New York Times reporter Michael Cooper, who did not hide his disdain for Republican candidate John McCain in 2008, sees an internal threat for Republicans hidden in "the recent flurry of socially conservative legislation" emanating from state legislatures in his Saturday lead, "Concern In G.O.P. Over State Focus On Social Issues." In a bid at guilt by association, both Cooper and another Times reporter cite ALEC, conservative-affiliated nonprofit, for extremely tenuous ties to the Trayvon Martin shooting.
Michael Cooper
By Clay Waters | January 20, 2012 | 8:50 AM EST
Tax-cut hostile New York Times reporters Michael Cooper and David Kocieniewski teamed up Thursday in a “news” article that assumed as fact (using a study from a left-of-center “nonpartisan” group) that plans by Republican presidential candidates for reducing tax rates would by design lead to widening deficits and "benefit the wealthiest the most": “Higher Deficits Seen In Romney’s Tax Plan, And His Rivals’, Too.” Yet the Times's own chart shows 80% of filers earning between $20,000 and $30,000 -- hardly "the rich" -- would get a tax cut as well.
(Kocieniewski’s hostility to tax cuts is well documented, while Cooper attacked Obama from the left on March 2, 2011 for signing into law an obscure tax break not even liberal economists have a problem with.)
By Clay Waters | September 14, 2011 | 9:45 AM EDT
Tuesday's New York Times's “Check Point” was the latest liberally slanted fact check of a G.O.P. presidential debate, this time by two liberal reporters, Michael Cooper and Nicholas Confessore, “Perry’s Criticism of Social Security as ‘Ponzi Scheme' Dogs Him in Debate.”
Confessore, who once worked for the liberal journals Washington Monthly and American Prospect, once again staunchly defended Social Security. In a December 2004 post for the Prospect, he praised the Times, the paper he was about to join, for its harsh coverage of President Bush’s attempt at free-market-based Social Security reform.
By Scott Whitlock | August 5, 2011 | 2:44 PM EDT
The New York Times on Friday downplayed results in its own poll that found 44 percent of respondents think the cuts in the debt deal didn't go far enough, versus only 15 percent who said "too far." In an article starting on the front page, writers Michael Cooper and Megan Thee-Brenan didn't mention this fact until the ninth paragraph of page A-14.
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 Clay Waters | June 1, 2011 | 3:37 PM EDT
Are deadly tornadoes really the best "stimulus" to be hoped for from the Obama White House, or is the New York Times just desperately looking for economics green shoots as the 2012 presidential elections approach?
In any case, just 10 days after the deadly tornado hit Joplin, Missouri, Wednesday’s off-lead by Michael Cooper, "Reconstruction Lifts Economy After Disasters – New Jobs Are Created to Erase the Rubble," pushed tornadoes as economic stimulus.
By Clay Waters | March 29, 2011 | 3:58 PM EDT
More New York Times' s crusading against state spending cuts in Tuesday's edition. Reporter Michael Cooper’s “Michigan, With Persistent Unemployment, Cuts Jobless Benefit by Six Weeks” raised quite a grand commotion out of a small cut in Michigan’s unemployment benefit plan: The state will now pay only 20 weeks of benefits to the jobless, instead of the standard 26 weeks (and even those come before federal unemployment benefits kick in, which now run for up to 99 weeks).
The story’s text box implied bad faith on the part of new Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. “A surprise inside a bill whose purpose was to extend federal benefits.”
Michigan, whose unemployment rate has topped 10 percent longer than that of any other state, is about to set another record: its new Republican governor, Rick Snyder, signed a law Monday that will lead the state to pay fewer weeks of unemployment benefits next year than any other state.
Democrats and advocates for the unemployed expressed outrage that such a hard-hit state will become the most miserly when it comes to how long it pays benefits to those who have lost their jobs. All states currently pay 26 weeks of unemployment benefits, before extended benefits paid by the federal government kick in. Michigan’s new law means that starting next year, when the federal benefits are now set to end, the state will stop paying benefits to the jobless after just 20 weeks. The shape of future extensions is unclear.
By Clay Waters | March 2, 2011 | 3:59 PM EST
The lead National section story in Wednesday's New York Times by Michael Cooper was an odd choice, hitting President Obama from the left on a rather obscure newly established tax break not even liberal economists have found much fault with: “A Tax Cut May Carve Into Budgets Of 19 States.” Cooper melodramatically fretted that it "could blow a hole in state budgets."
The story is based on report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal group and popular source for the Times that the paper consistently fails to properly label ideologically.
Included in the tax-cut package Obama signed in December extending the Bush tax cuts, was legislation allowing businesses to deduct the full value of new equipment from their taxes immediately. Cooper found fault:
By Clay Waters | November 9, 2010 | 10:16 AM EST
Michael Cooper’s lead story in the National section of the New York Times on Saturday, "Debunking the Myths of the Midterm," offered up four alleged myths downplaying the import of the Republican takeover of the House and big gains in the Senate. The first four of Cooper's five "myths" centered around the idea that the Republican victory and Democratic defeat of 2010 had been overstated (the fifth was a paragraph of throwaway humor headlined “The Pundits Have a Clue” while arguing the opposite).
Every election develops its own mythology, usually before the official results are even certified, and this week’s was no different. And like all mythology, the narrative that is being woven around the midterm elections by Bulfinches from both parties is a blend of history, facts and, yes, myths.
But the four partisan myths Cooper tried to knock down were all ones that made Republicans look strong.
“Return to the Republican Fold” (Cooper denied it.)
“The Sweeping Mandate” (No way.)
“The Lost Youth Vote” (Not so fast.)
“A Disaster for the President” (Not necessarily.)
On March 26, Cooper wrote on how “vandalism threatened to be a public relations disaster for the fledgling Tea Party movement,” suggesting his political analysis isn’t foolproof.
By Clay Waters | October 13, 2008 | 4:43 PM EDT
In Saturday's "Attacking Obama's Associations," New York Times reporter Michael Cooper reviewed a John McCain campaign ad emphasizing Barack Obama's ties to controversial Chicago political figures like the radical Bill Ayers and the felonious fundraiser Tony Rezko.
By Clay Waters | September 4, 2008 | 3:12 PM EDT
Thursday's New York Times lead story by Elisabeth Bumiller and Michael Cooper covered Palin's rapturously received speech at the Republican Convention Wednesday night, "On Center Stage, Palin Electrifies Convention." After describing how she introduced herself to the "roaring crowd" in St. Paul, the Times threw in this dubious assertion:
But the nomination was a sideshow to the evening's main event, the speech by the little-known Ms. Palin, who was seeking to wrest back the narrative of her life and redefine herself to the American public after a rocky start that has put Mr. McCain's closest aides on edge. Ms. Palin's appearance electrified a convention that has been consumed by questions of whether she was up to the job, as she launched slashing attacks on Mr. Obama's claims of experience.
Actually, only the liberal media was consumed by that question -- Palin was a wildly popular pick even before her impressive convention speech.
By Clay Waters | August 1, 2008 | 12:54 PM EDT
The back and forth of racial accusations between the Obama and McCain camps made the front of Friday's New York Times in "McCain Camp Says Obama Plays 'Race Card,'" by Michael Cooper and Michael Powell. The reporters bizarrely suggested that it was the GOP, not Obama, that has injected race into the campaign, and relayed some dubious anecdotes to suggest Obama has been a victim of racist Republican attacks. To continue the fun, a McCain spokesman on Friday compared the Times's editors to your "average Daily Kos diarist sitting at home in his mother's basement" playing Dungeons & Dragons.