The New York Times saw grim tidings for Democrats in the congressional elections, but over the weekend, one could spot the paper subtly separating President Barack Obama from the travails of his party. And one headline should make the Hall of Fame for wishful thinking on the part of the liberal media.
Jackie Calmes
By Clay Waters | October 23, 2014 | 11:53 PM EDT
Having pretty much conceded big Republican gains of the U.S. Senate, the New York Times is working to strangle any ideological gains the GOP might make, whether the issue be immigration or economics. The latest example: Jackie Calmes' front-page story Thursday, "Economists See Limited Gains in G.O.P. Plan."
By Clay Waters | October 4, 2014 | 8:27 AM EDT
Michelle Obama is sitting out the tight Senate races in 2014, and the New York Times seems a bit worried. Saturday's front page story by Jackie Calmes was interspersed with praise for both the crowd-rousing Michelle and that resilient "ace" campaigner, former first lady Hillary Clinton.
By Clay Waters | July 3, 2014 | 4:26 PM EDT
Jackie Calmes, New York Times reporter (and reliable water-carrier for Democrats), made Thursday's front page with a story on the competitive Senate race in North Carolina, a seat the Democrats desperately need to keep in order to maintain their hold on the U.S. Senate.
The nudging headline read: "To Hold Senate, Democrats Rely on Single Women." In the lead we revealingly learn that the decline of marriage has been a boon for the Democratic party (what it says about the well-being of the country being apparently less vital).
By Clay Waters | April 27, 2014 | 2:07 PM EDT
New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes, a reliable defender of President Obama, placed the blame on the cynical GOP for depriving poor West Virginians of health care for electoral advantage, in Sunday's "Political Stigma Is Depressing Participation in Health Law." The text box read: "Misconceptions are common as attack ads fill airwaves in West Virginia."
Calmes pitted a cynical, misleading, partisan GOP against supposedly non-partisan health professionals.
NY Times Devotes Story to Texas Candidate Embracing Ted Nugent, Barely Noticed Obama Embracing Spike Lee
By Tim Graham | February 19, 2014 | 5:39 PM EST
When you work at that “Valhalla” of liberal journalism called The New York Times, you can’t believe it when Republicans associate themselves with trash-talking celebrities who make wild charges about President Obama.
But when President Obama associates himself with trash-talking celebrities who made wild charges about President Bush, that’s not newsworthy at all. See these lead paragraphs of the Times, one from Wednesday’s story on Ted Nugent and Texas candidate Greg Abbott, and the other one from 2012 on Spike Lee and President Obama:
By Tim Graham | September 11, 2013 | 10:31 PM EDT
The New York Times published a large color picture of a “defund Obamacare” rally on Capitol Hill on page A-12 of Wednesday’s paper. The headline was “G.O.P. Eyes Hard Line Against Health Care Law.” There is no such thing as a “hard line” in favor of Obamacare.
Sadly, the Jackie Calmes story below the picture saved any mention of the conservative rally until paragraph 13, where she briefly singled out protesters with bad spelling who favored impeachment and compared Obama to Hitler and Stalin:
By Kyle Drennen | August 27, 2013 | 10:59 AM EDT
On her 1 p.m. ET hour MSNBC show on Monday, host Andrea Mitchell touted Attorney General Eric Holder "speaking about the national battle for voting rights" in the wake of new state voter I.D. laws and lead off a panel discussion on the topic by wondering: "How will the President take on those voter suppression laws?" [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]
Mitchell eagerly seized on former Secretary of State Colin Powell "speaking on the political effects of these voter suppression attempts by the Republican Party." Following the Face the Nation sound bite in which Powell slammed the GOP for passing measures to curb voter fraud, Mitchell posed this question: "Does the White House think that the Republicans are actually doing the Democratic Party a favor by taking on, you know, these issues and passing the laws that they've now passed in Texas and in North Carolina?"
By Tim Graham | July 30, 2013 | 8:23 AM EDT
Over the weekend, The New York Times promoted its July 24 interview with President Obama – after being shut out for almost three years – but reporters Jackie Calmes and Michael “Macaca” Shear couldn’t find time for a single question about the IRS scandal, Benghazi, or other Obama scandals. They found time to ask a softball about whether Obama would help observe the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. This could explain Obama’s last words: “Thanks, guys. Appreciate you.”
But Calmes and Shear did throw a series of hardballs about how Obama’s not getting around Republican obstructionism on the economy. In a question pushing to end the sequester, Calmes spurred Obama to talk about his passion for deficit reduction (despite the need for a laugh track, he’s not kidding):
By Clay Waters | April 5, 2013 | 1:34 PM EDT
The deck of headlines over Friday's lead New York Times story by White House reporter Jackie Calmes illustrated how hard it will be for conservatives to actually reduce the national debt: "Social Programs Facing A Cutback In Obama Budget -- Smaller Increase Seen -- Show of Compromise Is Aimed at Reviving Deficit Deal."
The Times actually contradicted itself within its headline, announcing Obama's proposed budget "cutback," yet admitting in the next line that Obama's proposal -- incorporating a revision in how inflation is calculated that's known as "chained C.P.I." (for Consumer Price Index) -- would actually just mean a "smaller increase" in federal spending year to year. It would reduce the growth of annual spending in programs like Social Security, but not actually reduce the amount spent.
NY Times Sees 'Austerity,' "Poor May Be Hit Particularly Hard' by 'Painful and Stupid' Sequestration
By Clay Waters | March 4, 2013 | 3:19 PM EST The perils and victims of the round of the mandatory federal spending cuts known as sequestration led the New York Times' weekend coverage, with the 2.4% cut in annual federal spending that went into effect starting Friday labeled "austerity" and ushered in with headlines warning that "Poor May Be Hit Particularly Hard." Also: those who still approve of Congress tend to be "Obama haters," according to a news story.
Predictably, it was pro-Obama White House reporter Jackie Calmes' lead story in the Sunday edition that forecast the "new round of austerity" and predicted less economic growth as a result: "Cuts To Achieve Goal For Deficit, But Toll Is High – $4 Trillion In 10 Years – No 'Grand Bargain,' and a Drag on Jobs and Economic Growth."
By Clay Waters | February 20, 2013 | 2:00 PM EST
Basking in the campaign-like trappings of Obama's White House press conference, reporter Jackie Calmes repeated in Wednesday's New York Times, the president's horror stories on the purportedly deep impact of mandatory budget cuts, known as the "sequester," that are scheduled to hit March 1: "Obama Tries to Turn Up Pressure on Republicans as Cutbacks Near." The cuts amount to an estimated $85 billion this year out of a $3,600 billion dollar budget, but Calmes pushed the pain of Obama having to deal with recalcitrant Republicans:
"Days away from another fiscal crisis and with Congress on vacation, President Obama began marshaling the powers of the presidency on Tuesday to try to shame Republicans into a compromise that could avoid further self-inflicted job losses and damage to the fragile recovery," she wrote. "But so far, Republicans were declining to engage."