Life At The Most Respected Liberal Newspaper (Read, Worst And Most Biased Piece Of Garbage) In The Country

I found this piece about life at the insufferable New York Times rather a fun read:

The Tyranny and Lethargy of the Times Editorial Page
Reporters in ‘semi-open revolt’ against Andrew Rosenthal
By Ken Kurson 2/04 3:38pm

Illustration by Torren Thomas.

IT’S WELL KNOWN AMONG THE SMALL WORLD of people who pay attention to such things that the liberal-leaning reporters at The Wall Street Journal resent the conservative-leaning editorial page of The Wall Street Journal. What’s less well known—and about to break into the open, threatening the very fabric of the institution—is how deeply the liberal-leaning reporters at The New York Times resent the liberal-leaning editorial page of The New York Times.

The New York Observer has learned over the course of interviews with more than two-dozen current and former Times staffers that the situation has “reached the boiling point” in the words of one current Times reporter. Only two people interviewed for this story agreed to be identified, given the fears of retaliation by someone they criticize as petty and vindictive.

The blame here, in the eyes of most Times reporters to whom The Observer spoke, belongs to Andrew Rosenthal, who as editorial page editor leads both the paper’s opinion pages and opinion postings online, as well as overseeing the editorial board and the letters, columnists and op-ed departments. Mr. Rosenthal is accused of both tyranny and pettiness, by the majority of the Times staffers interviewed for this story. And the growing dissatisfaction with Mr. Rosenthal stems from a commitment to excellence that has lifted the rest of the Times, which is viewed by every staffer The Observer spoke to as rapidly and dramatically improving.

“He runs the show and is lazy as all get-out,” says a current Times writer, and one can almost hear the Times-ness in his controlled anger (who but a Timesman uses the phrase “as all get-out” these days?). Laziness and bossiness are unattractive qualities in any superior, but they seem particularly galling at a time when the Times continues to pare valued staffers via unending buyouts.

The Times declined to provide exact staffing numbers, but that too is a source of resentment. Said one staffer, “Andy’s got 14 or 15 people plus a whole bevy of assistants working on these three unsigned editorials every day. They’re completely reflexively liberal, utterly predictable, usually poorly written and totally ineffectual. I mean, just try and remember the last time that anybody was talking about one of those editorials. You know, I can think of one time recently, which is with the [Edward] Snowden stuff, but mostly nobody pays attention, and millions of dollars is being spent on that stuff.”

Asked by The Observer for hard evidence supporting a loss of influence of the vaunted editorial page, the same Times staffer fired back, “You know, the editorials are never on the most emailed list; they’re never on the most read list. People just are not paying attention, and they don’t care. It’s a waste of money.”

Andrew Rosenthal. (Photo via Patrick McMullan)

Multiple attempts to reach Mr. Rosenthal were rebuffed, and emails directly to him were responded to instead by the Times publicity operation. A Times spokesperson defended the page, telling The Observer, “The power of the editorial page is in the strength of the ideas it expresses. Some editorials are read more widely than others, but virtually all generate discussion and response among our readers, policy-makers and thought leaders. Recently, the editorial series on STEM Education and the editorial on Mr. Snowden sparked a great deal of discussion among readers and policy-makers.” Asked for data, she added, “We do not share statistics or traffic numbers at the individual article or section level.” In a list of 2013’s most read stories the Times sent over, no editorials or columnists appeared (two guest editorials, from Angelina Jolie and Vladimir Putin, did make the cut).

Another sign of a loss of influence may have been revealed this past fall. A member of then Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s inner circle who remained in City Hall until the end of Mr. Bloomberg’s term told The Observer that the entire administration was “shocked” by the Times’ inability to drag its endorsed candidates over the goal line, referring to Christine Quinn in the mayoral primary and Dan Garodnick in the City Council speaker race. “When was the last time The New York Times lost both? Those are both essentially Democratic primaries, and the Times couldn’t carry any water.” The Times also endorsed Dan Squadron for advocate; he was defeated by Letitia James.

This charge was amplified by a different member of Mr. Bloomberg’s kitchen cabinet who left the administration a few years ago. He reports that Ms. Quinn’s political team viewed the Times endorsement as “critical” to her cementing the nomination, which led them to allow the Times to follow Ms. Quinn around making a documentary. What resulted was Hers To Lose, a behind-the-scenes look that was clearly supposed to show the historic win of an out lesbian but instead turned into an awkward and sometimes excruciating look at a campaign that finished in third place, despite the Times endorsement.

According to this source, “Chris worked very hard to get the endorsement. Ask yourself: Why did she allow the Times movie? Why would any campaign ever do that? They were so focused on the editorial [endorsement] that when Executive Editor Jill Abramson personally called over and asked Chris to do the movie, it was seen within the Quinn campaign as something they’d better say ‘yes’ to in order to get the endorsement.”

As for the charges that Mr. Rosenthal is a despot, one writer provided a funny example that others interviewed for this story immediately recognized. “Rosenthal himself is like a petty tyrant, like anytime anyone on the news pages uses the word ‘should’ in their copy, you know, he sends nasty emails around kind of CCing the world. The word ‘should’ belongs to him and his people.”

Also coming in for intense criticism were the opinion-page columnists, always a juicy target. Particularly strong criticism, to the point of resentful (some might say jealous), was directed at Thomas Friedman, the three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize who writes mostly about foreign affairs and the environment.

One current Times staffer told The Observer, “Tom Friedman is an embarrassment. I mean there are multiple blogs and Tumblrs and Twitter feeds that exist solely to make fun of his sort of blowhardy bullshit.” (Gawker has been particularly hard on Mr. Friedman, with Hamilton Nolan memorably skewering him in a column entitled “Tom Friedman Travels the World to Find Incredibly Uninteresting Platitudes,” as a “mustachioed soothsaying simpleton”; another column was titled “Tom Friedman Does Not Know What’s Happening Here,” and the @firetomfriedman Twitter account has more than 1,800 followers.)

From left, Joe Nocera, Thomas L. Friedman, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Carmen Reinhart, Andrew Rosenthal, Paul Krugman. (Photo by Neil Rasmus/BFAnyc.com)

Another Times reporter brought up Mr. Friedman, unsolicited, toward the end of a conversation that was generally positive about the editorial page: “I never got a note from Andy or anything like that. But I will say, regarding Friedman, there’s the sense that he’s on cruise control now that he’s his own brand. And no one is saying, ‘Hey, did you see the latest Friedman column?’ in the way they’ll talk about ‘Hey, Gail [Collins] was really funny today.’”

