Even after the most gruesome detail in a trial full of them came out – a baby who survived an abortion “swimming” in a toilet and “trying to get out” – the silence resumed. In fact, the only major news outlet that bothered to report on that testimony was The Chicago Tribune. CNN.com mentioned it, it got no air time.  Video after the break

"After an extraordinarily productive two years in which Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley muscled through legislation on several top priorities — including same-sex marriage,gun control, transportation funding and repealing the death penalty — the question is: What, if anything, is there left for him to do before leaving office?"

That's how Washington Post staffer John Wagner opened his Metro section front-page April 22 story "O'Malley plans for rest of term -- and beyond." Nowhere in his 24-paragraph story did Wagner -- no stranger to NewsBusters criticism by the way -- cite any conservative or Republican critics of the liberal Democratic governor, a prospective 2016 presidential contender.

On April 18, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll that showed 51% of Americans feel that guns in the home make it safer, compared to 29% who think otherwise. More telling is that fact that 51% of white middle class women agree with the sentiment about firearms making homes safer.  Additionally, a Nexis search detailed that ABC News has yet to report this poll, and, with the exception of the Fix blog online, the Post's print edition avoided the “guns make a home safer” findings.

So, will there a correction to Jill Filipovic, Amanda Marcotte, and Co. for trying to smear the NRA as the “domestic abuse lobby? The article by New York Times’ Michael Luo that set off this meretricious commentary on guns looks like to have been a smear too far.  After all, it wasn’t “intense pressure” the gun lobby that killed Obama’s anti-gun agenda.  It was white middle-class women, who liked their Second Amendment rights to be left untouched by big government.

The Washington Post seems to have joined President Obama in blaming the National Rifle Association for the Senate defeating recent gun control legislation.  In an April 18 article, the Post's Ed O'Keefe and Philip Rucker provide cover for President Obama and Senate Democrats, peppering their story with quotes condemning Republicans and Second Amendment advocates. 

The article started off fairly tame, describing Obama as suffering a “resounding defeat” and a “stunning collapse for gun-control advocates.” It didn't take long, however, for the Post staffers to bash the gun industry.  Providing a plethora of Obama quotes to set the tone of the article, the Post highlighted the president's claiming that, “all in all this was a pretty shameful day for Washington.” 

The liberal media love to chastise Republicans for  writing off minorities and urban voters, insisting that the GOP is becoming a regional and largely rural party. But that concern trolling doesn't cut both ways. The liberal media never seem to care that Democrats are losing rural, blue collar workers or that the party's failure to be competitive in the rural heartland is an indictment of their ability to bring the country together.

This double standard was well illustrated in today's Metro section front page in the Washington Post headlined "McAuliffe to pass up Shad Planking: Democrat won't angle for votes at this year's ritual on the James River." Post reporter Ben Pershing devoted 24 paragraphs to explain and allow Democrats to defend their lack of resources devoted to a decades-long bipartisan tradition in the Old Dominion (emphasis mine):

On Thursday night, the Whitman-Walker Health Clinic will hold its annual “Be The Care” fundraiser honoring lesbian Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) with its “Partner for Life” award. Once again this year, journalists don't seem to think supporting this is a conflict of interest.

This liberal-Democrat event is being co-chaired by former Washington Post reporter Ceci Connolly, and she and her husband, current Post reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia (whose recent book targeted Sen. Marco Rubio) are “presenting hosts.” So is Fox News host Greta Van Susteren. That title goes to people donating $2500 to this activist group.

The trial of notorious Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell -- as close to a demonic presence as anything this country will ever see -- was almost a month old when the network blackout finally ended. CNN broke its silence, as did CBS. National newspapers sent reporters to the trial for the first time.

They started covering it only because of a national outrage that they would so deliberately withhold this horror story from the public -- for political reasons.

A mere month after the trial began, the New York Times has, under pressure, sent a reporter to Philadelphia to cover the trial of abortionist Kermit Gosnell on charges of mass infanticide.

Trip Gabriel did indeed file from Philadelphia on Tuesday, "Online Furor Draws Press to Abortion Doctor's Trial." But his location was mostly irrelevant, as he only pinned two and a half paragraphs from what happened in court on Monday to the end of his report. Most of the story was a recap of the trial's "grisly details," accusations from "conservatives" that the media was ignoring the story, and defenses from unlabeled liberal media "experts" denying a coverup.

In her 19-paragraph Metro section front-pager, "D.C. cab ride ends in rape of woman, police say," Washington Post reporter Suzy Khimm waited until the very last paragraph to mention that suspect Mohammed Suleiman Roble is in the United States illegally.

