Potential Obama opponent Mitt Romney is “the gift that keeps on giving” according to the Obama campaign team, the New York Times' Helene Cooper eagerly reports in her Monday “Political Memo,” “The Flub Watch Never Stops for Obama’s Team.” The text box reads: “If Romney makes a misstep, the Democrats are ready to pounce.” And Cooper is right there to cover Team Ohama's glorious Twitter victories in loving detail.
Helene Cooper
By Clay Waters | January 28, 2012 | 8:39 AM EST
New York Times reporter Helene Cooper, touring the West with the president, claimed that the dust-up between Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer and President Obama on an airport tarmac in Phoenix could help him among Hispanics: “In Airport Run-In, Democrats See Help for Obama Among Hispanics.”
A flattering photo from Las Vegas of Obama and some star-struck preteens was just part of the spin in her Friday story:
By Clay Waters | January 6, 2012 | 1:47 PM EST
Friday’s New York Times front-page “Political Memo” by Helene Cooper gave good marks to the president’s new aggressive campaign to demonize Congressional Republicans in the 2012 election year: “Obama Tactic: Jab Congress To Hurt Rivals – An Aggressive Effort to Steal Into Limelight.”
By Clay Waters | December 2, 2011 | 2:24 PM EST
New York Times reporter Helene Cooper spread pro-Democratic optimism in Arizona, a state Barack Obama wasn't competitive in in 2008, thanks to the GOP's "hard-line stance" on immigration, in Friday’s “Arizona Sees a Boom In Voting-Age Hispanics – Democrats Sense Opportunity for Obama.”
By Clay Waters | September 19, 2011 | 2:15 PM EDT
Sunday’s lead New York Times story by White House correspondent Jackie Calmes pushed the president’s new plan to raise taxes on “the wealthy.” The president, in what the Times seems to think is a bright idea, is calling his proposal the “Buffett rule,” after the billionaire who made waves with his complaint, printed in the Times, that uber-wealthy investors like him were not being taxed enough. Here is the stack of headlines: “Obama Tax Plan Would Ask More Of Millionaires – Called ‘Buffett Rule’ – Populist Sales Pitch to Press the G.O.P. in Budget Talks.”
Why write “Ask More of Millionaires”? Are these tax increases going to be voluntary?
By Ken Shepherd | September 1, 2011 | 1:41 PM EDT
"Speaker Says No, So Obama Delays Speech" is how The New York Times's September 1 front page headline spun the short squabble over the timing of President Obama's upcoming speech before Congress on his job creation plan. "Spat Over Which Day to Address Economy," added a subheadline.
The online version opted for a headline that went lighter on the loaded language: "Obama Moves Jobs Speech After Skirmish With Boehner."
For their part, Times writers Helene Cooper and Jackie Calmes ginned up the perpetual lament of partisan discord in Washington, before going on to portray President Obama as the bigger man for amending his initial wish to speak to Congress next Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern:
By Clay Waters | August 30, 2011 | 3:49 PM EDT
Is Syria next on Obama’s intervention list? New York Times reporters Helene Cooper and Steven Lee Myers speculate in Monday’s “U.S. Tactics in Libya May Be a Model for Other Efforts.”
The text box works in a typical crack at Bush administration foreign policy: “Using force when justified but not going it alone.” The implication, common in the pages of the Times, is that Bush somehow went it alone in the invasion of Iraq. For the record, the United States actually led a 30-nation coalition in Iraq (35 countries joined the fight in Afghanistan).
By Clay Waters | June 22, 2011 | 3:47 PM EDT
The New York Times may flinch at the thought of cutting Medicare or unemployment benefits to cut deficits, but reporters have quickly warmed to the idea of a speedy withdrawal from Afghanistan in the name of cost-cutting.
Reporter Michael Cooper spied an anti-war revival on Tuesday in “Mayors Call for a Quicker End to Wars So Money Can Be Used for Needs at Home,” picking up on a release from the liberal U.S. Conference of Mayors (once notorious for issuing factually malnourished hunger statistics around the holidays suggesting North Korea-like levels of hunger in America):
By Tom Blumer | June 14, 2011 | 10:58 AM EDT
Many people, including yours truly, believe that one of the primary reasons for the Politico's existence is to carry negative stories about Democrats and leftists which the rest of the establishment press then mostly chooses to ignore ("Why should we cover that? It's at the Politico already").
President Obama's more than half-empty campaign fundraising stop in Miami Monday is a case in point. As far as I can tell, only the Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown ("Empty seats: Obama fundraiser underwhelms") and Mary Bruce at ABC's Political Punch blog, whose item was also referenced at ABC's The Note, covered the politically embarrassing situation.
By Clay Waters | May 20, 2011 | 12:00 PM EDT
President Obama’s much-hyped speech Thursday on the Middle East called for a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians and endorsing Israel’s pre-1967 borders as the starting point for the negotiations. The New York Times’s lead story Thursday morning by Helene Cooper and Ethan Bronner, "Focus On Obama As Tensions Soar Across Mideast," set the table by sharpening the focus on Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s "unyielding" recalcitrance as the main "stumbling blocks" to negotiations.
Mr. Obama, who is set to address Americans -- and, more significantly, Muslims around the world -- from the State Department on Thursday morning, may yet have something surprising up his sleeve. One administration official said that there remained debate about whether Mr. Obama would formally endorse Israel’s pre-1967 borders as the starting point for negotiations over a Palestinian state, a move that would send an oratorical signal that the United States expected Israel to make concessions.
Times reporting from Jerusalem is often hostile toward the conservative security-conscious Netanyahu, while whitewashing the terrorist origin of the Palestinian militants of Hamas, and there were traces of that on Thursday’s report from Washington.
By Noel Sheppard | December 12, 2010 | 2:55 PM EST
NBC's Andrea Mitchell this weekend named the Tea Party as her Person of the Year.
Two others on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show" disgustingly chose WikiLeaks' Julian Assange (video follows with transcript and commentary):
Deceive the Children: NYT 'Learning Network' Frames Federal Income Tax Rate Extension as Benefiting 'Especially the Wealthy'
By Tom Blumer | December 12, 2010 | 10:06 AM EST A New York Times "Learning Network" graphic informs us that under the proposed Obama-GOP tax and spending compromise, "rates will not change for at least two years for anyone."
Wow. Somebody at the Learning Network needs to tell the Old Gray Lady's beat reporters, editorial board, and opinion columnists. Just today, reporter Helene Cooper, in noting how Vice President Joe Biden is playing a "bigger role" in the administration (translation: picking up the pieces from President Obama's disastrous ongoing alienation of anyone and everyone, friend and foe alike), twice refers to the compromise as involving "tax cuts." Cooper's defenders may claim that the Times reporter is partially referring to the proposed one-year reduction in the Social Security payroll tax from 6.2% to 4.2%, but that's not a contentious issue at the moment (though given how broke the Social Security really is, it should be). Federal income tax rates for 2011 and beyond are.
Anyway, as far as the Learning Network is concerned, so far, so good. But then it commits its own unforced error:
Who Benefits? All taxpayers, but especially high-income households, which had faced a new, higher rate.