Asked if this stirring resentment toward the editorial page might not just be garden variety news vs. edit stuff or even the leanings of a conservative news reporter toward a liberal editorial page, one current Times staffer said, “It really isn’t about politics, because I land more to the left than I do to the right. I just find it …”

He paused for a long time before continuing and then, unprompted, returned to Mr. Friedman. “I just think it’s bad, and nobody is acknowledging that they suck, but everybody in the newsroom knows it, and we really are embarrassed by what goes on with Friedman. I mean anybody who knows anything about most of what he’s writing about understands that he’s, like, literally mailing it in from wherever he is on the globe. He’s a travel reporter. A joke. The guy gets $75,000 for speeches and probably charges the paper for his first-class airfare.”

Another former Times writer, someone who has gone on to great success elsewhere, expressed similar contempt (and even used the word “embarrass”) and says it’s longstanding.

“I think the editorials are viewed by most reporters as largely irrelevant, and there’s not a lot of respect for the editorial page. The editorials are dull, and that’s a cardinal sin. They aren’t getting any less dull. As for the columnists, Friedman is the worst. He hasn’t had an original thought in 20 years; he’s an embarrassment. He’s perceived as an idiot who has been wrong about every major issue for 20 years, from favoring the invasion of Iraq to the notion that green energy is the most important topic in the world even as the financial markets were imploding. Then there’s Maureen Dowd, who has been writing the same column since George H. W. Bush was president.”

Yet another former Times writer concurred. “Andy is a wrecking ball, a lot like his father but without the gravitas. What strikes me about the editorial and op-ed pages is that they have become relentlessly grim. With very few exceptions, there’s almost nothing light-hearted or whimsical or sprightly about them, nothing to gladden the soul. They’re horribly doctrinaire, down the line, and that goes for the couple of conservatives in the bunch. It wasn’t always like that on those pages.”

THIS VIEW IS NOT unanimous. Joe LaPointe, who spent 20 years covering sports for the Times before taking a buyout in 2010, views the page and its maestro more positively. “The editorial page certainly has changed. It used to be bland, wishy-washy. Now it’s strident. It has more energy and bite. Rosenthal’s voice rings very loud, and I read it closer than I ever had. It’s definitely a left-wing, progressive page, but I find the editorials very interesting. And my brief dealings with Andy have been very pleasant.”

Arthur Sulzberger Jr. (Photo via Getty Images)

Timothy L. O’Brien, the publisher of Bloomberg View and a former New York Times editor and reporter, also has nice things to say about an institution that is now a competitor. “While all opinion pages have hard work to do to stand out on the digital landscape, the Times is still a very singular and weighty player and never easily discounted.”

So just how widespread is the impression of laziness and tyranny within the opinion section?

One former business reporter remarked that the entire business section viewed the editorial page as “irrelevant” and went on to say, “Their business editorials were relatively rare and really bad. Floyd Norris went up there to make the business editorials better and eventually just left because he got tired of trying to explain economics to them.”

A veteran reporter brought up the Sunday Review section, which falls under Mr. Rosenthal’s purview. “When it stopped being called Week in Review, I don’t know anyone in the newsroom who thinks it got better, and almost everyone thinks it got worse. Everyone I know thinks it’s less fun and more pointless. It just reaffirms the idea that he’s an empire builder. He wanted this expanded authority and Arthur’s giving it to him. He’s not the least bit answerable to Jill. Even as the newsroom has cut its staff and budget, Andy’s has grown.”

One current staffer pointed to the lack of diversity on the editorial page—the exact kind of charge for which one could imagine the Times filleting another institution. She declined to be quoted, even anonymously, but noted that Mr. Rosenthal seemed to view the editorial board akin to the way the Supreme Court was once viewed: There was a “minority seat” and a “female seat.” Of the 32 people who are either columnists or members of the editorial board, 26 are white, and 23 are male; 19 are—egad!—white males. (During the race for City Council speaker, NY1 Noticias reporter Juan Manuel Benítez tweeted at Times columnist Michael Powell, “Are there any Latinos in the edit board?” Mr. Powell replied, “Just looking, appears none.”)

Another current staffer blamed the same lack of imagination for a recent Times loss. When Times writer Catherine Rampell was snatched by The Washington Post to become an op-ed columnist, this reporter emailed The Observer, “It would never even occur to [Andy] to take a 33-year-old economics reporter and make her an op-ed columnist, but it’s just the kind of jolt his page needs.”

Another reporter told a story in which he had a “scared-y cat editor who had been so frightened by the vitriol that Andy spews around the newsroom about the word ‘should’ that [the editor] literally took it out of my copy every time I used the word when it was applied to an entity or a government institution, as opposed to something an individual should do. She literally just removed it so I didn’t have an opportunity to get into it with them, because she just wouldn’t allow it in my copy.”

Yet another reporter described the exact same obsession with “should” by saying of Mr. Rosenthal, “You know, I think he literally had a Google alert for the word ‘should’ and, like, goes reading through the entire newspaper for it, and that’s what he does all day instead of improving his section.”

The resentment extends beyond the policing of words and into a fight over resources.

Jill Abramson. (Photo via Getty Images)

“They continue to own the top right of the home page, even in the redesign, which is a really, really important place for eyeballs. That probably translates into a lot of readers, but it’s only because they have that guaranteed placement, which they do not deserve, so it’s just a source of real annoyance. At a time when resources are diminished and people fight over them, it’s also a source of aggravation.”

Given the near universality of the view within the Times that the opinion pages have grown tired and irrelevant, it’s a wonder that nothing has been done to address the problem, especially as the paper has trimmed and restructured in every department. (The Times has made cuts to its roster of columnists, including Clyde Haberman and Verlyn Klinkenborg). According to the Times spokesperson, “We have a relatively small editorial staff that has remained steady over the past 10 years.”

The difficulty comes in part from the way the Times is structured. Andrew Rosenthal reports not to Executive Editor Jill Abramson but directly to publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. One source claims that Mr. Sulzberger is “afraid” of Mr. Rosenthal, possibly because of a perceived debt that the Sulzberger family owes to Mr. Rosenthal’s father, A. M. “Abe” Rosenthal, for the elder Mr. Rosenthal’s half century of service to the Sulzberger family.

Andrew Rosenthal now inhabits perhaps the most important opinion perch in the world, at a time in which the media is awash in opinion. During his long career at the Times—a career that has included stints as assistant managing editor and foreign editor, as well as some time at the Associated Press—he has consolidated hold on that perch and answers only to Mr. Sulzberger, himself facing the challenge of filling his father’s big shoes.

