Kirsten Gillibrand

New York's Junior Senator Gets Halbfinger's Hurrahs in the New York Times
By Tim Graham | December 24, 2010 | 6:58 AM EST

The New York Times put its full weight behind liberal New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on the front page on Thursday, after she fought for open homosexuality in the military and a measure extending health care to first responders to the 9/11 attacks. In this article, it's clear they're happiest about her gay advocacy. Reporter David Halbfinger hailed a new heroine in explicitly gushy terms:

When that measure, too, won approval on Wednesday, it not only marked a victory of legislative savvy and persistence. It also signaled the serious emergence of Ms. Gillibrand, the 44-year-old successor to Hillary Rodham Clinton. 

Once derided as an accidental senator, lampooned for her verbosity and threatened with many challengers who openly doubted her abilities, a succinct, passionate and effective Senator Gillibrand has made her presence felt in the final days of this Congress.

WaPo Publicizes Feminists Outraged at Insulting Senator as 'Attractive' and 'Probably a Good Mother'
By Tim Graham | September 2, 2010 | 7:17 AM EDT

Never tell a feminist politician she's "attractive" and "a good mother." To some, that's a "toxic" insult.

Thursday's Washington Post offered a story on how "Women's groups target sexism in campaigns: Advocates monitoring what they call 'toxic' media environment." Reporter Krissah Thompson never identified the groups as "liberal," or even "feminist," or noted that one of them, the Women's Media Center, (foolishly) opposed an innocuous Tim Tebow pro-life Super Bowl ad as offensive without having seen it. Thompson began:

The list includes the radio talk show host who called a female senator a "prostitute" for cutting a deal to benefit her state, the male challenger who referred to his female rival [as] "attractive" and "probably a good mother," and the TV host who noted that the candidate's wife looked like an angry woman.

Me, From Tennessee? Meet The Press Labels Ford '(D-TN)'
By Mark Finkelstein | March 7, 2010 | 11:11 AM EST

Back in January, Harold Ford, Jr. proclaimed to Chris Matthews no fewer than four times: "I am a New Yorker" [see amusing video after the jump].  

But that profession of Big Apple-hood apparently didn't cut it with NBC. Even as Ford was discussing today his reasons for not entering the New York Dem senatorial primary against Kirsten Gillibrand, Meet The Press displayed the graphic seen here, labelling Ford "(D-TN)."

MSNBC Claims Deceased Auto Tycoon Henry Ford Polling Poorly in NY Senate Race
By Kyle Drennen | January 19, 2010 | 6:13 PM EST
Poll Results, MSNBC During the 12:00PM ET hour of live coverage on Tuesday, MSNBC displayed a poll that showed deceased founder of the Ford Motor Company, Henry Ford, losing to sitting New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in a possible Democratic primary for the seat. Considering Ford’s ties to big business and non-living status, his 17% to Gillibrand’s 41% was a respectable showing.
Buffalo Overbills: Medicaid Recipient Calls Ambulance 600 Times at Federal Expense
By Tim Graham | July 30, 2009 | 8:47 PM EDT

Here's an interesting example of government-run health care losing a sense of fiscal common sense. From Channel 2 in Buffalo comes the story of Scott Graham, a man with sickle-cell anemia that causes him stabbing pain.

NY Times: OK to Defend American Taliban, But Defending Big Tobacco Verboten?
By Clay Waters | March 27, 2009 | 3:11 PM EDT

It's enlightening to see what topics New York Times editors find disturbing and newsworthy and which ones they shrug off or ignore.New York's new senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, is a Democrat who is nonetheless under strong suspicions at the liberal Times for her support of gun rights and her previous representation of a white conservative district. On Friday's front page, she came under fire via a stash of old ammo in a story by Raymond Hernandez and David Kocieniewski. "As New Lawyer, Senator Defended Big Tobacco." Gillibrand is in trouble for defending Big Tobacco as a lawyer representing Philip Morris back in 1996.

The Philip Morris Company did not like to talk about what went on inside its lab in Cologne, Germany, where researchers secretly conducted experiments exploring the effects of cigarette smoking.So when the Justice Department tried to get its hands on that research in 1996 to prove that tobacco industry executives had lied about the dangers of smoking, the company moved to fend off the effort with the help of a highly regarded young lawyer named Kirsten Rutnik.Ms. Rutnik, who now goes by her married name, Gillibrand, threw herself into the work. She traveled to Germany at least twice, interviewing the lab's top scientists, whose research showed a connection between smoking and cancer but was kept far from public view.
NY Times Sniffs: Sen. Gillibrand Too Conservative for Multi-Ethnic State of New York
By Clay Waters | January 28, 2009 | 3:18 PM EST

Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand is the new senator from New York, replacing Hillary Clinton, who resigned her Senate seat to become Secretary of State in the Obama administration. But the New York Times hasn't exactly rolled out the welcome mat. So far the paper has done little but nag Gillibrand for being insufficiently liberal, pushing her to back away from her stands against amnesty for illegal immigrants and her support of gun rights. A Metro section story by Kirk Semple on Wednesday, "Drawing Fire on Immigration, Gillibrand Reaches Out," argued that Gillibrand must adapt by moving to the left to appease her diverse and apparently angry vast new constituency.

During her one term in the House of Representatives, from a largely rural, traditionally Republican district, Kirsten E. Gillibrand was on safe political ground adopting a tough stance against illegal immigration. Ms. Gillibrand, a Democrat, opposed any sort of amnesty for illegal immigrants, supported deputizing local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws, spoke out against Gov. Eliot Spitzer's proposal to allow illegal immigrants to have driver's licenses and sought to make English the official language of the United States. But since her appointment by Gov. David A. Paterson last week to fill the Senate seat vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ms. Gillibrand has found herself besieged by immigrant advocates and Democratic colleagues who have cast her as out of step with a majority of the state, with its big cities and sprawling immigrant enclaves.
Will MSM Label Incoming NY Senator as 'Maverick Democrat?'
By P.J. Gladnick | January 23, 2009 | 9:11 AM EST

The decision by New York Governor David Paterson to name a somewhat conservative replacement (by that state's democrat standards), Kirsten Gillibrand, to Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate seat has already sent some liberals into a tizzy. They are upset over Gillibrand's support for the National Rifle Association as well as for extending the Bush tax cuts among the issues that disturb them. So when will the mainstream media begin labeling Gillibrand as a "Maverick Democrat?" Or is the "maverick" label applied by the MSM only to Republicans who are liberals or "moderates" (really meaning liberal)?