"Roble is a Somali immigrant who came to the U.S. illegally, according to a 2012 arrest warrant. His lawyer, Lavonda Graham-Williams, declined to comment on either of the charges," noted Khimm. [preceding link to PlainSite.org not in original Post report]

One of the Washington Post's front-page stories on the Boston bombing had this headline when the story turned to page A7: "After a decade of plots foiled or botched, one success." That's a strange headline that seems to forget the "successful" terror attack at Fort Hood. Six paragraphs below that headline, reporters Scott Wilson and Peter Finn recall 13 dead and 30 wounded by Major Nidal Hasan.

After noting the failures of Omar Abdulmutallab (the unsuccessful "underwear bomber") and Faisal Shahzad (whose Times Square van bomb didn't detonate),  Wilson and Finn unspooled six paragraphs of publicity for the left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center to underline America's "far right" domestic threat:

At least one major paper is taking seriously the illicit taping of Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell's strategy session by a left-wing Democratic PAC, which then found its way into the left-wing magazine Mother Jones.

The magazine's first foray into hidden video struck left-wing gold -- capturing candidate Mitt Romney's claim at a fundraiser about the "47 percent" who would vote for Obama because they were dependent on government. But this new clip, in which McConnell's staff discusses a potential Democratic opponent, actress Ashley Judd, seems to have backfired on the magazine and the liberal PAC Progress Kentucky, who provided the clip, both of which are in legal hot water.

But New York Times reporter Trip Gabriel saw only embarrassment on Sen. McConnell's side in his Friday account, buried under an innocuous headline on page 14, "McConnell Recording Is Linked To a PAC."

Recently the Associated Press removed "illegal immigrant" from its style manual while revising its guidelines for using "Islamist," saying it shouldn't be used “as a synonym for Islamic fighters, militants, extremists or radicals, who may or may not be Islamists."  Well, it seems the AP is also a little gun shy with using the term "terrorist" or "terrorism" to describe deadly attacks by radical Islamic groups.

On Sunday, the Supreme Court of Somalia was attacked in an assault that last two hours and cost 35 lives. The Somalian terrorist group Al-Shabab -- which is sympathetic with and has ties to al-Qaeda -- claims responsibility. Yet even as the AP tagged this the “most serious extremist attack on Mogadishu in years,” it failed to use the T-word to describe the attack as a terrorist strike, even though AP reporters Abdi Guled and Jason Straziuso quoted a British Foreign Office travel warning from Friday that forecast that "terrorists [were] in the final stages of planning attacks in Mogadishu."

The media's censoring of the Kermit Gosnell murder trial is appalling.  But why, exactly, are reporters failing to cover the Philadelphia abortionist's trial? Mollie Hemingway of the Patheos blog Get Religion thought she'd ask Washington Post staff writer Sarah Kliff, who responded via Twitter that she isn’t writing about it because she “cover[s] policy for the Washington Post, not local crime."

That, of course, is a patently ludicrous excuse.  In an April 12 blog post, Hemingway aptly noted that local crimes are often used to give context to a larger issue in public policy.  The Trayvon Martin shooting sparked a debate about Stand Your Ground Laws.  The murder of Matthew Shepard launched a debate around hate crimes, and awareness of bigotry against gays.  And as for the most recent case of a local crime story gone national, a day after the Newtown shooting, Kliff penned a piece asking, “What would ‘meaningful action’ on gun control look like?” The bottom line is that the Gosnell trial illustrates just how poorly regulated many inner-city abortion clinics are and how that lack of regulation can allow horror stories like Gosnell to happen.

Friday’s Washington Post is aggressively pushing for the gay Left’s youth agenda, including a front-page Metro section story on a tiny street protest against the local Boy Scout council: “Among the protesters against the Boy Scouts of America’s ban, few have more to risk than a gay Md. teen,” read the headline above a photo. “Honoring his duty, pursuing equality” was the large headline.

The heroic protagonists of the story were Pascal Tessier, a 16-year-old gay activist who wants to be an Eagle Scout, and his gay brother Lucien, 20, who already earned his Eagle. Reporter Theresa Vargas equated the BSA policy with bullying:

As the world mourns the loss of one of the greatest stateswomen of the 20th century, Washington Post London bureau chief Anthony Faiola wrote yesterday that Margaret Thatcher’s death “appears to be opening old wounds.” To do so, however, Faiola selectively picked up anecdotes of left-wing hate-mongering, such as how the UK's leading conservative paper Faiola noted how the UK's Tory-leaning Telegraph newspaper had to close down the comments section about Lady Thatcher’s death due to the depraved vitriol of the nation’s left wing Internet trolls.

Faiola's prime example of how Lady Thatcher's death was dividing Great Britain was the occasional outbreak of leftists punks dancing in the streets in celebration of the former prime minister's death. Included in the story was a photograph from St. George's Square in Glasgow, where it seems only about 15-20 people showed up to figuratively dance on the Iron Lady's grave.

In a 23-paragraph story -- headlined "States move to restrict gun magazines" in the print edition -- stacked heavily in favor of gun control advocates, the Washington Post's Sari Horwitz insulted her readers intelligence with sloppy reporting and baseless claims.

"Experts say limiting size of devices could reduce deaths in mass shootings," insisted the subheadline. But it turns out Horwitz only quoted one such "expert," David Chipman, who happened to be a "senior policy adviser for Mayors Against Illegal Guns." Two paragraphs later, Horwitz noted that "gun rights advocates" like Lawrence Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation dismiss that notion as "speculative at best." So what makes Chipman an expert while the senior vice president of a shooting sports trade group is not, other, that is, than the liberal journalist's biases on gun control?

**UPDATE** As of this posting, Politico reports that a Democratic official told a local Kentucky radio station that Progress Kentucky was responsible for the secret recording of McConnell's campaign office. 

Leave it to the Washington Post to provide a sympathetic puff piece to liberal journalist David Corn’s recent release of secretly-recorded audio attempting to smear a Republican politician. 

Corn, you may recall, published an exclusive in Mother Jones featuring a strategy session for Sen. Mitch McConnell's reelection campaign, where opposition research into potential opponent Ashley Judd was discussed.

NBC Meet the Press host David Gregory reportedly threw quite the tantrum on Tuesday over a charity event held on a street near his home that has temporarily caused a shortage of on-street parking.

The Washington Post's Reliable Source column has the story (emphasis mine):

President Obama’s budget is finally out -- a mere 65 days late -- and it’s loaded with tax increases. 

At yesterday’s press briefing, White House flack-in-chief Jay Carney admitted that middle class tax increases were coming.  But if a tree falls in the woods, does anyone hear it? Major media outlets like the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and sadly even the Wall Street Journal failed to mention this aspect in their coverage of the budget’s unveiling today. Here's the relevant exchange from the April 9 briefing (emphasis mine):

Here’s a good definition of what The Washington Post doesn’t find newsworthy. The big headline on the front page of Monday’s Washington Examiner was “Most on D.C. welfare don’t look for work: 22% of able recipients meet job-search rules.”

A quick Nexis search of The Washington Post finds no attempt to report on this sad fact in the last few weeks. Examiner reporter Eric Newcomer explained:

As if it weren't enough for the Washington Post to cheerlead for Maryland's new stringent gun control law in the editorial pages and in biased news accounts, staff writers Aaron Davis and Paul Schwartzman today rewarded liberal governor and potential 2016 presidential contender Martin O'Malley with a 62-paragraph front-page victory lap headlined "Behind Md.'s tough gun law, a personal push."

"Md. governor driven by one fear: Could Newtown happen here?" insisted the headline on the the jump page. Left virtually unexamined, of course, would be how O'Malley's push for stringent gun control would help him campaign among liberal base voters in the 2016 primaries. No, Davis and Schwartzman painted O'Malley as driven by a purely altruistic desire to spare Maryland parents the pain of burying their children thanks to a mad gunman's rage:

It sounded like 2006 all over again: liberals and leftists plan a rally for illegal immigrants gaining an amnesty, and The Washington Post applies the usual liberal formula of pre-protest buildup: it’s going to be massive! And no one who’s organizing this is a liberal!

If the protests are large – and they were in 2006 – some credit should go to the free advertising the Post gives in advance. In this case, it was a story on the front page of Sunday's Metro section with a color photo. “Activists riding a fresh wave of optimism ahead of immigration rally,” promised the headline:

Here's today's sign the Washington Post is a Democrat rag. This story is on A-4: "Health-care law may backfire for some on Medicaid: Expansion threatens to oust thousands in states with generous programs." This story is on A-1: "Democrats seek infusion of new faces."

Paul Kane's front-pager passed along the DCCC's new strategy of finding "problem solvers" that...don't know how to solve problems yet. The central character is Kevin Strouse, a former Army Ranger with no set positions on the issues. "Immigration? Tax policy? 'Certainly I have a lot of research to do,' Strouse acknowledged" as he announced a House run in Pennsylvania. This is the Tea Party takedown?