By Clay Waters | March 20, 2013 | 2:32 PM EDT

Pot, kettle: New York Times book critic Michiko Kakutani reviewed Tuesday a new biography by Zev Chafets of Fox News president Roger Ailes under the headline, "A Soft-Focus Look at Fox's Tough-Talking Tough Guy." Kakutani faulted the book for relying on familiar stories and, of course, for Fox News's conservatie viewpoint: "There is little cogent analysis in these pages about how Fox News frames its reports from a conservative point of view, or the effect that this has had on the national conversation."

Hypocritically, Kakutani provided no analysis, cogent or otherwise, on how the Times frames its reports from a liberal point of view, and has been doing so for far longer than Fox News.

By Clay Waters | February 6, 2013 | 8:25 AM EST

New York Times reporter and Obama biographer Jodi Kantor caught up with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's book tour in Chicago for Monday's edition in "Sotomayor, a Star on the Book-Tour Circuit, Sees a New Niche for a Justice." Kantor promoted the liberal justice as a kind of folk hero "dispensing homespun wisdom."

At her Wednesday night book talk here, Justice Sonia Sotomayor glided through her audience of 700, dispensing homespun wisdom through a cordless microphone, interrupted by impromptu applause.

By Clay Waters | July 6, 2012 | 1:39 PM EDT

Erica Greider reviewed on Tuesday the recent conservative-bashing book by New York Times columnist and former editorial page editor Gail Collins, As Texas Goes – How the Lone Star State Hijacked the American Agenda. Greider covers the region for the Economist and knows something about Texas history, which puts Collins at a disadvantage. Greider wrote:

...Her book, 'As Texas Goes... ,' pays particular attention to the state’s staggering inequality, casual embrace of crony capitalism and creaky educational pipeline. These are problems for Texas, of course, but Ms. Collins’s concern is that Texas itself is everyone’s problem. “Personally, I prefer to think that all Americans are in the same boat,” she says. “And Texas has a lot to do with where we’re heading.”

Greider politely corrected some of Collins's factual errors: "....the problem with this book is one that has dogged other outsiders’ accounts: stereotypes about Texas are so strong that they may trump the record."

By Clay Waters | June 11, 2012 | 4:28 PM EDT

Thin-skinned New York Times columnist Paul Krugman spoke at the left-wing Netroots Nation conference held in Providence, R.I. this weekend (a fact overlooked in his own paper's story). In his Saturday morning talk, Krugman displayed his usual class and charm by calling Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus "very much a noecon," a slur in Krugman's liberal circles, for allegedly assigning an unsympathetic critic to his new book End This Depression Now! according to the liberal news site Talking Points Memo.

By Clay Waters | June 5, 2012 | 3:31 PM EDT

Al Sharpton, the veteran Democratic activist and racial provocateur who hosts "PoliticsNation" on MSNBC, reviewed a James Brown biography for the New York Times Sunday Book Review and was interviewed in the Reviews' "Up Front" section. Sharpton credited the biography by RJ Smith for placing Brown in the context of the civil rights movement. But why would the Times consider Sharpton qualified to comment on anything, much less racial matters?

As usual, the Times didn't address at all Sharpton's racially inflammatory past or any of his controversies. As MRC president Brent Bozell recently wrote:

By Clay Waters | May 22, 2012 | 2:49 PM EDT

Not content with letting partisan liberal journalist Joe Klein review "radical Republican" Jonah Goldberg's new book The Tyranny of Clichés, the May 18 edition of the paper's Book Review podcast opened with book editor Sam Tanenahus talking with Klein about his hostile Times book review. Tanenhaus (pictured), author of a little screed called The Death of Conservatism that was discredited within months of its 2009 publication by the rise of the Tea Party, spent the first 14 minutes of the podcast slamming Goldberg's book along with Klein.

