Michael Grunwald

Time's Grunwald: Florida Gov. Scott Slaughtered Federal 'Gift Horse' of High-Speed Rail, Sent 'Corpse Back to Washington'
By Ken Shepherd | February 16, 2011 | 4:34 PM EST

"It's one thing to look a gift horse in the mouth. It's quite another thing to slaughter a gift horse and send its disemboweled corpse back to Washington."

That's how Time magazine senior correspondent Michael Grunwald characterized Republican Florida Governor Rick Scott's decision to spurn a federal Department of Transportation high-speed rail grant for the Sunshine State.

"This was the nation's most shovel-ready high-speed project, and the state wasn't required to spend a dime to build it," Grunwald noted in his February 16 Swampland blog post.

Flashback: In 2009, Time Saw GOP As 'Endangered Species' Unless Party Moved Left
By Rich Noyes | November 25, 2010 | 4:01 PM EST

With all but one of the House races now resolved, Republicans have picked up at least 63 seats, the most in a midterm election since 1938. So, it might be fun on this Thanksgiving Day to recall how, just 18 months ago, Time's Michael Grunwald was arguing in a big cover story that demography and its "extremely conservative" philosophy meant the Republican Party could be on the verge of extinction.

Back in May 2009, Newsbusters Brent Baker picked up on Grunwald's piece for the ridiculous way he painted the GOP as extremist:

They are extremely conservative ideas tarred by association with the extremely unpopular George W. Bush, who helped downsize the party to its extremely conservative base.

But re-reading the piece today, it's even more striking how Grunwald's "analysis" was based on liberal wishful thinking that small government conservative policies were like political arsenic, and how Republicans had to drop tax cuts and cultural conservatism if they ever hoped to come back from the wilderness.

In other words, move left. But the GOP instead moved right, and was rewarded by voters. Which is why conservatives should probably not take strategic advice from their ideological adversaries in the media.

Time Mag Shocker: Rush Limbaugh Might Have Been Right About Oil Spill
By Noel Sheppard | July 29, 2010 | 9:27 AM EDT

Time magazine reported Thursday that Rush Limbaugh might have been right about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico not being the environmental disaster that everyone warned.

In an article surprisingly titled, "The BP Spill: Has the Damage Been Exaggerated?", author Michael Grunwald first insulted the conservative talk radio host:

The obnoxious anti-environmentalist Rush Limbaugh has been a rare voice arguing that the spill - he calls it "the leak" - is anything less than an ecological calamity, scoffing at the avalanche of end-is-nigh eco-hype.

Yet, in the very next paragraph, Grunwald shockingly changed his tune:

Time's Grunwald on Sestak Job Offer: 'Criminally Stupid, Not Criminal'
By Ken Shepherd | May 27, 2010 | 11:57 AM EDT

Imagine if, in 2004, Karl Rove had offered then-Rep. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) a cushy administration post if only he dropped his primary challenge of then-Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, whom the Bush White House was backing for reelection.

Surely the media would merely smell "stupid politics" rather then the stench of corruption and complain that Democrats making hay of the matter were cynically making a federal case out of something that happens in Washington all the time.

Of course both you and I know that's the exact opposite of what would happen. But when it comes to Joe Sestak's alleged job offer by the Obama White House, Time magazine's Michael Grunwald is peeved at Republicans, practically telling them in his May 27 "Viewpoint" post at Time.com to move along:

'Screaming' Time Writer Tells Maddow It Was Army Corps of Engineers Who Killed '1,000' During Katrina
By Tim Graham | November 21, 2009 | 7:22 AM EST

You could call it progress in media bias. For years, liberal journalists have blamed Team Bush for the death of hundreds in Hurricane Katrina. The major media found that theme of fatal incompetence simply irresistible. Time’s Michael Grunwald, who has written in-depth articles and a book about the Army Corps of Engineers, is bringing the focus back to long-standing government policies over decades. But even Grunwald is using harsh language that Time magazine would usually disparage as talk-radio bluster. He said "Hurricane Katrina was a man-made disaster.