One veteran reporter who has been at the paper for more than 20 years said, “‘Bullying’ and ‘petty’ are Andy’s middle name. He’s very smart, he’s very funny. But any place he’s gone where he’s had a position of authority, he’s bullying and petty. For a time in 2000, he was essentially running the Washington bureau, though I don’t think he had the title of bureau chief. Dean Baquet was the national editor and left for the L.A. Times, and they put Andy in as sort of acting national editor for the duration of the 2000 coverage. During the 2000 campaign, he developed a very personal, gut-level animus toward Al Gore. And it showed in our coverage. And then he was the assistant managing editor under Howell [Raines], and the consensus was that as he rose he became nastier. He had the reputation as Howell’s hatchet man. When Howell was tossed out and Andy was sent to the editorial page, there were a lot of people breathing a sigh of relief that they didn’t have to deal with Andy anymore. That’s not an exaggeration. He had made himself extremely unpopular.”

There is suddenly evidence that the festering dissatisfaction with the edit page has broken into what one reporter dubbed “semi-open revolt.” One reporter says that he literally will not allow Mr. Rosenthal to join their lunch table in the cafeteria.

The Observer heard from two different sources about a posting created by respected health reporter Catherine Saint Louis and shared among her friends that pointed out a bevy of bad thinking made by the editorial page in a recent editorial related to the Affordable Care Act. In it, Ms. Saint Louis detailed the many errors in the piece’s coverage and asserted that “the basic premise is wrong.” (The Observer agreed not to share the post itself, since the person who shared it with The Observer did not have permission from Ms. Saint Louis to do so.)

Confronted with the charge that the reporters might simply be envious that resources don’t seem to be bleeding from the edit page the way they have throughout the rest of the institution, one reporter hit back hard at that notion.

“It’s so obvious that people on the news side find what the people on the opinion side are doing to be less than optimal. And it’s not that we want their money; we want them to be awesome. The fact of the matter is the Wall Street Journal editorial page just kicks our editorial page’s ass. I mean there’s just no contest, from top to bottom, and it’s disappointing. You know, we hold ourselves to incredibly high standards on the news side, and we meet them more often than not. Methodically, for the last 10 years, you’ve seen various editors march through and dispatch with mediocrity in many places where it had been allowed to fester for years, from the book review to the feature pages. And so to see it persist and persist and persist on the editorial page with nobody having the guts to retire some of the people or things that are not only not working but have become caricatures of themselves is just a huge bummer.”

UPDATE: After this piece was published on Tuesday afternoon, several New York Times reporters The Observer had not originally interviewed have been in touch. One texted the author simply, “Thank you.” Another emailed to say, “I saw opinion people storming around the newsroom. … Especially nice to see Andy get the focus.” Finally, Catherine Saint Louis, whose post critical of the editorial page’s take on health care was cited in the story, contacted The Observer to take issue with the characterization of the impact of her post: “I think these paragraphs err in leaving the impression that a single Facebook post by me constitutes “evidence that the festering dissatisfaction with the edit page has broken into … ‘semi-open revolt.’ ” It does not. Such a post would at most constitute evidence that one reporter disagreed with a single editorial. As it happens, I have no objection to the way op-ed conducts business.”
Read more at http://observer.com/2014/02/the-tyranny-and-lethargy-of-the-times-editorial-page/#ixzz2sTo5cSVG Follow us: @newyorkobserver on Twitter | newyorkobserver on Facebook

The New York Times is as liberal “as all get out,” to use the words of the Times reporters themselves.  That means it is intellectually bankrupt, morally bankrupt and of course FINANCIALLY bankrupt.  Oh, and fascist.  Because even the leftist reporters are telling us that it is as FASCIST “as all get out,” as well.

Media That Endorsed Obama In 2008 Saying He Failed And That They’re Endorsing Mitt Romney Now

I’m always only too happy to welcome a former blind idiot who now sees the light of day back into the fold:

Posted October 28, 2012
Media Continues its Abandonment of Obama
By Mr. Curmudgeon

Denial is not a river in Egypt. That in effect is the theme of the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel’s Friday editorial endorsement of Mitt Romney for president. “When President Obama came into office in 2009, the economy was in freefall and though untested, he inspired us with promise of hope and change. Now, four years later, we have little reason to believe he can turn things around,” said the Sentinel.

“… Rather than articulate a compelling vision for growth,” continued the Sentinel, “the president falls back on the tired talking point of increasing taxes for the wealthy … it’s hard to see how raising taxes is going to kick start jobs in the private sector.”

Having admitted its mistake (the Sentinel endorsed Obama in 2008), the newspaper said, “We believe Romney will help this nation find the political will to address the challenges with Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid … The greatest threat to our national defense is not the size of our military, but the ever-escalating size of our national debt. We must get government spending under control, across the board … We believe the best chance to get America back working again is to elect Mitt Romney. That’s why we endorse him for president.”

There is nothing like a near-death experience to help focus the mind.

The excuse making by the president and his supporters is at long last falling flat: They can’t explain away nearly 6 trillion dollars added to the nation’s debt; they can’t explain away the fiscal cliff approaching us this January; they can’t explain away 23 million chronically unemployed Americans; they can’t explain away the expansion of government power at the expense of the individual – personified by ObamaCare’s dictatorial “individual mandate”; they can’t explain away a collapsing economy barely held together by Federal Reserve bailouts and quantitative easing; they can’t explain away a foreign policy that blames an obscure YouTube video for inspiring the murder of Americans in Libya than admit Al-Qaeda terrorists attacked America on the eleventh anniversary of 9/11; they can’t explain away the deaths of a U.S border patrol agent and hundreds of innocent Mexican citizens resulting from their sale of weapons to Mexican drug cartels and Central American gangs.

Less than two weeks before Americans head to the polls, the media’s blind support for the president is dissolving. It’s crunch time, and there are no excuses left for defending the indefensible – that Barack Obama should remain President of the United States.

And it’s hardly just the Sun Sentinel:

Des Moines Register endorses Romney, ending Democratic streak
By Seema Mehta
October 27, 2012, 6:32 p.m.

LAND O’ LAKES, Fla. — The Des Moines Register endorsed Mitt Romney on Saturday night, breaking a decades-long streak of backing Democrats for president in a state that launched President Obama‘s 2008 election.

The paper, the largest in Iowa, wrote that the top priorities in the election must be reviving the economy, spurring job growth and moving toward a balanced budget and reducing the deficit.

“Which candidate could forge the compromises in Congress to achieve these goals? When the question is framed in those terms, Mitt Romney emerges the stronger candidate,” the paper wrote, citing Romney’s achievements as Massachusetts governor, a business leader and turning around the 2002 Olympics. “Romney has made rebuilding the economy his No. 1 campaign priority — and rightly so.”

Four years ago, the Iowa caucuses launched Obama’s presidential bid, and he handily won the state in the general election. The Register endorsed him, impressed with his background, his calls for Americans to come together and his positions on the economic crises that unfolded in the final months of the campaign.

This time around, the paper offers a sober assessment of his tenure, and his potential.