This exchange occurred about 40 minutes from the end of the podcast:

By Clay Waters | May 3, 2012 | 7:43 AM EDT

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman is doing a television tour for his book "End This Depression Now!" Charlie Rose interviewed him twice, once on CBS This Morning Monday, then that night for the full hour of Rose's PBS talk show. Krugman appeared on Bloomberg TV Tuesday debating Ron Paul, and the friendlier confines of MSNBC's Rachel Maddow show that night.

Krugman's economic recovery plan, no surprise, involves lots of government jobs, a smear of Rep. Paul Ryan's budget, and a cavalier attitude toward America's massive debt load: "Britain had debt that was well over 100% of for most of the 20th century. It's not a crisis level problem....you can live with 100% for decades on end." On Rachel Maddow he said Wall Street guys have "destroyed the world."

By Clay Waters | March 5, 2012 | 2:05 PM EST

New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter on Monday defended Hollywood and the new HBO movie "Game Change," a hit job on the 2008 vice presidential campaign of Sarah Palin based on the book by liberal reporters John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. In "Rogue, Rube or G.O.P. Star: Portraying Palin," Stelter defended Hollywood from "conspiracy theories" that the movie is meant "to undermine a future run for president by Ms. Palin" (as if Hollywood liberals wouldn't love to have it accomplish just that).

Stelter also vigorously defended the movie-makers choice to focus solely on Palin at the expense of the portions of the book devoted to the bloody Democratic primary tussle between Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. But it doesn't take a conspiracy theorist to realize that overwhelmingly liberal and Democratic movie-makers would prefer the "Palin is an ignoramus" parts, rather than the parts that might have made Hillary and Obama look petty.

By Clay Waters | February 21, 2012 | 3:14 PM EST

New York Times congressional reporter Carl Hulse’s “Congressional Memo” Tuesday was a late valentine to former Wisconsin senator and preening liberal hero Russ Feingold, “In New Book, Ex-Senator Says Fear Clouded Judgment After 9-11.”

Hulse, who has a history of promoting Democrats while dismissing Republicans, portrayed Feingold as a brave maverick trying to thwart a rising tide of fear.

By Clay Waters | January 12, 2012 | 5:13 PM EST

On Wednesday afternoon, New York Times political reporter Jodi Kantor hosted a live Facebook discussion on her new book on the Obamas and especially First Lady Michelle Obama. If this Facebook session is any indication, the book matches Kantor’s previous promotional coverage of the First Couple. On Facebook Kantor describes the First Lady as someone “with important ideas of her own about opportunity, access, equality, etc,” who “has redefined the role of first lady for successors...she's really raised the bar for ambitious initiatives.”

Revealingly, when asked about her latest scoops being allegedly used by Fox News and the Drudge Report as a “racial attack against the Obamas,” Kantor emphasized to her predominantly liberal audience how she broke the news about Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s ministry (in a bland story), and wrote a follow up “which I labored and labored over to make fair.” And it was “fair,” at least from the perspective of an Obama supporter.

By Clay Waters | November 18, 2011 | 2:16 PM EST

New York Times reporter Jodi Kantor, whose book on the Obamas comes out in January, reappeared on Friday’s front page to fawn over Michelle Obama, “First Lady Takes On the Role of Staff Energizer.”

Kantor’s book, “The Obamas,” certainly does not sound like it will afflict the comfortable couple in the White House: “Filled with riveting detail and insight into their partnership, emotions and personalities, and written with a keen eye for the ironies of public life, THE OBAMAS is an intimate portrait that will surprise even readers who thought they knew the President and First Lady.” That promotional tone matches Kantor’s previous Times coverage of the First Couple.

By Brent Bozell | October 29, 2011 | 8:31 AM EDT

Those prestigious publishers at Simon & Schuster selected All Saints Day to unleash the book world's latest attempt at mocking Christianity. It’s called "The Last Testament, by God."

The author is David Javerbaum, a top writer for 11 years for "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, perhaps America's leading religion-hating TV network. Is it any surprise that the critics are loving it?