Monica Davey

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.

A Monday New York Times story by Monica Davey, “After Months of Rancor, 2 Governors Alter Tones,” portrayed two first term Republican governors in the Midwest as on the defensive, even though both have emerged relatively unscathed in the face of fierce liberal opposition. Davey focused mostly on Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, though  Gov. John Kasich of Ohio also featured. Davey put the onus on the Republicans to kiss and make up to their Democratic and union opponents, or at least "show, at least publicly, a desire to play well with others."

Earlier this summer, the Midwest-based Davey co-wrote a hostile story on how fiscal conservatism was hurting Indiana, led by Republican governor and then-presidential hopeful Mitch Daniels. Davey also coauthored a story in March 2011 on the aftermath of Gov. Walker’s win in Wisconsin over the unions, portraying the unions’ defeat as a political victory: “In Wisconsin Battle on Unions, State Democrats See a Big Gift.” (It didn’t turn out that way.)

“Fiscal conservatism, in other words, comes with its own costs.” That sums up the lead story in Thursday’s National section by Michael Powell and Midwest bureau chief Monica Davey from Indianapolis, “The Indiana Exception? Yes, but...A State Averts the Worst of the Recession, But Its Success Comes at a Steep Social Cost.”

It’s a major story, packed with statistics and charts and interviews, clocking in at 2,500 words, which suggests the idea to bring Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels down a peg was being bandied about back when the governor seemed about to enter the Republican presidential race (he declined on May 22, citing family concerns).

Gov. Mitch Daniels sits in his grand cave of a Renaissance Revival office and reviews Indiana’s economic fortunes, his self-effacing manner not entirely disguising satisfaction. The state’s pension funds are relatively healthy, the unemployment rate is dropping slowly and per capita income is ticking up, slowly.

The New York Times over the weekend was still insisting the defeat of public-sector unions in Wisconsin actually heralds the revival of the Democratic Party.

Saturday’s “Political Memo” teamed tea-party beat reporter Kate Zernike (pictured below) with Monica Davey for "Democrats See Wisconsin Loss As Galvanizing." It came on the heels of Friday’s pro-union coverage, including "In Wisconsin Battle on Unions, State Democrats See a Big Gift."

Even as the Republican governor of Wisconsin was signing a bill Friday that all but ended collective bargaining for state employees, Democrats nationally had put out advertisements and letters to use his own success against him.

In a push to raise money for their candidates, Democrats hope Wisconsin will be for them what the health care overhaul was for Republicans in last year’s midterm elections: a galvanizing force for their base, and an example of overreaching that will win them crucial independent voters, not just in Wisconsin but also in Congressional races and the presidential election next year.

That’s not exactly how the Times covered the passage of Obama-care. Adam Nagourney’s front-page “political memo” of March 23, 2010, “For G.O.P., United Stand Has Drawbacks, Too,” strongly suggested Republicans could pay a political price for opposing Obama-care. (Oops.)

Friday’s New York Times off-lead story from Madison by Monica Davey and A.G. Sulzberger, in the aftermath of a defeat for public-sector unions in Wisconsin, spun the win by Republican Gov. Scott Walker as a long-term political victory for Democrats: “Wisconsin Curbs Public Unions, But Democrats Predict Backlash.” The online headline was even more blunt: “In Wisconsin Battle on Unions, State Democrats See a Big Gift.” Walker has evidently awoken “the sleeping giant” of labor unions (as if they had previously stayed out of politics).

By contrast, there was no such wishful thinking or hunt for the bright side for the losers in the aftermath of the fiercely contested passage of unpopular Obama-care last year. Adam Nagourney’s front-page “political memo” of March 23, 2010, “For G.O.P., United Stand Has Drawbacks, Too,” suggested Republicans could pay a political price for opposing Obama-care. (It didn’t quite work out that way.)

One day after the New York Times hailed a grand total of four protesters of immigration enforcement, another tiny left-wing protest of “dozens” against Arizona’s new immigration law made The New York Times on Friday -- outside a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley Field. Reporters Monica Davey and Michael S. Schmidt never used a liberal label for the protesters, even as they cited organizer Leone Jose Bicchieri, who’s hailed in one biography as a “Witness for Peace” when Marxist-Leninists ran Nicaragua in the 1980s. The leftists even called a black man a racist for opposing them:

At one point, a fan, carrying his own bullhorn and two large American flags, got into a screaming match with protesters as he declared that he was "standing with America's favorite pastime" and urged the crowd not to boycott Arizona at all. The protesters chanted at the man, who was African-American, "Racist, go home!"

Davey and Schmidt also relayed: “Outside Wrigley, Connie Andersen, dressed in Cubs gear, said of the Arizona law, ‘This is a speedy path to Nazi Germany fascism.’”

Where's the party (identification)?

On Thursday, Chicago-based New York Times reporter Monica Davey reported on more controversy over Rod Blagojevich, the corrupt former Democratic governor of Illinois who tried to sell off the state's U.S. Senate seat that was left empty after Sen. Barack Obama assumed the presidency. In "Top Blagojevich Aide Pleads Guilty to Fraud," Davey managed to totally ignore Blagojevich's Democratic affiliation -- the word "Democrat" was nowhere to be found.

Turn the page, and one could read John Schwartz's story about the latest wrinkle in the bribery and corruption case of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman. But in this case, Schwartz made the partisan lines clear, quickly identifying convicted governor Siegelman as a Democrat and his prosecutor as a Republican, heightening the contrast and reinforcing the paper's long-standing, unfounded suspicions of a high-level anti-Siegelman conspiracy on the part of the GOP.

A Department of Justice whistle-blower who accused prosecutors of misconduct in the closely watched federal corruption trial of former Gov. Donald E. Siegelman of Alabama has been fired, and claims retaliation is the reason. The government denies that it was retaliating.

The whistle-blower, Tamarah T. Grimes, worked as a legal aide with the team prosecuting Mr. Siegelman and Richard M. Scrushy, the former chairman of HealthSouth, on bribery and corruption charges.

Both men were convicted in 2006 in a case that Mr. Siegelman, a Democrat, and supporters say was politically motivated.