“The president’s best efforts to resuscitate the stumbling economy have fallen short. Nothing indicates it would change with a second term in the White House,” the paper wrote.

It’s unclear how much newspaper endorsements matter to voters, given that many gravitate toward media outlets that align with their political views. But the endorsement is notable because of the Register’s long history of supporting Democrats – the last Republican they endorsed was President Nixon in 1972.

And it may offer a window into the mood of heartland voters in a state that is a crucial battleground. Romney has been trying to court past Obama supporters there by focusing on the nation’s debt, a theme that resonates among many in a frugal state that has the lowest per capita credit card debt in the nation.

Obama gave a nod to the newspaper’s importance when, after speaking with the editorial board, he had a separate conversation two weeks later with the paper’s editor and publisher.

“I want your endorsement. You’ll feel better when you give it,” he concluded in his phone conversation with them.

Romney tweeted his appreciation for the paper’s endorsement. “We need Iowa to help get America back on track. I am honored to have the @DMRegister’s endorsement,” he wrote.

The news of the endorsement broke Saturday while Romney was speaking to 15,000 supporters at a rally on a high school football field here, capping a three-event day stumping in Florida.

“America’s going to win,” Romney said. “We’re going to make the change in November that will bring the real change that we need.”

Hell, you’ve even got New York Times columnists turning on Obama the Loser-in-Chief.  A New York Times liberal turning on a Democrat president running for reelection will happen again in maybe about a hundred years – because hopefully it will take that damn long for the Democrat Party to annoint such a catastrophic failure as their candidate again.

Wake the hell up, you idiot Democrats.  Your messiah failed America and he has failed YOU.  And we need an actual leader in our White House if we want to finally turn this economy and this nation around.

Turning The Tables On Vicious Rolling Stone Leftist Attack Piece On Michelle Palin (Among Other Things, They Plagiarized).

There was a particularly vicious leftwing assault by leftwing rag The Rolling Stone. The only time I ever hear anything about Rolling Stone Magazine is when they do something particularly vile, because on their best day they are still vile and so why read them?  Their last infamous hit piece (on General Stanley McChrystal) was also filled with fraud.  But what can you say?  Liberals are people who swim in an ocean of lies; and why should they be troubled when the people they trust to lie to them turn out to be dishonest???

There are such lines in the Rolling Stone piece as “Bachmann is a religious zealot whose brain is a raging electrical storm of divine visions and paranoid delusions.” I don’t need to read further than that. It was a toxic, rabid hit piece by toxic, rabid secular humanist liberals.

But let us consider the “standards” of journalism that these people follow. Let us consider who the REAL religious zealots whose brains are raging electrical storms of demonic visions and paranoid delusions are. Let us consider who should have the last laugh, and who should be fired as disgraces:

Rolling Stone caught in potential plagiarism flap over Michele Bachmann profile
By Joe Pompeo & Dylan Stableford
June 24, 2011

It’s been a few months since we’ve had ourselves a good-old plagiarism incident to get riled up about. But thanks to Rolling Stone, our sleepy summer Friday just got a bit more scandalous!

The magazine is taking some heat today for lifting quotes in Matt Taibbi’s hit piece on Minnesota’s 2012 Tea Party hopeful Michele Bachmann.

In the story, posted online Wednesday, Taibbi borrows heavily from a 2006 profile of Bachmann by G.R. Anderson, a former Minneapolis City Pages reporter who now teaches journalism at the University of Minnesota. The thin sourcing, as Abe Sauer argues over at The Awl, is part of a “parade of uncredited use of material” from local blogs and reporters who “have dogged Bachmann for years now.”

But the larger issue for journalism’s ethical watchdogs concerns the several unattributed quotes Sauer spotted in Taibbi’s piece, which Rolling Stone executive editor Eric Bates explained away by saying he’d cut out the attributions due to “space concerns” and that he would “get some links included in the story online.”

At least one plagiarism “expert” doesn’t buy Bates’ logic.

“Attribution is the last thing an editor should cut!!!!” Jack Shafer, who is known to grill copy-stealers in his media column for Slate (and who used to edit two alt-weeklies similar to City Pages), told The Cutline via email. “How big was the art hole on that piece? Huge, I’ll bet.”

Shafer added: “If an editor deletes attribution, can the writer be called a plagiarist? I don’t think so. Is that what happened? If Taibbi approved the deletions, it’s another question.”

We emailed Taibbi, who is no stranger to press controversies, with a request for comment and will update this if we hear back.

UPDATE 4 p.m. “I did in fact refer to the City Pages piece in the draft I submitted,” Taibbi told The Cutline. “I did not see that those attributions had been removed. I grew up in alternative newspapers and have been in the position the City Pages reporter is in, so I’m sympathetic. They did good work in that piece and deserve to be credited. But you should know also that this isn’t plagiarism–it’s not even an allegation of plagiarism. It’s an attribution issue.”

In the meantime, Anderson is giving Rolling Stone the benefit of the doubt, although he didn’t let them off the hook entirely.

“I would not consider what the Rolling Stone [piece] contained in it to be plagiarism,” Anderson told City Pages. “What I will say, as a graduate of the Columbia J-School, and an adjunct at the University of Minnesota J-School, I do know that if a student handed in a story with that particular lack of sourcing, not only would I give it an ‘F,’ I would probably put that student on academic fraud.”

You can check out a side-by-side comparison of the two Bachmann profiles over at The Awl.

What is particularly ironic is the use of an image of Michelle Bachmann as holy warrior, gripping the Bible in one hand and a sword dripping in blood in the other as a bloody slaughter continues unabated in the background. It’s an image that is intended to summon the most grisly spectre of the Crusades, of course.

Accompanying the Rolling Stone article on Bachmann:

At the worst of the Crusades, the “Christian warriors” were given Absolution for their sins for taking part in the Holy War. You could literally get away with murder. And too many did just that (at least until they found out the hard way that the Pope’s absolution didn’t give them absolution from a just and holy God).

Now, let us consider the irony of the “Absolution” given by the left. Women are sacred cows (now watch me get attacked as calling women “cows”) in liberalism. You do not DARE attack women. Unless they are conservative women like Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann. And then liberals are given total Absolution to attack them as women, as wives, as mothers, as sexual beings, as anything that smears them and degrades them. And they have absolution to do it; no women’s group will come after them. Their sins are pardoned.

Call it a leftwing Crusade; better yet, call it a leftwing jihad.  “Kill thee all the enemies of liberalism.  Nullus Dues lo volt! [No God wills it!].  Thous hast absolution to murder thine opponents by any means necessary!”  And off these “journalists” (or JournoLists) go to do their demonic bidding.

