TimesWatch

The front of Thursday's New York Times Home section (!) features a large story targeting Mitt Romney that makes the paper's notorious front-page investigation into Ann Romney's troubling horse habit look as significant as Watergate by comparison. Political reporter Michael Barbaro invaded the Home section and devoted a staggering 1,800-word investigation to the fact that Romney's liberal…

Wisconsin's reforming Republican Gov. Scott Walker easily turned back a recall attempt by labor activists angry at him for ending collective bargaining for public service unions. But the New York Times, pushing its own agenda, would prefer the story to be about the "stunning amount" of money in politics. The Times and other media have obsessed over the big spending by Walker supporters, which…

Republican House Speaker John Boehner strongly objected to a slanted story on the Fast and Furious scandal by Times legal reporter Charlie Savage posted at the New York Times on Tuesday (it evidently did not make it into print). The Daily Caller reported: "A spokesman for Speaker of the House John Boehner told The Daily Caller on Tuesday night that the New York Times published a false story…

Another day, another vitriolic attack from New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd on the Catholic Church comparing its treatment of women to Saudi Arabia. The Vatican has recently censured a 2006 book on sexual ethics by Sister Margaret Farley as “not consistent with authentic Catholic theology." According to a Times report Tuesday, the book, Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, "…

While confessing Democrats and unions were dealt a "painful blow" Tuesday night as Republican Gov. Scott Walker handily beat Democratic challenger Tom Barrett in the Wisconsin recall election, Wednesday's lead story by Monica Davey and Jeff Zeleny opened with the liberal argument that Walker was to blame for undermining the "civility" of the state's progressive politics by engaging in his…

Al Sharpton, the veteran Democratic activist and racial provocateur who hosts "PoliticsNation" on MSNBC, reviewed a James Brown biography for the New York Times Sunday Book Review and was interviewed in the Reviews' "Up Front" section. Sharpton credited the biography by RJ Smith for placing Brown in the context of the civil rights movement. But why would the Times consider Sharpton qualified to…

So much for libertine Manhattan. White House reporter turned liberal columnist Frank Bruni supports New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg's overbearing initiative to downsize the sodas New Yorkers will be allowed to purchase in restaurants and movie theaters, in the name of fighting obesity: "Trimming a Fat City." While Michelle Obama focused on carrots, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg brandished a stick…

Pity President Obama, it's not his fault; after over three years in office, he is still helpless as a newborn when it comes to changing the economy for the better. Sympathetic New York Times White House reporter Jackie Calmes teamed with Nicholas Kulish for Sunday's "Weak Economy Points To Obama’s Constraints." The bleak jobs report on Friday predictably had heads snapping toward the White…

A Thursday Politico story by Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen struck a nerve among liberal journalists by daring to suggest conservatives have a point when it comes to charges of media bias, singling out slanted coverage in the New York Times and the Washington Post: On the front page of its Sunday edition, the New York Times gave a big spread to Ann Romney spending lots of time and tons of money…

The New York Times is transparently invested in promoting J Street, the left-wing lobbying group of Palestinian-supporting Jewish doves, as an influential counterweight to the more hawkish American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), as proven by its latest public relations article on behalf of the group: "Lobbying Group Is Being Heard as Moderate Voice on Israel." According to the paper…

New York Times reporter Ashley Parker was in Las Vegas and made controversy Wednesday over Mitt Romney's appearance at a fundraiser with media mogul and political controversialist Donald Trump. Parker used Trump's "birther" beliefs as an excuse to dredge up old Romney flubs: "Romney, on His Big Day, Finds Himself Upstaged." It was supposed to be a day of triumph for Mitt Romney, when he would…

Peter Applebome, New York Times reporter and writer of the paper's"Our Towns" column, talked with residents of Chappaqua, New York pondering if they will be lucky enough to have Bill and Hillary Clinton as "‘Great Neighbors,’ but for How Long?" (Applebome also lives in Chappaqua, according to his New York Times bio.) It's an extremely homey, gushing story about two Democratic politicians,…

The Sunday New York Times devoted a 2,300-word front-page story by Trip Gabriel helpfully reminding everyone that the Romneys are really really rich. The ostensible subject of the pointless piece, "In Rarefied Sport, a View of the Romneys’ World," was Ann Romney's participation in "dressage," "in which horses costing up to seven figures execute pirouettes and other dancelike moves for riders…

The latest Times Sunday Magazine featured a 5,000-word story keyed to the Wisconsin recall election pitting Republican Gov. Scott Walker against Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett, who Walker beat in the actual election in 2010. Contributor Dan Kaufman proposed to explain how Wisconsin politics got so rancorous: "Land of Cheese and Rancor – How did Wisconsin get to be the most politically divisive…