Peter Baker

Surprising news that President Obama would normalize relations with Cuba by establishing full diplomatic relations while easing restrictions excited reporters and editorial writers at the New York Times, who saw the demise of the "dinosaurs" and "aging...hard-liners" who opposed liberalizing ties to the authoritarian Cuban government.

The New York Times saw grim tidings for Democrats in the congressional elections, but over the weekend, one could spot the paper subtly separating President Barack Obama from the travails of his party. And one headline should make the Hall of Fame for wishful thinking on the part of the liberal media.

More pampering of Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder on the front page of the New York Times: Wednesday's edition featured "Shared Vision, Varying Styles," yet another defense of Holder (and criticism of Obama from the left) in a "news analysis" in the paper's off-lead slot by White House reporter Peter Baker, with Matt Apuzzo. Strangely for a story on racial matters under Obama, the story…

A frontrunner for the award going to the most obvious media double standard of the week certainly has to be NBC reporter and Meet the Press host David Gregory. Asking a question virtually no one in the press has asked about President Barack Obama in matters far weightier than Chris Christie's "Bridgegate," Gregory addressed the following tweet to New York Times White House Correspondent Peter…

A month back, I noticed the usual back-scratching that goes on when The Washington Post makes a list of the year’s best books, and two of the top five nonfiction books of the year were former Posties. When the New York Times list came out in mid-December, a similar thing happened: one of their Ten Best Books came from Times reporter Peter Baker, "Days of Fire: Bush and Cheney in The White…

"Top journalists from The New York Times, NBC News and CNN acknowledged Wednesday that, generally speaking, the national media has a liberal bias," Politico's media reporter Dylan Byers noted in a December 18 post recapping a Politico Playbook breakfast discussion held earlier on Wednesday morning. More than one panelist opined that it's not just that journalists tend to be liberal on policy…

The New York Times could only devote 53 words in the Business section on Thursday to Martin Bashir resigning from MSNBC, but swooned over Barack Obama’s latest list of book purchases in a story headlined “In Obama’s Book List, Glimpses of His Journey.” Reporter Peter Baker explained “A reading list offers a rare window into the presidential mind, a peek at what a commander in chief may be…

On Monday's CBS This Morning, the New York Times' Peter Baker didn't reveal anything shocking about George W. Bush's opinion about the liberal paper. Charlie Rose wondered about one detail concerning Baker's new book on Bush and Dick Cheney: "Why wouldn't President Bush talk to you?" He replied, "President Bush didn't believe that a book written by a New York Times reporter could be fair. He…

"The Bush administration opened with a second Pearl Harbor, ended with a second Great Crash and contained a second Vietnam in the middle." That sounds like a liberal. Guess what? It is. David Frum was selected by the New York Times to review a new book on Bush by New York Times reporter Peter Baker. This arrangement is so cozy that Frum admits that Baker interviewed him for this masterpiece…

On Friday, as seen in Google News search results showing posts and feeds at other web sites, a report at the New York Times by Peter Baker and Steven Lee Meyers had the following headline "Obama Fails in Bid for Wide Backing for Syria Attack." On Twitter, self-described "conservative academic" Will Antonin wondered (HT Twitchy), "How long until this NYT headline is changed?" The answer: Not…

NewsBusters wasn't the only site collecting strange media treatment of Obama's strange denial that he'd ever set a "red line" against Syria's use of chemical weapons. James Taranto at The Wall Street Journal wrote on Thursday that "The fierce watchdogs of the press, confronted with this brazen falsehood, show themselves once again to be Obama's pet hamsters." Take the "fact checkers." Instead…

Last Friday, Obama made “history” by being the first president to address Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest purveyor of abortions. Obama did this in spite of the terrible timing, during the Kermit Gosnell trial. But like the Gosnell trial, Obama’s speech drew a blackout: no story on  ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, or NPR. MSNBC's Chris Hayes hailed it was a "history-making" speech, but…

Campaign 2016 has already started, and the New York Times weighed in on the presidential hopefuls in three stories Tuesday. So far, it's a hail for Hillary, a ho-hum greeting for Joe Biden, and hostility toward Republican governors Chris Christie and Bobby Jindal. David Halbfinger's Tuesday front-page story was loaded with hostility toward New Jersey's governor: "Brash Christie Plays Rutgers…

As two gay-marriage cases reach the Supreme Court this week, the New York Times's Peter Baker served up Bill Clinton's mea culpa on the Defense of Marriage Act, which the president signed into law in 1996, in the heat of his re-election campaign. While letting Clinton explain his reversal on DOMA, which ensured that no state is obligated to recognize a same-sex marriage conducted in another…