James Taranto

Taranto Exposes The Shameless New York Times Filibuster Flip-flop
By Tim Graham | July 18, 2013 | 2:27 PM EDT

On Wednesday, James Taranto at The Wall Street Journal exposed that the New York Times editorial page shamelessly changed its position on the filibuster in 2013 from nearly the exact opposite of its position during a Republican Senate majority in 2005.


“It's now clearer than ever that the Times's guiding principle is nothing other than the tactical interests of the Democratic Party,” wrote Taranto.  On July 16, 2013, an unsigned Times editorial lamented that the Democrats caved in to Republicans and failed to shred the filibuster, just in case Republicans ever regain the majority (perhaps in the next election.) Harry Reid was too wimpy:

New Liberal Study 'Lends Credence to Conservative Charges' of Bias; Dramatic Media Tilt Toward 'Gay Marriage'
By Tim Graham | June 18, 2013 | 8:34 AM EDT

In a study finding that should be completely obvious to anyone who spends an hour with the media, the liberal-leaning Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism has found media coverage “was tilted massively against those who favor traditional marriage.”

Pew’s study of more than 1,000 stories from March 18 to May 12 found what anyone could find. Washington Post media blogger Erik Wemple noted the numbers back up the lament from Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage that even Fox News doesn’t want to hear their side of the argument:

Taranto: ‘Obama Presidency Has Given Liberal Media Bias a New and Dangerous Form’
By Brent Baker | May 25, 2013 | 2:21 PM EDT

“Liberal media bias is an old complaint,” the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto noted in his “Best of the Web Today” column this past Monday on responses to the Obama scandals, before warning: “The Obama presidency has given it a new and dangerous form. Never has the prevailing bias of the media been so closely aligned with the ideological aims and political interests of the party in power.”

He recognized “the American media remain free and independent, or you would not be reading this column,” but zinged, “to a large extent they have functioned for the past few years as if they were under state control.”

NY Times' Bruni Mocked for Urging Pope to 'Dwell Less in the Bedroom, More in the Soup Kitchen'
By Clay Waters | March 20, 2013 | 8:11 AM EDT

James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal cracked on New York Times columnist Frank Bruni for his Sunday Review column urging the new pope to "dwell less in the bedroom, more in the soup kitchen." (Last week Bruni guest-hosted the Charlie Rose show and pushed similar talking points.)

Taranto had fun with Bruni in his "Best of the Web" column Monday:

Pope Sonia? E.J. Dionne Wants a 'Mome, Not a Pope'
By Tim Graham | February 20, 2013 | 7:35 AM EST

James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal had fun with liberal journalists calling for a female pope in his Best of the Web Today column on Tuesday. Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne wrote a piece for the Sunday paper insisting: "It is time to elect a nun as the next pontiff."

Dionne acknowledged that "this hope of mine is the longest of long shots," but Taranto added "if he were Catholic he would know that a female holy father isn't just a long shot, it's a contradiction in terms. Dionne wants a mome, not a pope."

Senate Democrats' Letter Urging Obama to Unilaterally Raise Debt Limit Gets Little or No Visibility at AP's National Site
By Tom Blumer | January 14, 2013 | 9:09 AM EST

The self-described "essential global news network" known as the Associated Press, more aptly characterized as the Administration's Press, has from all appearances chosen to minimize the exposure given to Friday's letter from four Senate Democrats to President Obama encouraging him to unilaterally increase the nation's debt ceiling if Congress fails to do so.

A search on Harry Reid's last name at the AP's national site at 8:30 ET this morning returned nothing relating to that letter. But there was an AP writeup about it on Sunday morning. A search on a few key words in Andrew Taylor's report found at another web site demonstrates that it's no longer available at the AP's national site. Gosh, it's almost as if AP doesn't want Americans to know that four Democratic senators are urging Obama to blatantly violate the Constitution. The first six paragraphs of Taylor's report follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post):

More Out-of-Control Identity Politics: Blacks, Latinos Concerned That a 'Non-Person of Color' Might Win NYC Council Seat
By Tom Blumer | November 28, 2012 | 8:34 PM EST

