Adam Nossiter

Southern-based New York Times reporter Adam Nossiter once again went hunting around for racially charged quotes from Alabamans, and bagged his limit, in Tuesday's front-page story from Vernon, Ala, "For South, a Waning Hold on National Politics."

Nossiter argued, with no doubt a little glee, that the South's rejection of Obama spelled the region's political marginalization for years to come:

Fear of the politician with the unusual name and look did not end with last Tuesday's vote in this rural red swatch where buck heads and rifles hang on the wall. This corner of the Deep South still resonates with negative feelings about the race of President-elect Barack Obama.

New York Times Southern-based reporter Adam Nossiter relayed a disturbing story about racism and anti-Semitism in a House primary in Memphis, "Race Takes Central Role in a Memphis Primary." But which party's primary? That's the one thing missing from Nossiter's Thursday piece -- the word "Democrat."

In the culmination of a racially fraught Congressional campaign in Memphis, a black candidate is linking her liberal-leaning white primary opponent in Thursday's contest, Representative Steve Cohen, to the Ku Klux Klan in a television advertisement.

Mr. Cohen's campaign said it was an unusually direct effort to inject race into the contest.

Some muckraker: New York Times's Southern-based reporter Adam Nossiter defended possible corruption among Alabama Democrats in Sunday's "Fear, Paranoia and, Yes, Some Loathing in Alabama's Hallowed Halls."

Can you feel the drama?

There is fear in the halls of the Alabama State House. Your colleague may be wired. Somebody may be watching you. An indictment looms.

After a dozen legislators received subpoenas one day last month in a criminal investigation, an atmosphere of paranoia and anxiety has descended on the gleaming white building that houses the State Legislature, many of its occupants say.

Legislators are sweeping their offices for bugs. Routine horse-trading for votes is stymied, for fear it could be misinterpreted. A wary lawmaker agrees to meet a reporter only in a wide-open parking lot. After-hours get-togethers are off.

Congratulations, Bobby Jindal, on winning the governorship of Louisiana. Now if only you stood any chance of your constituents liking you, much less you getting anything done as governor. At least that's the highly pessimistic message readers of the October 21 New York Times received courtesy of reporter Adam Nossiter.

It's safe to say Nossiter, reporting from New Orleans, didn't exactly spend his "Louisiana Saturday Night" by dancing "in the kitchen 'til the morning light" over Jindal's victory (emphases mine):

The ascendancy of the Brown- and Oxford-educated Mr. Jindal, an unabashed policy wonk who has produced a stream of multipoint plans, is likely to be regarded as a racial breakthrough of sorts in this once-segregated state. Still, it is one with qualifiers attached.