A similar case of such liberal Absolution just occurred with Jon Stewart, who mocked black conservative Herman Cain in an obviously racial and racist manner using his Amos and Andy voice. It’s fine; a Jon Stewart liberal can openly racially mock a black man, provided that black man is a conservative. It’s no different than the most cynical criticism of Pope Pius in the Crusades, who said it was okay to murder as long as you were murdering a Muslim.

We see their “objective” work when they flood to Alaska to search through tens of thousands of Sarah Palin emails and even enlist their readers to help them dig for dirt.  They never would have DREAMED of subpeoning Barak Obama’s emails.  We see their “objective” work when they trip all over themselves to buy a story about a bogus lesbian Muslim heroine (i.e. more liberal fraud) just because she was lesbian and Muslim, and that’s exactly what they wanted to see.

I would love nothing more than to have all the Western “journalists” who have played these games grabbed up and taken to a country governed by Islam and watch the look on their formerly smug faces as they were tortured and killed one after another. Until that day, they will continue to serve as useful idiots for communism and terrorism and pretty much every other “ism” that is eroding Western Culture from within.

Add that abject hypocrisy of the left to the fact that for a writer anything resembling plagiarism is the greatest sin imaginable, and you get to see just how utterly vile these people are. They have no honor, no integrity, no decency. Period.

And then we compare the sheer number of plagiarism cases at leftwing papers such as the New York Times (I’ll just drop a couple of names like Jayson Blair and Maureen Dowd and Zachery Kouwe) to conservative papers like the Wall Street Journal, and you see which side simply has no honor, integrity, or decency at all.  But what should we expect from such a rabid little bunch of Goebbels?  Honesty?

It is also interesting to add that the Crusaders were in fact responding to CENTURIES of Muslim aggression. While many of the monstrous acts that occurred on both sides could never be justified, “the Crusades” themselves were quite justifiable. I make mention of this because the left continues to do to the Crusades what they are doing even today; take the side of the aggressive vicious murderers against Western Culture. And when you look at a major rundown of major plagiarism cases in journalism, it’s the leftwing names like the Washington Post and the Boston Globe and ESPN rather than Fox News.

When America is sufficiently toxic and ripe for judgment, it listens to lies and the bad people who tell those lies and votes for Democrats.  That’s basically where we seem to be now.

Oh, by the way, Barack Obama is a documented plagiarist, too.  That’s part of the reason liberal journalists love him so much; he’s truly one of them.

New York Times’ Title Says It All: ‘Obama’s economic view is rejected on world stage’

When the New York Times runs a front page story detailing that the entire world rejects a Democrat president’s economic “solutions,” you can pretty much know for certain that those “solutions” must truly, truly suck.

But that is exactly what happened yesterday:

Here’s the main page of The New York Times:

And here is the New York Times story, via the San Jose Mercury News:

Obama’s economic view is rejected on world stage
By Sewell Chan, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and David E. Sanger
New York Times
Posted: 11/11/2010

SEOUL, South Korea — President Barack Obama’s hopes of emerging from his Asia trip with the twin victories of a free-trade agreement with South Korea and a unified approach to spurring global economic growth ran into resistance on all fronts Thursday, putting Obama at odds with his key allies and largest trading partners.

The most concrete trophy expected to emerge from the trip eluded his grasp: a long-delayed free trade agreement with South Korea, first negotiated by the Bush administration and then reopened by Obama, to have greater protections for U.S. workers.

And as officials frenetically tried to paper over differences among the Group of 20 members with a vaguely worded communique to be issued today, there was no way to avoid discussion of the fundamental differences of economic strategy. After five largely harmonious meetings in the past two years to deal with the most severe downturn since the Great Depression, major disputes broke out between Washington and China, Britain, Germany and Brazil.

Each rejected core elements of Obama’s strategy of stimulating growth before focusing on deficit reduction. Several major nations continued to accuse the Federal Reserve of deliberately devaluing the dollar last week in an effort to put the costs of America’s competitive troubles on trading partners, rather than taking politically tough measures to rein in spending at home.

The result was that Obama repeatedly found himself on the defensive. He and the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, had vowed to complete the trade pact by the time they met here; while Obama insisted that it would be resolved “in a matter of weeks,” without the pressure of a summit meeting, it was unclear how the hurdles on nontariff barriers to U.S. cars and beef would be resolved.

Obama’s meeting with China’s president, Hu Jintao, appeared to do little to break down Chinese resistance to accepting even nonbinding numerical targets for limiting China’s trade surplus. While Lael Brainard, the undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs, said that the United States and China “have gotten to a good place” on rebalancing their trade, Chinese officials later archly reminded the Americans that as the issuers of the dollar, the main global reserve currency, they should consider the interests of the “global economy” as well as their own “national circumstances.”

If you wanted a treaty with South Korea, you are missing Bush right about now.  Like the overwhelming majority of Ohio voters who now recognize their mistake in having voted for Obama in 2008.

Remember the European Union president saying the Obama stimulus was “a way to hell”?  From the New York Times:

PARIS — The European Union’s crisis of leadership during the economic downturn was thrown into sharp relief on Wednesday, as the current president of the 27-nation bloc labeled President Obama’s emergency stimulus package “a way to hell” that will “undermine the stability of the global financial market.”

And the last two years proves he was right.  And Obama very wrong.

The facts now prove that the countries that refused to enact massive Obama-style stimulus programs have recovered far faster with far more job growth than the U.S.

China warned that the Obama administration’s reckless monetary policies could trigger a global economic collapse.  Even as China – you know, the country that now owns us – just downgraded U.S. credit.

And now the G-20 nations are agreeing with the American people in telling Obama to go to hell.

Even New York Slimes Admits That ‘Hope And Change’ Likely Means An Obummer Dumbocrat Butt-Kicking

America’s disillusioned liberal elites are already conceding defeat to the conservative revolution
By Nile Gardiner Last updated: October 24th, 2010

The New York Times’ headline today, “GOP is poised to seize the House, if not the Senate,” says it all, just 10 days ahead of the November 2nd mid-terms. America’s most powerful newspaper, and standard bearer of the liberal elites that have run the United States in the Obama era, for the first time appears to be accepting the likelihood of defeat and acknowledging the scale of the conservative revolution sweeping America.

The Times is now talking of a Washington “on the brink of a substantial shift in the balance of power”, a momentous change driven by a “highly energized grass-roots conservative movement.” As the Grey Lady of US journalism puts it:

President Obama campaigned for a fourth consecutive day on Saturday as the Democratic Party threw its full weight into preventing a defeat of historic proportions in an election shaped by a sour economy, intense debate over the White House’s far-reaching domestic agenda and the rise of a highly energized grass-roots conservative movement…

A wave of anxiety swept across Democrats, regardless of seniority, geographic region or whether they voted for Mr. Obama’s agenda on the hot-button issues of health care, economic stimulus or climate change legislation.

This latest assessment from The New York Times is strikingly different to its analysis exactly three weeks ago when it bullishly declared that “enough contests remain in flux that both parties head into the final four weeks of the campaign with the ability to change the dynamic before Election Day.” In the defiant words of The Times on October 2:

Republicans carry substantial advantages as they move into the final month of the fall campaign, but the resilience of vulnerable Democrats is complicating Republican efforts to lock down enough seats to capture the House and take control of the unsettled electoral battleground.

By now, Republicans had hoped to put away a first layer of Democrats and set their sights on a second tier of incumbents. But the fight for control of Congress is more fluid than it seemed at Labor Day, with Democrats mounting strong resistance in some parts of the country as they try to hold off a potential Republican wave in November.

The New York Times has at last joined the ranks of The Washington Post and Time Magazine, other key pillars of the media establishment, in acknowledging the scale of the impending conservative revolution, and the dire state of the Obama presidency. Perhaps the last outpost of the liberal elites that still believe victory is possible next week is the imperial White House itself, out of touch with reality and public opinion, and clinging to the myth that the midterms are really about “local issues”. When even The New York Times has all but abandoned ship, you know the Left is in serious trouble.

Question: Should Democrats Confirm ‘General Betray Us’?

General David Petraeus earned the legitimate title of “hero” for his incredible work in leading the surge-based turnaround in Iraq.

A work that Democrats did everything they possibly could to undermine and destroy.

When General Petraeus came to Washington to appear before Congress to defend the progress he’d made in Iraq, the leftist MoveOn.org greeted him with the title, “General Betray Us,” which ran at a vastly discounted rate by fellow liberal attack dog The New York Slimes.

Hillary Clinton told General Petraeus that his progress report on Iraq required “a willing suspension of disbelief,” all but calling Petraeus a liar.

The Senate voted to condemn the “General Betray Us” sliming of David Petraeus.  None of the Democrat presidential candidates supported it.  Obama had voted on another bill half an hour earlier, but didn’t have the courage or integrity to vote to condemn those who attacked a great general at war.  He essentially voted “present” yet again.  And Hillary Clinton literally voted in agreement with MoveOn.org.

And, of course, how did Barack Hussein analyze the Iraq strategy that Petraeus championed?

“I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there,” he told MSNBC. “In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

What did Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have to say about General David Petraeus’ competence to turn around a difficult situation in Iraq?

“Now I believe myself … that this war is lost, and that the surge is not accomplishing anything”

Obama spent his entire seven minutes at the Petraeus hearing whining about how awful everything Petraeus was doing was, in basic agreement with Harry Reid’s words of surrender:

It is to suggest that if the American people and the Congress had understood then that after devoting $1 trillion, which is what this thing optimistically will end up having cost, thousands of American lives, the creation of an environment in which Al Qaida in Iraq could operate because it didn’t exist prior to our invasion, that we have increased terrorist recruitment around the world, that Iran has been strengthened, that bin Laden and Al Qaida are stronger than at any time since 2001, and that the process of Iraqi reconstruction and their standard of living would continue to be lower than it was pre- invasion, that if that had been the deal, I think most people would have said that’s a bad deal, that does not make sense, that does not serve the United States’ strategic interests.

And so I think that some of the frustration you hear from some of the questioners is that we have now set the bar so low that modest improvement in what was a completely chaotic situation, to the point where now we just have the levels of intolerable violence that existed in June of 2006 is considered success, and it’s not.

I mean, Petraeus didn’t accomplish anything in Iraq, and actually added to the needless violence, according to now-President Barry Hussein; he’s a flat-out dishonest liar, according to now-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; we actually lost the Iraq War during Petraeus’ leadership, according to Harry Reid; and he betrayed this country, according to the leftwing machine that largely got this administration elected. And now this same general is all of a sudden the go-to-guy for these very same Democrats? I mean, excuse me?

History has proven that it was Hillary Rodham Clinton, and the entire liberal establishment who demagogued and demonized the Iraq War, who were the liars. The surge strategy and the Iraq war that General David Petraues led was such a monumental success that Joe Biden (rather appropriately nicknamed Joe “Bite Me” by General Stanley McChyrstal’s staff) tried to claim credit for it, saying:

[Iraq] “could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You’re going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You’re going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving toward a representative government.”

Democrats never admit how terribly wrong and in fact shockingly immoral they were when they did everything they possibly could to undermine General Petraeus and the Iraq War. But that doesn’t mean they won’t cynically and hypocritically take credit for both Iraq and Petraeus now. That’s just the kind of weasels Democrats are.

David Petraeus was the general that Democrats and their leftist allies despised.  Petraeus was Bush’s general.  Petraeus was “the surge general.”  And the fact that the same liberals who hated Petraeus are now cheering Obama’s selection of him makes me want to barf.

All I’m doing here is pointing out that by the twisted, vile, hypocritical, loathsome standards by which Democrats evaluated General Petraues, there is no way they should confirm him now.

They should find someone like the Pied Piper of fairy tale lore and confirm him instead.

And if Democrats do in fact now vote to confirm the man they attacked, it will be an open acknowledgment that they were rabid little treasonous vermin back in 2007.

Update, June 30, 2010: Democrats unanimously voted today to confirm as a matter of fact that they were treasonous liars in 2007.

Left Continues Violence; Media Continues To Demagogue Tea Parties

This is just another factual refutation of the mainline media’s ideological propaganda.

Republicans have had bullets shot through their windows and bricks smashed through their windows.  In fact, several bricks have been smashed through several Republican windows.  And here we are now, with an article detailing the arrest of a man who made a death threat against a Republican “bitch” politician.

April 19, 2010
Arrest made in threat against Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite

A 66-year-old Hernando County man has been arrested in connection with a threatening voice mail message left at the district office of U.S. Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville. According to the FBI, agents arrested Erik Lawrence Pidrman at his home in Spring Hill without incident Sunday.

On March 25, Brown-Waite reported that someone left the following message: “Just wanna let you know I have 27 people that are going to make sure that this b**** does not live to see her next term. Good-bye.”

The call came amid reports that a number of Congressional Democrats have gotten threats or had bricks thrown through their office windows following a contentious vote on health care legislation Sunday. It was not known Monday afternoon what allegedly caused Pidrman to make the call.

The integrity of the media has long-since been blown for all to see.  The above story is about a Republican who was threatened with death.  But the liberal bird cage liner otherwise known as the St. Petersburg Times just couldn’t help but make the story about Democrats being the “real” victims.

The paper makes no attempt to mention the repeated acts of violence against Republicans, but instead deliberately makes it appear as though it is merely one rather insignificant isolated incident against a sea of acts of violence against Democrats.  If anything, it is the other way around.

