New York Times

Kate Zernike, New York Times reporter and author of "Boiling Mad," appeared on C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" September 10 to discuss her book (hat tip NB commenters TE and SimJim). Around fourteen minutes in, a caller argued that the 1968 campaign for president of Southern segregationist governor George Wallace marked the real roots of the Tea Party movement. Zernike agreed, skipping over…

A UK Independent item about an unreleased book by historian Frank Dikötter made me think about New York Times columnist NIcholas Kristof. Readers will see why shortly. Amazon says that Dikötter's "Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962" will be released on September 28. The Independent's Arifa Akbar relays Dikötter's core conclusion that "At least 45…

Imagine a movie: Maureen Dowd is seen thrashing around on her bed, clearly in the grips of a gruesome nightmare.  When she awakes, it is not to relief but to the horrifying discovery that reality is worse than anything her fevered brain had conjured.That is the sense of hopelessness, desperation and depression in which Dowd drowns in her New York Times column of today. The piece is one long…

It's almost tempting to just run a few paragraphs of Kate Zernike's latest item in the New York Times and simply have folks take their rips, but a bit of background would be helpful. Zernike (pictured at right) is the Times reporter who seems to have made it her mission to somehow singlehandedly discredit what may when all is said and done come to be seen as the most significant grass-roots…

New York Times political reporter Kate Zernike's thin new book "Boiling Mad -- Inside Tea Party America," is among the first of what will surely be a flood of related books by journalists.Like her reporting for the Times, "Boiling Mad" covers the movement from a mostly hostile perspective that only intermittently becomes something like empathy when she's talking to one of the invariably pleasant…

New York Times columnist David Brooks on Friday defended the Tea Party from many of the criticisms commonly uttered by mainstream media members.In so doing, he took a couple of slaps at the conservative movement that continues to usher in surprising election results across the fruited plain.By the end of "The Backlash Myth," Brooks went so far as to say "the Tea Party doesn't matter."But prior to…

New York Times "Tea Party" correspondent Kate Zernike again insisted that the main victims of Tea Party enthusiasm will be, not Democrats, but mainstream Republicans, in Thursday's "G.O.P. Gets a Partner, But Who Will Lead?" It's basically a snapshot of the growing conflict between Sen. Jim DeMint, who has pushed conservative Tea Party candidates, and Sen. John Cornyn, chairman of the National…

New York Times reporters Jeff Zeleny and Megan Thee-Brenan examined the findings of the latest CBS/New York Times poll. As November elections approach, things look pretty bleak for Democrats and President Obama especially, who earned a record low approval rating and bad marks on his handling of the economy. But Zeleny whispered a little between-round encouragement into the ear of the battered…

While acknowledging bad news for Democrats in the latest CBS News/New York Times poll on Thursday's CBS Early Show, White House correspondent Bill Plante worked to find a silver lining: "But when it comes to who's at fault for the rotten economy there's a disconnect. 37% say the Bush administration is most to blame. Only 5% blame the Obama administration." Following Plante's report, fill-in co-…

The panic over a looming conservative takeover of Congress in November is becoming palpable in today's liberal media. Take Thursday's editorial in the New York Times for example:For both parties and certainly the broad swath of independent voters, defeating this new crop of Tea Party nominees has become imperative to avoid the sense of national embarrassment from each divisive and offensive…

If a RINO is a Republican In Name Only, let's coin a new acronym for David Brooks: RINYTO: Republican In New York Times Only.  For only in the Gray Lady's bailiwick could Brooks be considered much of a Republican.Take his current column in the Times.  Brooks warns Republicans on the verge of regaining power that it would be nothing short of a "tragedy" if they were to oppose . . . more government…

Meghan McCain got star treatment on the front of the Sunday Styles section hyping "Dirty Sexy Politics," her thin little account of her father's 2008 presidential campaign. Frequent Times contributor Liesl Schillinger's 2,600-word profile ("The Rebel") of the 25-year-old daughter of Sen. John McCain  reads like a parody at times, so over-the-top is the praise for what sounds like an incredibly…

New York Times reporter Robert Pear ought to consider moonlighting as a stand-up comic in the tradition of Steven Wright. Wright's deadpan delivery is legendary. Pear's deadpan lines in his article about the immense paperwork burden heading the economy's way in the form of requiring IRS 1099 forms to be issued to each and every person paid $600 or more during the course of a calendar year for…

"Mr. Boehner's ties to lobbyists seem especially deep," New York Times reporter Eric Lipton wrote of the House Republican Leader yesterday. Well, they're not, and therein lies the problem: Lipton apparently premised his article not on facts and data, but on what he thought seemed reasonable.Had Lipton stooped to investigate some of the serious claims he was making, he might have discovered that…