Peter Baker

On Monday, President Obama tapped Thomas Perez, currently the head of the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department, to take the helm at the Department of Labor, replacing outgoing Secretary Hilda Solis.  This will be the third controversial Cabinet appointment after Brennan and Hagel.  In covering the story, Peter Baker of the New York Times mentioned Republican opposition to his…

New York Times reporter Peter Baker explored the metaphorical challenges of the gun debate: "In Debate Over Curbing Gun Violence, Even Language Can Be Loaded." It was a politically balanced, if perhaps oversensitive, analysis, until an unfair reference tying Sarah Palin, the former GOP vice presidential candidate, to the shooting by schizophrenic Jared Loughner of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. It's…

Throughout the very long presidential election cycle, two trends remained consistent. The media lauded Obama no matter how horrendous his record, and they savaged Obama’s Republican contenders as ridiculous pretenders. From the start of the Republican race in 2011, every candidate who took the lead then took an unfair beating.  They even slimed Sarah Palin in case she decided to run. Martin…

On Monday's front page, New York Times reporters Peter Baker and Trip Gabriel used the upcoming vice presidential debate to criticize Obama's performance in his debate with Mitt Romney last week: "Biden Up Next, Obama's Aides Plot Comeback." The Times didn't flinch from calling out Obama's "disaster" of a debate performance, but did find some excuses for the president, including distractions…

The New York Times spelled out its habit of trying to wrong-foot Mitt Romney on Thursday's front page coverage of the violence in Egypt and Libya. The banner headline over Thursday's front page, "Attack On U.S. Site In Libya Kills Envoy; A Flash Point For Obama And Romney," ushered in coverage of the attacks on U.S. embassies in Libya and Egypt, with the assault in Libya resulting in four…

New York Times political reporter Peter Baker's Thursday "campaign memo," "Philosophic Clash Over Government's Role Highlights Parties' Divide," marks the first appearance in the Times of President Obama's already notorious slam on business, which, according to Baker's helpful spin, "make clear that he celebrates individual achievement and free enterprise while believing that they are bolstered…

Obama-Care isn't dead yet, but Peter Baker's lead New York Times story Sunday on Obama-Care laid out a provisional autopsy in anticipation of the Supreme Court's decision, expected Thursday, that may eviscerate some or all of the president's major piece of legislation: "Supporters Slow to Grasp Health Law's Legal Risks – Initial Confidence Proved a Miscalculation, Raising What-Ifs About…

For such a historic figure, Barack Obama sure doesn't have much influence on the world. That's the theme of reporter Peter Baker's front-page "news analysis" for Monday's New York Times, portraying the president as a passive victim of world events spinning unluckily out of his control: "Obama's Focus on Re-election Faces World of Complications." For Barack Obama, a president who set out to…

The latest New York Times/CBS News poll suggested President Obama's sudden stand on gay marriage was hurting him, and also showed him slightly behind in the expected fall match-up with Mitt Romney, in a story buried on page A17: "New Poll Finds Voters Dubious of Obama’s Announcement on Same-Sex Marriage." Peter Baker and Dalia Sussman reported: Most Americans suspect that President Obama was…

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,…