Somehow when I think of "old-time back-room politics" I don't associate it with important debates about the definition of marriage and the safeguarding of religious liberties.
But apparently AP's Michael Gormley does.
Here's how he opened his June 21 story which the Washington Post ran on page A2 (emphasis mine):
The New York Times vs. state spending cuts, take three. After the New York State legislature passed a $132.5 billion budget under new Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo that cuts overall spending by two percent, Albany-based reporter Thomas Kaplan went looking for budget victims for Friday’s “After an On-Time Passage of a Pared-Back Budget, Bracing for the Pain to Come.”
Not once did the Times forward an elementary piece of information -- the state’s $10 billion deficit. The word “deficit” did not appear in the story, although the emotionally laded word “pain” appeared three times, including in the headline. One had to look to local coverage for that basic piece of fiscal information. Instead, Kaplan went around soliciting sob stories, from school teachers, to prison guards, to NYC Mayor Bloomberg.
The New York Times on Sunday offered an extraordinarily sober prediction: if the state of New York doesn't rein in spiraling costs of public employees, it will find itself unable to provide even essential services.
Despite clearly tying the problem to the power of New York's public employee unions, the Times editorial board assured readers that it's still pro-labor and is opposed to what Gov. Scott Walker is doing in Wisconsin:
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, who was raised a Baptist, criticized Dr. Edward Peters, a Vatican canon law adviser, Wednesday on "Morning Joe," for his call to deny Holy Communion to a public figure who is living "in violation of a fundamental moral expectation of the Church."
"Deny Communion? I'm sorry, and not to get religious here, but Jesus said, you know, 'I didn't come here to heal the healthy,'" Scarborough trumpeted from his soapbox.
"Why don't they first open the books on past priests who have victimized children?" columnist and "Morning Joe" regular Mike Barnicle chimed in, following Scarborough's lead.."That shows rigor. That would be a mistake," CNBC anchor Jim Cramer lampooned the Church.
The issue at hand is not a matter of whether Dr. Peters is "butting in" and questioning Cuomo's faith or unduly condemning him. The Catholic Church's Code of Canon Law 915 explicitly states that those "who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy Communion."
Those learned theologians on "The View" are at it again.
Discussing how Catholic canon law advisor Dr. Edward Peters has declared that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) committed an "objectively sacrilegious" act that "produces grave scandal" by receiving Communion on January 2, almost every panelist on ABC gabfest "The View" today rebuked the scholar for his pronouncement.
"Peters specifically cited Cuomo's cohabiting with Food Network hostess Sandra Lee as 'publicly acting in violation of a fundamental moral expectation of the Church,' and that 'as long as he persists in such conduct, he should refrain from taking Holy Communion,'" CNSNews.com's Michael Chapman noted on Monday.
[For full disclosure, CNSNews.com is owned by the parent company of NewsBusters, the Media Research Center.]
On the day the Republicans took over the House, NBC's Today show found time to send correspondent Peter Alexander out to profile New York's "First Couple" of the newly elected Governor Andrew Cuomo and his Food Network chef girlfriend Sandra Lee. While Alexander devoted most of his Wednesday report to Lee's biography, he did air political consultant Dan Gerstein observing that an unmarried First Couple in New York wasn't a big deal considering that Cuomo was following a governor "who was discredited in a prostitution scandal and another governor who admitted not just infidelity but cocaine use." Of course neither Gerstein or Alexander bothered to mention that those two respective scandalized former governors (Eliot Spitzer and David Paterson) were Democrats.
The following is Alexander's puff piece on Cuomo and Lee as it was aired on the January 5 edition of the Today show:
Steven Rattner, the first Obama car czar who allegedly "bribed a political consultant to win business from New York's pension fund for his former investment firm," was extremely close this week to cutting a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), only to see that agreement held up this week to the intervention of New York Attorney General and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo, the Washington Post reported today.