There’s no mention of the crowd of leftist thugs hunting down and beating a Republican Bobby Jindal official and her boyfriend.  There’s no mention made about a lot of things.

Not that the left gives a damn about integrity.  They are postmodernists who don’t even believe in truth; so all that remains is rhetoric and demagoguery.

Bill Clinton just came out and directly compared the anger of the tea party movement to the climate that surrounded the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.  The media was all over that story, piling on to demonize the tea party movement, but only a tiny, tiny few have bothered to demand where the hell Bill Clinton was during the unhinged leftwing hatred during the Bush years.

Meanwhile, when Timothy McVeigh was asked why he did what he did, his answer wasn’t “Rush Limbaugh,” but rather something extremist and awful that the Clinton administration did: basically, massacre women and children during Clinton-era attacks on Waco and again at Ruby Ridge.

From Wikipedia:

Motivated by his hatred of the federal government and angered by what he perceived as its mishandling of the Waco Siege (1993) and the Ruby Ridge incident (1992), McVeigh timed his attack to coincide with the second anniversary of the deaths at Waco.^[9][10]

You mean he didn’t time his blowing up a building to honor Glenn Becks’s birthday?

Maybe you should have blamed YOURSELF for the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building bombing rather than a group that didn’t even exist yet, you “it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-the-word-is-is” weasel.  Maybe the mainstream media shouldn’t trust a slimebag who forfeited his law license because of proven dishonesty.  I’m just saying.

Basically, it all depends on what the meaning of “political demagogue” is, doesn’t it, Slick Willy?

But don’t worry, Democrats.  Because the mainstream media is always there to tell big government Democrats, “Hi, I’m from the mainstream media, and I’m here to help.”

The media constantly refers to the tea party movement as “anti-government.”  It’s the heart of the Democrats’ case that we’re dangerous and could resort to violence.  The fact that that isn’t even remotely true is simply dismissed as entirely irrelevant.

The New York Times and the Associated Press just today used the identical same phrase: “This anti-government feeling has driven the tea party movement, reflected in fierce protests this past week.”  Without ever once reflecting on how biased that extremist label is.  I have never ONCE seen an “anti-government” tea party protester.  None of us want to abolish all government.  “Anti-government” IS an accurate label to apply to extreme leftwing anarchist groups; but tea party protesters are PRO-limited government – and are most certainly NOT “ANTI government.”  But the incorrect and charged label that the media deliberately use creates an extremist and disturbing image.  Which is exactly what these professional propagandists want.

Now, do you really want to see “anti-government” hate?  Why don’t you go to a liberal Democrat rally in which the crowd repeatedly chanted “FUCK THE USA!!!.”  Democrat Maxine Waters helped stoke the hate to furnace-levels that day.

Or how about Nancy Pelosi telling anti-Bush protesters, “I’m a fan of disruptors!” in 2006.

I might also point out that Barack Obama got his start in politics by benefiting from a fundraiser in William Ayers‘ – former terrorist bomber of the Weather Underground – living room.  Obama then served on several boards of directors with said anti-government terrorist.  And there’s darned good reason to believe that that same anti-government terrorist helped him write his first book.

William Ayers – now an esteemed liberal professor and member of the liberal community in good standing – bombed several U.S. government buildings, and was responsible for the murders of innocent human beings.  How the left must have cheered when he said, “I don’t regret setting bombs,” and added: “I feel we didn’t do enough.”

And do you want to know when he said those hateful words?  On 9/11, the day that nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered by al Qaeda.

Mind you, that sentiment was basically shared by Obama’s handpicked “reverend” of more than twenty years, as Jeremiah Wright said of 9/11: “America’s chickens have come home to roost” following an anti-American diatribe.

If you really want to deal with anti-government hate, you maggot-souled liberal cockroaches, how about if you expose yourselves for once in your worthless lives?!?!?!

Pew just released a poll that demonstrates that 80% of Americans are anti-government rightwing extremists.  Because 80% of Americans agree with the Tea Party and DISTRUST the Obama administration.  And oh, isn’t that exactly what the tea party has been saying for more than a year, now?

And this result is basically the lowest result in a half century.  Which is to say, hey, lefties, the American people trusted George W. Bush MORE than they trust your damn big government socialist messiah.

And for damn good reason.

Supreme Court Justice Mouths ‘That’s Not True’ To Lying Obama Speech

Remember Rep. Joe Wilson’s “You LIE!” retort during Obama’s last speech in the Capitol Building?  Wilson’s statement was about the only honest thing said throughout the speech.  And Joe Wilson’s honest rebuke of Obama’s lies netted him at least $2.7 million in contributions.

Well, now we have our new “Joe Wilson” – coming straight from the Supreme Court of the United States.

Watch Justice Samuel Alito’s mouthed response of “That’s not true” to Obama’s demagoguery:

Politico sets up the moment:

POLITICO’s Kasie Hunt, who’s in the House chamber, reports that Justice Samuel Alito mouthed the words “not true” when President Barack Obama criticized the Supreme Court’s campaign finance decision.

“Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections,” Obama said. “Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.”

The shot of the black-robed Supreme Court justices, stone-faced, was priceless.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) stood up behind the justices and clapped vigorously while Alito shook his head and quietly mouthed his discontent.

Schumer and Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md) are trying to find a way to legislate around the Supreme Court decision.

Basically, if the Supreme Court says it’s legal to murder 50 million babies, the Democrats claim that the voice of God has spoken – and that ruling cannot be questioned.  But if that very same court says that corporations have a right to exercise free speech, then THAT’S an abortion of justice.

Obama’s denunciation of the Supreme Court in a venue in which they could not defend themselves – and with a line that was intended to generate a Democrat standing ovation all around them – was a despicable disrespect of our separate branches of government as well as being rude.  The Justices showed up for Obama’s speech out of courtesy for the executive and legislative branches; they did not show up to be attacked.

Just as Joe Wilson was CORRECT in his contention that Barack Obama had lied, Justice Alito was correct in pointing out that Obama had not told the truth.  A central claim in Obama’s slanderous attack against the Supreme Court decision was that foreign corporations would be able to influence the political process.  But that isn’t true:

Another area of interest is the possible effect of this decision on foreign political spending in U.S. elections. It is important to note (as much public comment on this decision does not) that under current law, election spending by non-U.S. persons and entities is prohibited under section 441e of the statute, and that prohibition is unaffected by the ruling in Citizens United. Thus, the existing restriction on expenditures by foreign corporations remains in place not because they are corporations but because they are foreign. Further, the U.S. subsidiaries of international companies are already subject to FEC restrictions on spending non-U.S. funds in U.S. elections, or allowing foreign nationals a role in the decision-making process. 11 C.F.R. § 110.20.