In a story the New York Times appears not to have touched, Hunter Walker at Observer.com's Politicker ("about" page is here) reported on Tuesday that Thomas Lopez-Pierre, a black Harlem activist, "circulated an email" Monday night "in an attempt to plan a 'private meeting' to 'discuss the potential damage to the political empowerment of the Black and Hispanic community if Mark Levine, a White/Jewish candidate was elected to the 7th Council District in 2013.'" So we see that black Chicagoland establishment officials trying to ensure that the successor to the recently resigned Jesse Jackson Jr.  in Illinois' 2nd Congressional District are not alone in seeing a political office as somehow "belonging" to them.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription may be required) has also picked up the story ("Race, Religion Used as Basis For an Attack"). Verbiage from the Politicker report, along with separate comments from James Taranto at the WSJ's Best of the Web, follow the jump (internal links are in originals; bolds are mine throughout this post):

NY Times Called Bush’s 2.7% GDP a ‘Letdown,’ But Obama’s Lower GDP a ‘Steady Improvement’
By Brent Baker | October 30, 2012 | 10:00 PM EDT

The leftist bias of the New York Times beautifully encapsulated in seven words used about a week before two presidential elections. Headline over Saturday’s editorial on the third quarter GDP creeping up to 2.0 percent under Democrat Barack Obama: “Slow but Steady Improvement.” Headline twenty years ago (October 29, 1992) when Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush was in the White House and the third quarter GDP nearly doubled to 2.7 percent: “Gross National Letdown.”

Candy Crowley Not in ‘Cahoots’ With Obama; He and Axelrod Used Her
By Brent Baker | October 20, 2012 | 1:54 PM EDT

The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto on Thursday offered a plausible explanation for why President Barack Obama, during Tuesday night’s debate, felt confident he could count on moderator Candy Crowley of CNN to back him up on how he had uttered the phrase “acts of terror” the day after the Benghazi attack.

On her CNN State of the Union show back on September 30, Crowley interviewed David Axelrod and during that segment she was as incredulous as Mitt Romney was at the debate that Obama had initially referred to “acts of terror” in any relationship to Benghazi.

The Washington Post Co. Sinks Ever Deeper Into Reliance on Government Programs For Its Profits
By Tim Graham | October 4, 2012 | 10:46 PM EDT

James Taranto at The Wall Street Journal smelled a conflict-of-interest problem when "The Washington Post Co. said Monday that it has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Celtic Healthcare, a provider of skilled home health-care and hospice services in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions.”

The Post has offset losses in its core journalism businesses with profits from its Kaplan educational business. But federal money is part of the cash flow. A recent story on threatened accreditations noted “A loss of accreditation would mean the Kaplan campuses would no longer be eligible for Title IV loans from the Education Department, the source of nearly 90 percent of Kaplan higher-education revenue.” The Post’s foray into health care will also make the Post more dependent on government revenue:

Taranto Discredits Media ‘Fact Checkers,’ Shows How They Amplify the Media’s Liberal Bias
By Brent Baker | September 8, 2012 | 2:56 PM EDT

“Writers have been bowing to the ‘fact checkers’ as submissively as Barack Obama upon meeting some anti-American dictator,” the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto quipped in a devastating take-down of the rise of the news media’s so-called “fact checkers.”

In “The Pinocchio Press: The bizarre rise of ‘fact checking’ propagandists” posted on Tuesday, the author of the daily “Best of the Web Today” noted “the usual conservative complaint about all this ‘fact checking’ is the same as the conservative complaint about the MSM’s product in general: that it is overwhelmingly biased toward the left.” But, he concluded, “the form amplifies the bias. It gives journalists much freer rein to express their opinions by allowing them to pretend to be rendering authoritative judgments about the facts.”

New York Times Columnist Frank Bruni Violates Patient Privacy, Then Gets Nasty With Newt
By Clay Waters | March 28, 2012 | 2:23 PM EDT

New York Times reporter turned columnist Frank Bruni is on a nasty streak. He devoted his long Sunday Review column, "Rethinking His Religion," to a former classmate with a pat liberal morality lesson that seemed a lot like an invasion of patient privacy, then attacked Newt Gingrich and insulted Gingrich's wife. James Taranto at Best of the Web explained:

New York Times columnist Frank Bruni has some insufferable friends. Yesterday he spent nearly 1,500 words profiling one of them, a classmate at the University of North Carolina whom he knew at the time as a conservative frat boy who "attended Catholic services every Sunday in a jacket and tie." Bruni, who is gay, "kept a certain distance from him" under the assumption that the young man, whom he does not name in the column, would be hostile to the future Timesman because of his sexual orientation.