NBC's Matt Lauer questioned Carl Paladino on Monday's Today about his recent controversial remarks on homosexuality, and hinted that his comments might prompt "violence against homosexuals" and suicides of homosexual youth, such as the recent case at Rutgers. When Paladino attacked Andrew Cuomo for taking his children to a "gay pride" parade, Lauer implied that he might take his kids to such an event.
The NBC morning show led the 7 am Eastern hour with a promo on Paladino's Sunday speech to orthodox Jewish leaders: "Anti-gay? New York's Republican gubernatorial candidate stirs up another controversy with comments on homosexuality. Was he being homophobic, as his opponent claims? We'll ask Carl Paladino in a live interview."
Remember when liberals brushed aside any criticism of candidate Barack Obama being unqualified to become president because of his lack of executive experience? Well, that was then and this is now because Susan Estrich has suddenly developed "concern" over the qualifications of the Tea Party backed Republican gubernatorial candidate in New York, Carl Paladino. A skeptic might rightly believe this recent Estrich infatuation with qualifications could be inspired by the fact that Paladino is closing the gap in the polls with the Democrat candidate, Andrew Cuomo.
Here is Estrich with her newly developed qualifications concern:
The Republican nominee for governor of New York doesn't spend a lot of time talking about himself, which is both good and bad. It's good because, in truth, his surprise victory over the "establishment" favorite (and Conservative Party candidate) Rick Lazio had very little to do with his qualifications and agenda, and everything to do with his tea party-infused attacks on Albany, government and the powers that are. It's bad, of course, for precisely the same reason.
Is Carl Paladino actually qualified to be governor of New York?
The gubernatorial campaign of Andrew Cuomo has such a poor credibility problem that even the local New York City CBS affiliate is asking: "Cuomo Caught Lying About Voting for Bloomberg?" And what caused such an aspersion to be cast upon Cuomo's veracity? Check out this video in which Cuomo asserted that he voted for New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. However, as the CBS affiliate pointed out, it didn't happen:
But for all his actions as the state’s chief law enforcement officer, Cuomo did have a little problem with telling the truth about his election box support for Mayor Bloomberg.
“Have I voted for the mayor? Yes,” Cuomo said.
Actually, he didn’t. The Cuomo campaign had to issue a clarification, saying he was only registered to vote in New York City in 2005 when he endorsed Democrat Fernando Ferrer.
With recent controversial race topics entering the spotlight, such as the voter intimidation incident and Shirley Sherrod story, the media has been more than willing to open their arms and turn on their cameras to hear the opining of the National Chairman of the New Black Panther Party, Malik Zulu Shabazz. Shabazz has appeared on Fox News, issued a statement through CNN, and done exclusive interviews for various media outlets. The Anti-Defamation League has described Shabazz as anti-Semitic and racist, trying "to recast himself as a serious civil rights leader in recent years by cloaking his bigotry and intolerance in religious and civil rights principles and inserting himself in high profile, racially charged issues around the country." This certainly seems to be the case as he has made an increasing number of appearances in the media, in which the audience is to suspend belief and assume this man is an evenhanded voice on race relations in America.
In fact, Shabazz used his statement at CNN to accuse the ‘Republican or right wing tea party strategists' of ‘stir(ing) up racial fears'.
For the second day in a row, ABC's "hot seat" segment on "Good Morning America" turned into a cringe-inducing display of gushing questions, including a query about Chris Cuomo's underwear habits. The network promoted the series, which kicked off on Wednesday, as a time when GMA's hard-charging hosts would be forced to ask tough viewer questions. An ad touted how weatherman Sam Champion "bravely" went first and exclaimed, "Every morning, they ask the tough questions...So, who will go next and what will they reveal?"
Apparently, the answer is they will reveal things that few want to know. Cuomo received this video question from twenty-something Tara of Pennsylvania: "So, Chris, boxers or briefs?" She then proceeded to suggestively wink. An apparently-not-too embarrassed Cuomo began, "Assuming I have anything on-" before being stopped by co-host Diane Sawyer. [Audio available here.]