I've barely been paying attention to the news, except to check Senate polls every night, because, as some of you may have noticed, I've been in the bat-cave under Swiss Guard protection, writing my next book. But based on only about an hour of media consumption a week, I've recently noticed mainstream "news" outlets telling huge whoppers, long ago disproved and forgotten.
Nicholas Kristof
By Matthew Balan | September 3, 2014 | 4:30 PM EDT
On Tuesday's CNN Tonight, Don Lemon spotlighted the scoop that President Obama received briefings on ISIS "for at least a year" before the extreme Islamist group's blitzkrieg across northern Iraq – something the Big Three networks failed to do the same evening. During a segment with Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, Lemon pointed out that the President was "briefed on this a year ago, and then...looked the other way – didn't take it seriously enough."
Kristof did his best to brush this reporting aside: "I don't think it's quite right to say he didn't take it seriously enough. I think that the problem there is that there aren't good options." The CNN anchor also wondered if the liberal politician should take a stronger stance against ISIS, as one of his main counterparts did: [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]
NYT Hits 'Dehumanization' of Palestinians, Ignores Years of 'Apes, Pigs' Rhetoric & Annihilation Calls by Palestinian Media
By Clay Waters | July 21, 2014 | 10:47 AM EDT Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren's front-page Monday story, "In the Battleground of Words, Hatred and Muddied Reality," strived for a tone of equal blame and moral equivalency, dubious enough when talking about a war started by the anti-Israel terrorist group Hamas.
Yet Rudoren clearly slanted against Israel in her unbalanced condemnations of rhetoric vs. reality in the region, claiming that discussion of the dead in Gaza on Israeli news programs lacks a "human, moral" context, ignoring the years of dehumanization of Jews as monkeys and pigs on official Palestinian media.
By Clay Waters | July 16, 2014 | 9:02 AM EDT
James Taranto performed an invaluable service from his Opinion Journal "Best of the Web" perch this week, revealing New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, a notorious liberal crusader on various fronts, to be perhaps the most gullible of the paper's many liberal writers. (He's also suggested Mao Tse-Tung and Saddam Hussein weren't that bad.)
Taranto teed up Kristof with this example of corruption of the peer-review process in scientific research:
By Tom Blumer | January 2, 2014 | 11:08 PM EST
Nicholas D. Kristof (I've tended to call him "Nick" through the years) has made and implemented a momentous, course of civilization-altering decision effective 1/1/2014 (HT Twitchy): "If you look closely at my Times byline ... I’ve knocked out my middle initial for the new year."
Why oh why would Nick want to do that? "I think in the Internet age, the middle initial conveys a formality that is a bit of a barrier to our audience. It feels a bit ostentatious." I've got a clue for you, Nick, old buddy old pal: Your columns are much more than "a bit" ostentatious and pretentious. Unfortunately, the disappearance of your middle initial is not likely to change that. If ever anyone exemplified navel-gazing, knee-jerk, double-standard liberalism, it would be you. Accordingly, I suggest that you begin to use a more appropriate middle initial than the one you just dropped. My suggestion follows the jump.
By Noel Sheppard | June 29, 2013 | 2:06 PM EDT
It’s really been amazing this past week watching liberal media members that for years have been complaining about Republican filibusters almost universally celebrate Texas state Senator Wendy Davis’s (D) filibuster of an abortion bill that clearly would have passed if she hadn’t.
Count Bill Maher amongst the hypocrites, for having just two months ago called the filibuster a “quiet coup” that is a Constitutional problem, the HBO Real Time host Friday referred to Davis as a “new political star” and her actions as “heroic” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
By Matt Hadro | June 3, 2013 | 3:04 PM EDT
Is the IRS scandal just not that big a deal in New York City? Perhaps for out-of-touch journos like liberal Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and The New Yorker editor David Remnick, who downplayed the controversy on Sunday's Fareed Zakaria GPS.
Kristof predictably spun the scandals into a "so what?" narrative for the White House: "I think it's true that the White House has often been tone-deaf, but every second term has scandals." Meanwhile, Remnick called the IRS scandal the doing of "very low level" employees without acknowledging that higher-ups in Washington could have orchestrated it.
By Scott Whitlock | April 15, 2013 | 4:44 PM EDT
Never let a tragedy go to waste. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on Monday quickly used the explosions in Boston for political gain, linking the Republican Party to the horrific act. At 4:10pm, Kristof tweeted, "explosion is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking apptment." [UPDATE: Kristof has "taken back" the comment and deleted the tweet. See below for screen shot of the tweet.]
Kristof then tweeted a link to a Washington Post story about Senator Charles Grassley questioning the fitness of Obama's Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms nominee. Kristof's comments earned a rebuke from the liberal Politico. Dylan Byers reported, "Kristof's tweet earned a number of responses expressing either anger or bafflement." [SECOND UPDATE: More journalists are politicizing the tragedy. See below.]
MSNBC's Jansing Highlights NYTimes Columnists's Tweet Calling for Female Priests, Acceptance of Contraception
By Ken Shepherd | February 11, 2013 | 11:43 AM EST A daily feature of MSNBC host Chris Jansing's 10 a.m. Eastern program Jansing & Co. is the "Tweet of the Day." Given the astonishing breaking news about Pope Benedict XVI's decision to abdicate the papacy at the end of the month, it was almost certain the tweet highlighted would have to do with this development.
But given that this is the "Lean Forward" network, Jansing highlighted the call of a liberal columnist for a pope who would accept contraception and women priests:
By Clay Waters | January 10, 2013 | 3:44 PM EST
The New York Times has taken the offensive on all fronts in support of Chuck Hagel, the "maverick" former Republican senator and President Obama's nominee for Secretary of Defense, recounting his Vietnam War heroics in a way that previous Republican presidential candidates John McCain and Bob Dole could only envy, while accusing his GOP opponents of "bullying" him with accusations of anti-Semitism.
International edition columnist Roger Cohen generously took it upon himself Tuesday to decide who a "true friend" of Israel was, and both Chuck Hagel and Barack Obama made the cut (unlike people who, you know, actually support Israel all the time).
By Brad Wilmouth | October 24, 2012 | 8:29 AM EDT
On Tuesday's Piers Morgan Tonight, host Morgan proclaimed that President Barack Obama was wrong during Monday's debate when he claimed that the U.S. military has fewer bayonets than in the past as the CNN host recounted that hand-to-hand combat still occurs in places like Afghanistan.
As he brought aboard Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times as a guest, Morgan played a clip of Obama from the debate and then corrected him:
By Clay Waters | October 16, 2012 | 7:57 AM EDT
Two New York Times's liberal columnists are agreed: Repealing Obama-care would have a massive body count. Paul Krugman (pictured) wished readers a happy Monday with his cheerfully titled column "Death by Ideology."
Mitt Romney doesn’t see dead people. But that’s only because he doesn’t want to see them; if he did, he’d have to acknowledge the ugly reality of what will happen if he and Paul Ryan get their way on health care.