Time Mag on GOP: 'Extremely Conservative Ideas' for 'Extremely Conservative Base'
By Brent Baker | May 9, 2009 | 3:32 PM EDT

How many times can you use the discrediting term “extremely,” suggesting extremist positions, in a single sentence describing the state of the Republican Party? Three, if you're writing Time magazine's cover story. Michael Grunwald contended “the party's ideas -- about economic issues, social issues and just about everything else -- are not popular ideas.”

Time 'News' Piece Compares GOP to Geese Who Caused Hudson River Plane Crash
By Tim Graham | February 10, 2009 | 1:16 PM EST

Time magazine is clearly dispensing with "news" reporting this week.

Time's Grunwald Attacks Chambliss; Frets His Win Will Cause Republicans to Shift to the Right
By Lyndsi Thomas | December 2, 2008 | 10:55 AM EST

Today's run-off election for Georgia's Senate between incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democrat Jim Martin has attracted a lot of attention, especially because it could put the Democratic majority one seat closer to the 60 seats needed for a filibuster-proof Senate. Michael Grunwald of Time magazine has a story up today about the importance of the outcome of the race, but instead of giving a fair-and-balanced look at how both candidates would affect the Senate, Grunwald uses the piece to attack Chambliss for being a "textbook Bush-Cheney Republican" and praise Martin for potentially being a repudiation of Bush and a "candidate of the middle class."

Grunwald starts off by reminding readers that Georgia is still "an extremely conservative state" despite a Time magazine article from June which wondered if Georgia would be "Obama's Ohio" in the election. The writer uses this characterization of Georgia to frame Martin's potential win as "a crowning embarrassment for the GOP" and attacks Republicans by saying it would "rival Obama's own victory as a repudiation of the Bush agenda of tax cuts for the rich, pork for the well-connected, belt-tightening for the working poor, drill-baby-drill, strict-construction judges and military adventurism." That's when the Chambliss-bashing starts, as Grunwald goes on to say, "not to mention the political cynicism that made Chambliss notorious after his ads in 2002 comparing his opponent, triple-amputee Max Cleland, to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein."

Time Magazine: Obama's Tire Inflation Plan 'No Joke'
By Lyndsi Thomas | August 5, 2008 | 10:44 AM EDT

An August 4 Time magazine article by Michael Grunwald comes to Sen. Barack Obama’s defense against Republican claims that his energy policy of keeping tires properly inflated is a joke. The article, entitled "The Tire-Gauge Solution: No Joke," argues that if everyone were to keep their tires properly inflated and keep up with regular auto maintenance, demand for gasoline would immediately be reduced by several percentage points whereas offshore drilling would only meet one percent of America’s demand two decades from now:

The Bush Administration estimates that expanded offshore drilling could increase oil production by 200,000 bbl. per day by 2030. We use about 20 million bbl. per day, so that would meet about 1% of our demand two decades from now. Meanwhile, efficiency experts say that keeping tires inflated can improve gas mileage 3%, and regular maintenance can add another 4%. Many drivers already follow their advice, but if everyone did, we could immediately reduce demand several percentage points. In other words: Obama is right.

Grunwald also used this opportunity to promote energy conservation, claiming that:

CNN Correspondent Links Rising Food Costs to Ethanol
By Paul Detrick | April 4, 2008 | 3:03 PM EDT

You're going to need a few extra bucks to pay for those corn flakes every morning.

CNN's senior business correspondent Ali Velshi let viewers in on an underreported fact about rising commodities prices: the government mandate for ethanol production is making corn and other agricultural products more expensive-making inflation a top priority for Americans.

"Several years ago, we made some decisions about how corn is going to be used to make ethanol, which is added to our gasoline," said Velshi on "American Morning" April 4. "A number of people think that that was meant to reduce our dependency on crude oil. What is does is it takes what is fundamentally a food source and makes it into a gasoline source. That's caused corn to go up."

Time Magazine on Drought, 2007 Versus 1974
By Amy Ridenour | November 21, 2007 | 1:04 AM EST

Time magazine, November 26, 2007 (Michael Grunwald):

[Georgia's] drought was a natural event transformed into a natural disaster by human folly. And while it's still hard to say whether global warming caused any particular drought or flood or fire, it's going to cause more of all of them.

Time magazine, June 24, 1974: