New York

The national media love to appear deeply cynical about politicians and their phoniness. But not when it comes to Barack Obama and "gay marriage." Obama campaigned in 2008 by publicly opposing it, and yet no one in the media condemned him like he was one of those troglodyte social conservatives -- because no one believed he was sincere. Now Obama is signaling to the gay Left that he's really in favor of "gay marriage," but few in the media are noticing.

ABC's The Note reported on Tuesday that President Obama sent a letter of congratulations to two men who were legally married in New York, but there's been no reporting on this story on the network airwaves or in the nation's leading newspapers:

Turns out there’s one union the New York Times is not totally enamored with: The Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, New York City’s largest police union. Saturday’s front page featured a hostile anti-police story by N.R. Kleinfield and John Eligon related to charges of wide-spread ticket-fixing, “Officers Unleash Vitriol as Peers Are Charged in Ticket-Fixing.”

 

The reporters didn't seem all that concerned about presumption of innocence, either:

Sam Roberts, who also hosts the New York Times’s weekly political podcast “The Caucus,” had a left-wing take on a study on income disparity in Wednesday’s edition suggesting it justified the left-wing Occupy Wall Street Protest: “As the Data Show, There’s a Reason the Protesters Chose New York.” Included was a graphic on “The New Gilded Age,” with an income disparity chart sourced from the left-leaning Urban Institute and Brookings Institution.

Reporter Robert Pear also bought into class warfare in Wednesday’s paper: “It’s Official: The Rich Get Richer,” keyed to a Congressional Budget Office report showing “The top 1 percent of earners more than doubled their share of the nation’s income over the last three decades.” Alongside was a photo of a protester sympathizing with the Occupy Wall Street sit-in by holding an “I Am 99%” sign, with a photo caption concluding hopefully: “A new report may spur the protests.”

New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter was in St. Petersburg, Fla., but that didn’t stop him from marking his media colleague’s burgeoning coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement for Thursday’s “A News Story Is Growing With ‘Occupy’ Protests.” Stelter hyped the increasing media coverage that the lefty aggregation “Occupy Wall Street” has been granted as it spreads to other cities, including in Florida.

But Stelter wasn’t nearly so accomodating to the conservative Tea Party when it first broke through in early 2009.

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman’s Tuesday morning blog post no doubt left his hordes of leftist fans bereft: “Why I’m Not In Zuccotti Park.” That’s the space in Lower Manhattan that’s been occupied by the loose affiliation of leftist Wall Street protesters for four weeks running. The brief item in full:

The left-wing, anti-capitalist Occupy Wall Street camp-out in Lower Manhattan stretched into its third week, bolstered by an influx of labor unions. The story made the front of Thursday’s New York Times along with a large photo of protestors in Foley Square, “Seeking Energy, Unions Join Wall Street Protest.”

It’s a far cry from the paper’s coverage of the first major Tea Party rally in Manhattan. The paper’s hostile reporting of the nationwide Tea Party rallies on April 15, 2009 (Tax Day) virtually ignored a supportive crowd of thousands, citing in a single sentence an Associated Press report on Newt Gingrich speaking at the Manhattan rally. The report made Page 16.

In Tuesday’s “Anti-Wall Street Protests Spreading to Cities Large and Small,” New York Times reporters Erik Eckholm and Timothy Williams bolster the “populist” left-wing activists protesting against greedy bankers (among other items of the standard left-wing wish list) in Lower Manhattan.

While the Times’s coverage of conservative Tea Party rallies pointed out the most extreme and “fringe” elements present, the paper has thus far eschewed labels like "far-left" or even "liberal," and ignored the cadre of Communists and offensive posters decrying “Nazi bankers” in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan.

Occupy Wall Street, the floating leftist protest in Manhattan that’s camped out in downtown Manhattan in an endless protest against...something, attempted to migrate to Brooklyn this weekend, blocking vehicle traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge and resulting in mass arrests.

The New York Times, whose attitude toward Tea Party rallies was invariably hostile, blasted support throughout the weekend for the vague leftist “occupation” of Wall Street and the Brooklyn Bridge. Sunday’s National section picked up on the arrests: “About 500 Arrested as Demonstrators Try to Cross Brooklyn Bridge” by Al Baker and Colin Moynihan, with additional reporting by Natasha Lennard and William Rashbaum (Lennard will play a role later).

 On Sunday’s World News, ABC correspondent T.J. Winick filed a report in which he presented same-sex marriage as a way to stimulate the ailing economy - potentially of the entire nation - by getting lots of new married couples to spend money on weddings.   Winick also featured a soundbite of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg criticizing Republicans for opposing same-sex marriage.

And, as Christiane Amanpour appeared on the same day’s Good Morning America to plug her interview with Bloomberg on This Week, she showed a similar soundbite after GMA co-host Bianna Golodryga brought up Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann’s views on homosexuality.

On World News, after anchor David Muir introduced the report by referring to the legalization of same-sex marriage in New York state as a "money maker," correspondent Winick soon elaborated:

 As Sunday’s CBS Evening News recounted the day of marriage ceremonies for gay couples in New York state, where same-sex marriage has just been legalized, correspondent Jim Axelrod spent much of his report focusing on all the marriage benefits couples will not enjoy because the federal government does not recognize such unions. But he also found a consequence for some couples who may lose domestic partner benefits from their employers who are now planning to cut back such benefits and pressure couples to get married to qualify.

As expected, New York Times coverage of the law passed late Friday night allowing gay marraige in New York State was heavily favorable. Sunday’s front page New York Times story provided the tick-tock on how New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo marshaled support to pass gay marriage in the Republican-controlled New York State Senate in part by convincing “super-rich Republican donors” to support him, in Michael Barbaro’s “Behind Gay Marriage, an Unlikely Mix of Forces.” It included this odd anecdote about a Democratic state senator and holdout against history:

 

Nobody ever expected Carl Kruger to vote yes.

When it comes to gay issues, the New York Times more and more plays to its urban liberal readership, often tossing away the concept of journalism completely in favor of issuing frothy anecdotes of personal encouragement, like Shaila Dewan’s unjournalistic celebration in Monday’s Metro section of the possible imminent legalization of gay marriage in New York State, “Awaiting a Big Day, and Recalling One in New Paltz – As a Decision on Same-Sex Marriage Nears, Couples Take Pride in a Moment in 2004.”

Jay Blotcher and Brook Garrett are as married as two men can be.

On their dining room table, they have laid out the proof: a New York City certificate of domestic partnership from April 2000, a Vermont certificate of civil union from October 2000, an actual marriage license from California in 2008 and -- perhaps the sentimental favorite, if legally the most anemic -- an affidavit of marriage from that euphoric moment in 2004 when nearby New Paltz, N.Y., became the center of the gay marriage movement.

“Euphoric” for whom? For the couples, yes, but evidently for Times reporters as well.

On Monday, New York Times reporter Raymond Hernandez profiled Democrat Kathy Hochul, the winner of the recent special congressional election to fill a seat from a Republican district in New York state, in "Her Inheritance: An Eagerness to Serve."

Praising the Democrat in personal terms the Times rarely if ever uses when discussing a local Republican like New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Hernandez hit every Lincolnesque cliche in the "devout Roman Catholic" Hochul’s humble family background, which he painted as a challenge overcome by the candidate.

A few months before Kathy Hochul was born, her family was living in a 31-by-8-foot trailer not far from the hulking Bethlehem Steel plant near Buffalo. When things got a little better, they moved to the second-floor flat of a home in working-class Woodlawn.

The New York Times provided big play to Tuesday’s special congressional election to fill New York's 26th congressional district near Buffalo, a race in which Democrat Kathy Hochul upset Republican Jane Corwin. Reporter Raymond Hernandez was quick to assume this one special race spells bad news for Republican plans to reform Medicare, and their prospects in the national elections 18 months away. But how does the Times typically react when Republicans win special and off-year elections?

The stack of headlines to Wednesday’s off-lead story by the conservative-hostile Hernandez set the tone: "Gaining Upset, Democrat Wins New York Seat -- Blow to National G.O.P. -- Victor in House Contest Fought a Republican Plan on Medicare."

Democrats scored an upset in one of New York’s most conservative Congressional districts on Tuesday, dealing a blow to the national Republican Party in a race that largely turned on the party’s plan to overhaul Medicare.

The results set off elation among Democrats and soul-searching among Republicans, who questioned whether they should rethink their party’s commitment to the Medicare plan, which appears to have become a liability heading into the 2012 elections.

The New York Times vs. state spending cuts, take three. After the New York State legislature passed a $132.5 billion budget under new Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo that cuts overall spending by two percent, Albany-based reporter Thomas Kaplan went looking for budget victims for Friday’s “After an On-Time Passage of a Pared-Back Budget, Bracing for the Pain to Come.”

Not once did the Times forward an elementary piece of information -- the state’s $10 billion deficit. The word “deficit” did not appear in the story, although the emotionally laded word “pain” appeared three times, including in the headline. One had to look to local coverage for that basic piece of fiscal information. Instead, Kaplan went around soliciting sob stories, from school teachers, to prison guards, to NYC Mayor Bloomberg.

One of the largest Muslim organizations in North America is considering plans to build a summer camp on 114 acres of land in the Adirondacks.  Via the Albany Times Union: 

“The Islamic Circle of North America, a Muslim advocacy group based in New York City, hopes to raise money to develop a camp for children and families of all religions on land donated to it last year.”

The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), based in Queens, New York, is not devoid of controversy in a history that spans over 40 years, yet there is scant mention of these controversies by the media.  The Times Union article states that, “U.S. law enforcement agencies have investigated, but never prosecuted, ICNA for terrorist connections.”  And there is coverage of a fundraiser involving speakers having made anti-American statements in the past, which is quickly justified by saying, “the meeting raised money for homeless women.”

But the ICNA has so much more to offer in the way of newsworthiness, including an event involving radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, as well as a link to the presently relevant Muslim Brotherhood.

Observe…

New York Times reporter Michael Barbaro hyped up on Tuesday the less-than-earth-shattering news that Barbara Bush, one of President George W. Bush’s twin daughters, has made a video in support of gay marriage: “Daughter Of Bush Endorses Gay Marriages.”

Barbaro managed to compare the video Bush made for a gay rights group to such “weighty issues” as the Iraq War:

The Bush dynasty is no stranger to generational conflict: father and son differed over deposing Saddam Hussein, raising taxes and the role of the United Nations.

Now it is father and daughter who find themselves at odds over a weighty issue.

Not content with casting doubt on charges made by New York City Councilman Daniel Halloran, Republican of Queens, of a union-authorized work slowdown during the infamous blizzard that hit Manhattan the day after Christmas, New York Times reporters Russ Buettner and William Rashbaum dove into his personal finances to discredit him in Wednesday’s “Evidence Is Elusive on Charge Of a Blizzard Work Slowdown.”

Given the importance the Times evidently places on the financial situation of the wives of its subjects, one wonders about the paper's casual attitude when one of its own economics reporters, Edmund Andrews, wrote “Busted,” a May 2009 book about his own personal mortgage crisis that denounced greedy banks, yet left out his wife's previous two bankruptcies.

The story rocketed around New York City when streets went uncleared after the Dec. 26 blizzard: Sanitation workers, angry about job reductions, had deliberately staged a work slowdown.

It resulted in wisecracks on “Saturday Night Live,” fiery denunciations of unions on cable news and four criminal investigations.

And it occurred because one man, Councilman Daniel J. Halloran, Republican of Queens, said five city workers had come to his office during the storm and told him they had been explicitly ordered to take part in a slowdown to embarrass Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg.

To the national establishment press, this appears to be another one of those "It's at the Politico, so we can ignore it" incidents.

Thursday night, before a debate with GOP opponent George Phillips, nine-term New York Democratic Congressman Maurice Hinchey "had a heated exchange with a local reporter ... that became physical." Quite physical, in fact, to the point where Hinchey "pushed ... (the reporter) backwards into Phillips himself."

Seems like pretty big news, doesn't it? Not based on the results of a Google News search on "Hinchey debate" (not in quotes) done at 8:30 this morning:

Well fancy that: The New York Times has learned what Times Watch has been pointing out for weeks: Not even New Yorkers want a large mosque built two blocks from the site of the 9-11 terrorist attacks.

New York City residents were previously praised by Times reporters like Sheryl Gay Stolberg as better informed and thus more tolerant of the idea of a mosque at Ground Zero than ignorant outsiders.

But a New York Times poll conducted last week showed that New Yorkers don't like the idea of building a mosque near the site of the 9-11 terrorist attacks anymore than the rest of the country. In fact, New York City residents (that includes Manhattan and the outer boroughs) oppose it by a 50%-35% margin. Yes, the nationwide opposition to the construction, twice declaimed as a "nativist impulse" by the paper's main political writer Matt Bai, has infected even the tolerant, sophisticated liberals of Manhattan.

Building its story around the poll, reporters Michael Barbaro and Marjorie Connelly reported on last Friday's front page: "New Yorkers Divided Over Islamic Center, Poll Finds." (Actually New Yorkers are more than merely divided but are mostly opposed to the mosque being built near Ground Zero.)

Two-thirds of New York City residents want a planned Muslim community center and mosque to be relocated to a less controversial site farther away from ground zero in Lower Manhattan, including many who describe themselves as supporters of the project, according to a New York Times poll.

On Thursday's Countdown show, MSNBC host Keith Olbermann tied together Republican opposition to same-sex marriage, the Ground Zero mosque, and illegal immigration, as he charged that "the Republican method" for electoral success is "hate." The MSNBC host opened the show: "The Republican method for winning elections is hate. Hate somebody. Anybody will do. We have seen it this year with immigrants and now, Muslims. And now, in our fifth story tonight: for the first time, we have a former head of the Republican party confirming that, yes, his party does it. They do it to win and did it in 2004 and 2006 against gay Americans. He said this even though he himself is no longer denying that he, too, is gay."

Without evidence, Olbermann also blamed the stabbing of New York City cab driver Ahmed Sharif on those who oppose construction of a mosque near Ground Zero. Although he later admitted that the mosque was not mentioned by the suspect, the MSNBC host suggested a link as he teased the show:

The New York Times offered still more moral support for the controversial Ground Zero mosque on Sunday's front-page profile by Anne Barnard of the man behind the building project, imam Feisal Abdul Rauf -- "For Imam in Muslim Center Furor, a Hard Balancing Act." Among the contributors to the report: Thanassis Cambanis and Mona El-Naggar in Cairo, and Kareem Fahim, Sharaf Mowjood and Jack Begg in New York.

Mowjood? As Alana Goodman of the Business and Media Institute reported earlier this month, Sharaf Mowjood is a former lobbyist for the Council on American Islamic Relations, an interest group that strongly supports the mosque. Mowjood coauthored a glowing Dec. 9, 2009 article on the mosque with reporter Ralph Blumenthal and also contributed to a sympathetic story by Barnard August 11 about public relations missteps by the mosque sponsors.

Barnard began with an anecdote about a Rauf lecture in Cairo where the imam (with a voice the Times describes as "soft, almost New Agey") was accused by radical Islamists of being an American agent (a story which of course bolsters Rauf's moderate credentials). Barnard seemingly took it as her mission to rebut charges of extremism against Rauf.

In his absence -- he is now on another Middle East speaking tour sponsored by the State Department -- a host of allegations have been floated: that he supports terrorism; that his father, who worked at the behest of the Egyptian government, was a militant; that his publicly expressed views mask stealth extremism. Some charges, the available record suggests, are unsupported. Some are simplifications of his ideas. In any case, calling him a jihadist appears even less credible than calling him a United States agent.

Yesterday Eyeblast.tv went up to New York City to interview people about the proposed Ground Zero mosque. While there, we were able to interview a security guard outside of the mosque location who said he was a long-time friend and follower of the Ground Zero imam.

For more information about the ground zero mosque and the Ground Zero imam visit this post at the Eyeblast blog.