TimesWatch

The shooting of a security guard at the D.C. headquarters of the Family Research Council, a social conservative group, by a volunteer for a local gay community center, failed to raise the New York Times's usual politically motivated concerns about harmful and hateful rhetoric it's shown in the past. Most notoriously, the Times repeatedly, falsely, and maliciously suggested that Tucson gunman…

Eduardo Porter's column on the front of Wednesday's Business section of the New York Times explained how "America's Aversion To Taxes" was dooming the country, and urged Americans to be more like the overly regulated, bankrupt financial basket-case Italy, which enjoys confiscatory taxes and "the benefits of public health care," and a "more generous social safety net."

There were some stark contrasts on the campaign trail in Wednesday's New York Times. After Vice President Joe Biden warned a racially mixed south Virginia audience of the Republican ticket: "They're going to put y'all back in chains." A five-paragraph brief on Biden's comments by Rebecca Berg made page A14 Wednesday, including a brief quote of Mitt Romney's counterattack on the Obama camp in…

Maureen Dowd brings her brand of sour sarcasm to bear on Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick Paul Ryan in her Wednesday New York Times column "When Cruelty Is Cute": "Who better to rain misery upon the heads of millions of Americans?" I’d been wondering how long it would take Republicans to realize that Paul Ryan is their guy. He’s the cutest package that cruelty ever came in. He has a…

A Tuesday story from London-based New York Times reporter Alan Cowell on London's successful staging of the 2012 Olympics had this aside blaming last year's riots on societal "greed." The Games took place almost exactly a year after riots and looting spread from London to other British cities, shocking the country with a vision of a society whose greed had produced an underclass fueled by…

In September 2011, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman told CNN's Gloria Borger that Rep. Paul Ryan's Medicare voucher plan "would kill people, no question." As you can imagine, he's not terribly happy about Romney picking Ryan as his running mate. Krugman can't even bear fellow liberals offering grudging praise to Ryan. discussing on a Monday morning blog post "a lamentable but revealing…

Is the Tea Party on the decline or not? Don't ask the New York Times. Political reporter Michael Shear wrote in Monday's paper that "Tea Party Hopes to Gain Larger Stage in Election With Romney's Pick." The text box: "A movement already energized by a string of electoral victories." But in May, a Times reporter wrote that the Tea Party "has lost momentum." Here's Shear: For two years, Tea…

Former New York Times executive editor Bill Keller went after Republicans and the party's "disciplined conservative infrastructure" in his 1,200-word Monday column on Romney's vice presidential pick Paul Ryan – "The Romney Package." Pecking at a multitude of conservative targets, Keller also said Reagan conservative Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork was "attacked (with justification) as a…

Republican Mitt Romney's choice of conservative budget expert Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running mate brought confessions of his likability and intellect from the New York Times over the weekend, but also labeling slant and concern that Ryan's proposals to reform out-of-control entitlement programs are too radical for voters to stomach. By contrast, Obama's 2008 pick of…

New York Times campaign reporter Michael Shear's "Political Memo" on Friday, "The 2012 Cycle: Attack, Feign Outrage, Repeat," was pitched as an even-handed, "pox on both your houses" article on how both political campaigns use phony outrage as a political tool. But Shear launched a dubious defense of Obama's notorious "You didn't build that" gaffe, and understated the offensiveness of a false…

New York Times food writer and reporter Mark Bittman remains unrepentant even after his apology for calling a deceased public relations executive for Chick-fil-A a "pig" for that company's opposition to gay marriage. Bittman forwarded this Twitter message from a follower: "If Chick-Fill-A's VP SUPPORTED same-sex marriage & died, sound of right-wing claims it was God's judgment would've been…

New York Times campaign reporter and Obama cheerleader Jackie Calmes gave President Obama a "humble brag" on Friday while with the president campaigning in the "conservative city" of Colorado Springs, "Obama Drawing Big Crowds but Not Like in '08." The story voiced concern about a lack of enthusiasm for Romney and a reduction in enthusiasm for Obama, but also served as an excuse for nostalgia…

New York Times Atlanta bureau chief Kim Severson on Friday committed her usual labeling bias describing prep work by the host city for the Democratic National Convention in "Charlotte Girds for Party And Array of Protesters." Severson found "radical evangelical groups" composed of "conservative Christians" as well as a "conservative country music concert," but the left-wing Occupy Movement…

On Thursday Jackie Calmes (pictured) and Trip Gabriel, two of the New York Times's more slanted campaign reporters, teamed up to cover Obama's campaign trip to Colorado and Romney's trip to Iowa: "Obama Assails Romney on Women’s Health Care." Covering Obama in Denver, the Times credited the president's popularity among women, while the Romney coverage from Iowa emphasized a controversy in that…