Cheney's 'Secret Counterterrorism Program' Not So Secret After All
July 15th, 2009 2:00 PM
The New York Times's lead story Sunday was on a C.I.A. program allegedly concealed from Congress by Dick Cheney, and abruptly ended by new C.I.A. director Leon Panetta when he learned of it. The headline to intelligence reporter Scott Shane's story huffed: "Cheney Is Linked To Concealment Of C.I.A. Project." Democrats are of course calling for an investigation.The Central Intelligence Agency…
Left-Wing Blog Talking Points Memo Now Hiring 'News Veterans
July 14th, 2009 2:29 PM
At least one media outlet is bucking the field's bleak economic outlook: The left-wing blog Talking Points Memo. On Monday, Noam Cohen reported in the New York Times that TPM has received funding from outside investors that will result in a doubling of staff, and may include some veteran mainstream journalists. The political news Web site Talking Points Memo this weekend completed a round of…
Bush vs. Obama: The NYT's Double Standards on Africa's Enthusiasm
July 13th, 2009 4:45 PM
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…
Is NYT Encouraging Old Folks to Give up and Die to Help Pay for Obamac
July 13th, 2009 4:03 AM
Hey, grandma, hurry up and die so that Obamacare can pay for healthcare for more worthy, younger folks. That seems to be the message that The New York Times is selling in order to smooth the waters for the nationalized healthcare system that president Obama is trying to peddle to us all.
The Times is running a series titled "Months to Live" in order to help spread the sort of end of life issues…
NYT Reporter Finds Sotomayor's Diabetes Struggle Inspiring -- But Gov
July 12th, 2009 11:20 AM
New York Times White House reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg issued another flattering bunch of factoids about Obama's Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor -- she controls her diabetes: "Court Nominee Manages Diabetes With Discipline." Stolberg suggested that Sotomayor's "no-nonsense" approach to her insulin injections was a sign of how she will tackle Supreme Court cases.Judge Sonia Sotomayor …
Woman Professor Arrested for Child Endangerment? Blame Palin, Says NYT
July 10th, 2009 5:29 PM
New York Times columnist Judith Warner's latest web column, "Dangerous Resentment," sees "archaic, phantasmagoric" hatred in the case of Montana State professor Bridget Kevane, arrested for child endangerment for leaving five pre-teen kids (three of them her own) at a mall so she could get some rest. In a piece for a parenting magazine, Kevane painted herself as a victim of the country's hatred…
Where's the Party? NY Times Selectively Identifies Troubled Democrats
July 9th, 2009 4:11 PM
Where's the party (identification)?On Thursday, Chicago-based New York Times reporter Monica Davey reported on more controversy over Rod Blagojevich, the corrupt former Democratic governor of Illinois who tried to sell off the state's U.S. Senate seat that was left empty after Sen. Barack Obama assumed the presidency. In "Top Blagojevich Aide Pleads Guilty to Fraud," Davey managed to totally…
Whiff of Eugenics: Ginsburg Tells NYT Roe Was About 'Populations That
July 9th, 2009 1:00 PM
In a July 7 New York Times Magazine article ("The Place of Women on the Court"; HT to an e-mailer) apparently scheduled to appear in its July 12 print edition (based on its URL), Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg told the Times's Emily Bazelon that "at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too…
NYT Called Obama 'Man of Experience' During Campaign -- Yet Palin Stil
July 7th, 2009 4:01 PM
Chief New York Times political reporter Adam Nagourney emphasized the negative in his Sarah Palin-based "Political Memo" on Sunday, "If Presidency Is Goal, Palin Has Chosen A Risky Route," suggesting that the Alaska governor, who ran for the vice presidency in 2008, has few political credentials toward making a possible presidential run in 2012.By stepping down before finishing her term, she…
NYT's Dowd Passes Along Dubious Psych Diagnosis: Sarah Palin's 'Pervas
July 6th, 2009 6:05 PM
In Maureen Dowd's Sunday New York Times column on the shock resignation of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin ("Now, Sarah's Folly"), the proudly shallow columnist piled on with her usual self-satisfied (and pseudo-sophisticated) mockery. More seriously, she regurgitated an extremely dubious anecdote from the recent Vanity Fair hit piece on Sarah Palin by former Times journalist Todd Purdum. It's a good…
NYTimes Sneering at Christianity, Patriotism
July 4th, 2009 10:13 AM
It seems that on July fourth, The New York Times saw fit to smirk at both American patriotism and Christianity. A recent Times article about the erection of a giant, though strategically altered, replica of the Statue of Liberty by a showman of a Memphis pastor presented a perfect example of the ridicule and disdain with which the Times views Christianity and American patriotism, both. In Memphis…
Loudon Wainwright III Sings 'The Krugman Blues
July 3rd, 2009 12:45 PM
Somehow New York Times columnist Paul Krugman seems a terrible subject for a song.Yet, Loudon Wainwright III, who admits to being a Times fan, performed "The Krugman Blues" in New York's Madison Square Park a few weeks ago:I read the New York Times, that's where I get the news. Paul Krugman's on the Op Ed page, that's where I get the blues. In Wainwright's view, given the current state of the…
