Carolyn Lochhead

SF Chronicle's Lochhead Hits Republicans Over Pay Rate for Lawyer Defending DOMA
By Ken Shepherd | April 19, 2011 | 5:17 PM EDT

As part of its effort to "shore up" the backing of social conservatives, House Republicans today "issued a contract today to pay former Solicitor General Paul Clement $575 an hour, up to $500,000 to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act," San Francisco Chronicle's Carolyn Lochhead insisted in the paper's Politics Blog.

"Republicans claim they will take the money out of the Justice Department's budget, as if that will hold taxpayers harmless. But a cost is a cost and taxpayers will pay it either way. Any funds removed from DOJ are funds removed from other work," Lochhead groused.

This from the same reporter who approved of Obama's fiscal year 2012 budget proposal as "centrist."

SF Chronicle Hails 'Obama's Centrist Approach' to Budget
By Ken Shepherd | April 13, 2011 | 5:53 PM EDT

"Obama aims for the middle on taxes and spending."

That's the headline the San Francisco Chronicle gave Washington bureau staffer Carolyn Lochhead's write-up this afternoon following President Obama's "belated embrace of his commission's recommendation to cut $4 trillion in deficits over the next 12 years."

"Even as he reached back to his 2008 campaign lodestar with a reference to Abraham Lincoln, Obama pivoted sharply to a new mantra of 'balance' and 'shared sacrifice,' citing his Democratic predecessor and budget-balancer, former President Bill Clinton," Lochhead gushed.

Two paragraphs later Lochhead noted that "Obama threw down the gauntlet to Republicans, vowing, 'I refuse to renew them again.'"

How exactly is that centrist rhetoric?