A round-up of New York Times post-election bias:
Thursday's Times ran a special four-page analysis of the election results from all 50 states. There were seven mentions of “conservative” Republicans, a surprising six mentions of conservative Democrats, two mentions of fiscally conservative Democrats, and six mentions of conservative or right-wing locations, including two states, Utah and Wyoming, which had both shifted “even further to the right.” There were four additional uses of the “conservative” label within the 50-state rundown, for a total of 25 “conservative” or “right” labels.
In contrast, only one politician, Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, was labeled a “liberal” in the entire section, skipping over likely names like Jerry Brown in California and Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania, who were merely labeled Democrats. The Wisconsin entry provided three of the section’s grand total of four left-of-center labels. Yet even there a euphemism was used, as Wisconsin was called a “historically progressive state.” California was also called “a liberal state,” if only to demonstrate why it rejected Senate candidate Carly Fiorina’s “staunchly conservative, anti-abortion, pro-oil-drilling message.”
Also: A TimesCast clip Wednesday morning featured reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg ignoring the unpopularity of Obama-care that helped drive the big GOP win, implausibly arguing that Republican attempts to repeal the legislation would be seen as “gridlock” and thus be unpopular with voters.
Stolberg: Republicans could face some complications as well. You know, President Obama still has the veto power and he can overrule any attempt to undo his health care bill. One big question is whether Republicans will try to hack away at the bill by gumming up the works through the appropriations process and stopping its provisions from going into effect. That could result in Washington gridlock, which is exactly what the voters don’t want.
The idea that people voted against “gridlock” yesterday is undermined by the fact that the Democrats lost in part because Obama has overseen unpopular legislation like big-government health care “reform.” If anything, many were voting for "retroactive gridlock" -- the repeal of Obama-care.
Lastly, there was some unbecoming post-election bitterness is taking hold in hip liberal enclaves, including the Times’s attempt at hipness, the Thursday Styles section. Henry Alford’s weekly “Crib Sheet,” subtitled “The 10 Things To Talk About This Weekend,” is usually too glib and lightweight to bother criticizing, but this week four of his 10 entries had an anti-Republican punch line. Here are two:
2. John Boehner cries. He’s not the only one. (The print edition makes the joke less partisan: “John Boehner cries. His shirt is stained orange.”)
7. Pranksters hijack Sarah Palin’s and Glenn Beck’s Facebook pages. The giveaway was all the correct grammar.
You can read the full version of these articles at Times Watch.
