Sarah Wheaton

Van Jones, Obama environmental adviser and "green jobs" czar, resigned late Saturday night, the culmination of days of controversy (ignored by the mainstream media) after the Gateway Pundit blog dug up evidence of Van Jones being a "Truther." He signed a  911Truth.org petition in 2004 questioning whether the Bush administration "may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen." And the New York Times does its first story on the matter -- the day after Van Jones resigned his administration post.

Last month, the New York Times jumped on the conservative fringe of "Birthers" who question Obama's Hawaiian birthplace and thus his presidential eligibility, deriding the conspiracy theory as false and demanding prominent Republicans denounce the idea. Yet the Times maintained strict silence on the Van Jones controversy as it bubbled away for several days in the photosphere, with only the Washington Times and Fox News Channel willing to treat as a news story the fact that an influential member of the Obama administration thinks the government may have let 9-11 happen -- a far more incendiary charge than the question of Obama's birthplace.

The New York Times published a story about a fundraiser that John McCain cancelled. They published the following pushback from the campaign:

“These were obviously incredibly offensive remarks that the campaign was unaware of at the time it was scheduled,” said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign. “It’s positive that he did apologize at the time, but the comments are nonetheless offensive.”

However, when The Hill and the Washington Post published the story, they published pushback from the RNC that included information about one of Barack Obama's fundraisers, Jodie Evans:

“While Obama and Democrats launch attacks on Republicans, their silence concerning fundraisers like [Code Pink co-founder] Jodie Evans and Jim Johnson is deafening,” said RNC spokesman Alex Conant. “Obama’s hypocritical attacks undermine everything his campaign is supposed to be about.”

Note that Evans advocated working with Saddam Hussein as human shields in 2002 and 2003, thereby deliberately undermining US foreign policy. Williams Clayton has apologized, while Evans never has.

Why did the NYT feel that this was an appropriate story to (1) publish in the paper, but (2) not use the same response as other papers that pointed out that Obama had even more questionable links?

 

New York Times reporters Michael Powell and Sarah Wheaton devoted an entire story to making fun of a Republican in Tuesday's "Romney Waxes Lyrical at a Holiday Parade in Florida."

"Mitt Romney, whose 1950s manner and celebratory drink of choice call to mind a milkshake man more than a rap singer, gave a shout out Monday that left no doubt that he had spent little time listening to hip-hop.

"Mr. Romney, the Republican candidate from Massachusetts by way of Michigan and Utah who enjoys a milkshake at the end of a long day, stopped by a staging area for a Martin Luther King Birthday parade here. In his dress shirt and tie, and with his unwavering smile, he walked over and posed for photographs with a group of black youngsters. Putting his arm around a teenage girl, he waved to the cameras and offered, 'Who let the dogs out?' He added a tepid 'woof woof.'