Peter Baker

Obama the centrist? That’s the takeaway from New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny’s Sunday “news analysis,” “President Adopts a Measured Course to Recapture the Middle.” The original online headline was even more misleading: “President Obama Adopts Centrist Approach.” President Obama opened the week by calling on Democrats to embrace his re-election campaign. He closed it by praising…

It’s quite remarkable to think about and unfortunately it is true. Throughout the 2009 stimulus debate early in his term, President Barack Obama and other Democrats argue it was time to put America to work with the aid of the government and so-called “shovel-ready jobs.” But in a startling admission in an interview with The New York Times’ White House correspondent Peter Baker, Obama said “…

Do Republican presidents really pick "strong conservatives" for Supreme Court nominations, while Democrats are reduced to picking moderates who end up disappointing true liberals? Clinton's 1993 liberal nominee, former ACLU lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg, would seem to rebut that view, as would George H.W. Bush's 1990 selection of David Souter, who moved to the left upon appointment to the dismay of…

Sam Roberts, host of the weekly "Political Points" podcast at nytimes.com, and White House correspondent Peter Baker had an exchange about Karl Rove’s new book “Courage and Consequence,” about six minutes from the end of Thursday’s edition of “Political Points." Roberts parroted the conventional liberal wisdom about the Bush administration's failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,…

A rather shocking thing happened on "Face the Nation" Sunday: CBS News's chief legal correspondent said Sen. Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) racist remarks about presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008 will harm Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections.Quite contrary to how ABC's George Stephanopoulos gave cover to the Senate Majority Leader by declaring his comments were supposed to be private, "…

An upcoming book, “The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr," deals with Ken Starr's investigation of the Clinton scandals of Whitewater and lying under oath about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Politico got an early copy of the February 16 release by law professor Ken Gormley, and broke out some of the juiciest bits Thursday evening. The headline: “Monica’s Back -- Says Clinton Lied.”…

New York Times reporter Peter Baker questioned whether President Obama’s soaring rhetoric ("the most gifted orator of his generation") was still getting through in his Sunday Week in Review piece "The Words That Once Soared," and even let Obama aides suggest the president's Cairo speech "was responsible for Iranians taking to the streets of Tehran to protest a disputed election."As the most…

Those who read the New York Times's coverage of the unsuccessful results of Barack and Michelle Obama's attempt to seal the 2016 Summer Olympics bid for Chicago on Friday afternoon ('For Obama, an Unsuccessful Campaign") might want to read it again. If it doesn't seem the same, it's because it isn't. Blogger Weasel Zippers (HT Hot Air Headlines via Instapundit) caught the Times committing a…

On Saturday Barack Obama visited the West African nation of Ghana, held up as a standard of good government (by regional standards) and delivered a "tough love" speech to the entire continent.Doing his part, New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker delivered a laudatory story: "Obama Delivers Call for Change to a Rapt Africa." (Baker was chided by Slate's "Today's Papers" columnist…

Judge Sonia Sotomayor and Judge Clarence Thomas both had compelling life stories when they were nominated for the Supreme Court. But only Sotomayor's story has been celebrated that way by the New York Times. Sotomayor's rise from a housing project in the East Bronx to Supreme Court nominee was "a compelling life story" in Thursday's lead article by Peter Baker and Adam Nagourney. And Scott Shane…

Wednesday's New York Times led with Obama's choice of Sonia Sotomayor as his Supreme Court nominee -- "Obama Chooses Hispanic Judge for Supreme Court Seat," by Peter Baker and Jeff Zeleny. Baker and Zeleny never directly acknowledged Sotomayor's liberal outlook, although there is enough in her judicial record (and her own words) to indicate her ideology.President Obama announced Tuesday that he…

President Obama delivered the commencement address at Notre Dame on Sunday, amid protests that the nation's preeminent Catholic college shouldn't be honoring a pro-choice president who even supports the gruesome procedure of partial-birth abortion.Monday's front-page New York Times story, "At Notre Dame, Obama Calls for Civil Tone in Abortion Debate," by Peter Baker and Susan Saulny, began by…

Did the NYT bury reporter Peter Baker's story on a memo written by Obama's own national intelligence director, suggesting that harsh interrogation methods had proved effective in understanding Al Qaeda? Washington Examiner journalist Byron York has his suspicions.From Baker's 850-word online story, "Banned Techniques Yielded 'High Value Information,' Memo Says, " which has rocketed across the…