An article in Big Journalism sets up the legitimate major issues (as opposed to Obama’s illegitimate demagoguery) surrounding the Supreme Court’s ruling:

Lost in most of the coverage of the decision (and conveniently ignored by President Obama, former “senior lecturer” at the University of Chicago Law School), is that, as Justice Kennedy points out, the ban on electioneering speech never applied to one type of corporation. And what type of corporation would be exempt from laws and regulations that chill the speech of all its corporate brethren? Why, the media corporation, as Justice Kennedy points out on page 35 of the opinion:

Media corporations are now exempt from §441b’s ban on corporate expenditures. Yet media corporations accumulate wealth with the help of the corporate form, the largest media corporations have “immense aggregations of wealth,” and the views expressed by media corporations often “have little or no correlation to the public’s support” for those views.

The law drew a line between two types of corporations: media corporations, and everyone else. Intentionally or not, it tilted political power toward the media and away from every other type of corporation (many of which, as Justice Kennedy observed, have limited resources, unlike, say, CNN). The mere fact that media organizations were able to speak at all in the 30 days leading up to an election gave them an advantage over other corporations. Even if a media corporation tries to be scrupulously fair in its coverage of an election, the inevitable choice to cover one story over another gives an advantage to one side. By removing the government’s muzzle from corporations, the Supreme Court has restored some balance to the playing field.

Surely the little guy has an interest in hearing election messages from corporations. The government gets its message out, and the media gets its message out. Why shouldn’t ordinary, private-sector corporations be able to speak as well? Unless he is a member of  the Civil Service or a public-employees’ union, the little guy’s livelihood is usually dependent on a corporation — not the government or the media. Why shouldn’t he be able to hear that Candidate X’s support for cap and trade will destroy his employer?

Why hasn’t Obama decried that ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and CNN – corporations all – have exercised their rights to free speech???  Why hasn’t he demanded that THEY be marginalized along with Fox News?  And who do those corporate bastards at the New York and Los Angeles Times think they are spouting their views and influencing our elections?  Do you realize that they depend on advertisements from OTHER corporations that are quite often foreign-owned?

The author of the above article contends that big media will be hurt by this ruling, since presently they are the only corporations that get free speech, and therefore are the only corporations that get to speak for all the other corporations through the filter of their liberal biases.

It’s also more than a little hypocritical for Obama to wax so self-righteous now when he had so little problem accepting all kinds of campaign contributions that in all likelihood included foreign money without every bothering to check.

And, of course, the very big-media corporations who were alone allowed to exercise their free speech never bothered to look at the Obama foreign money issue.

You want to hear the REAL reason Obama is so angry at this decision?  Because he is finally bothered by the notion that one’s chickens can come “home to roost.”

From the New York Times:

But the decision could also have a significant effect on Mr. Obama’s expansive domestic agenda. The president has angered many of the big-money industries — like banks and insurers — that would be inclined to dig deep into their pockets to influence the outcome of the president’s legislative proposals.

Obama has repeatedly demonized entire industries (banks, auto manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, health insurance companies, etc.).  And now a whopping 77% of investors believe that Obama is anti-business.

So it will be something of a textbook case of poetic justice that the businesses that Obama viciously attacked finally get their own shot at being able to attack him for a change.

New York Times Endorses Obama As Stock Tumbles To Junk Status

This is what they call poetic justice: the New York Times officially endorses Obama on the same day that Standard & Poor’s downgrade its stock to junk status.

If you’re going to nominate a junk candidate, you might as well make it offical and BE junk.

Maybe being in the tank for liberals, using unfair and deceitful tactics to smear Republicans, and being just generally a disgrace to journalism isn’t the best business model to build upon?  Maybe future newspapers might come to recognize that their readers might want at least an occasional dose of actual truth in their news?

The New York Times says in its endorsement:

Hyperbole is the currency of presidential campaigns, but this year the nation’s future truly hangs in the balance.

The problem is that “hyperbole” – and much worse – is also the currency of the New York Times.  And now whether the newspaper or its stock is worth more than toilet paper “truly hangs in the balance.”

Reuters begins its piece on this delicious bit of news by saying the following:

NEW YORK, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Standard & Poor’s on Thursday slashed its ratings on the New York Times Co (NYT.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) into junk territory and cited concerns about the newspaper publisher’s revenue outlook, after it posted a third-quarter loss.

Moody’s Investors Service also said it may follow the move, adding the publisher faces risks in refinancing its debt.

The New York Times posted a quarterly loss from continuing operations on Thursday and said advertising revenue at its news media group dropped 16 percent for the quarter. For details, see [ID:nN23398087]

Thus we can say with rather precise accuracy that the New York Times’ endorsement of Barack Obama is junk; heck, the whole paper is junk!

Bye bye, New York Times.  Say hello to the Dodo bird when you see it on the road to extinction.

New York Times, Biased Slime Machine, Pumps Crap On Cindy McCain

Yesterday I wrote an article describing the revelation that a reporter had made up a hateful statement (“kill him!”) to falsely characterize John McCain, Cindy Palin, and the people who are flocking out to support them, as intolerant hate peddlers.  Because the allegation amounted to a direct threat against a presidential candidate, the Secret Service looked into the journalists’ story – only to find it completely false.  But that didn’t stop every mainstream media outlet from presenting it as a documented fact in their anti-McCain-Palin polemics for a couple days.

That was yesterday.  Today, the New York Times unleashed a slime arsenal against Cindy McCain.  The McCain campaign is livid at this attack on the candidate’s family.  It’s not just the fixation on every negative detail of Cindy’s life that makes the story so blatantly unfair; it is the deliberate omission of any positive aspect, such as her humanitarian work, her generosity, or the many other wonderful things she has done.

New York Times writer Jodi Kantor has written six puff pieces on Michelle and Barack Obama, three attack pieces against Sarah Palin, and is now turning her vulture-like attention on Cindy McCain.  If you think that is balanced journalism, call the New York Times; they might well be looking for a demagoguing propagandist ideologue like you.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the media – in a complete rejection of its constitutional role as honest investigators informing the people of the truth in order to serve as an obstacle against government corruption – has become completely biased, liberalism would have been round-filed in this country years ago.  As it is, we have a media that routinely attacks and lies about one side while praising and ignoring negative stories on the other side.  They are rightly being called “the journalistic industrial complex” – and they very much have their own agenda.

The New York Times wants to find Cindy McCain’s drug dealer (at one time she became addicted to prescription pain killers); the McCain lawyer asks why the paper never bothered to try to locate Barack Obama’s drug dealers (he has admitted to using illegal drugs).  They won’t, because they are biased propagandists out to hurt Republicans and win the election for the Democrat Party machine under the facade of “journalism.”

I would suggest, rather than writing puff piece after puff piece about Michelle Obama, the New York Times could look at something like this: