Steven Lee Myers

NYT Changes Headline, Content of Report on Obama's Failure to Win 'Wider Backing' For Syrian Attack
By Tom Blumer | September 8, 2013 | 10:53 AM EDT

On Friday, as seen in Google News search results showing posts and feeds at other web sites, a report at the New York Times by Peter Baker and Steven Lee Meyers had the following headline "Obama Fails in Bid for Wide Backing for Syria Attack."

On Twitter, self-described "conservative academic" Will Antonin wondered (HT Twitchy), "How long until this NYT headline is changed?" The answer: Not long. Sometime before the story got to the Old Gray Lady's September 7 print edition, the Baker-Meyers story's headline was changed to "Obama Falls Short on Wider Backing for Syria Attack," and its content had been changed. The original story, which had opened by saying that "President Obama emerged from the Group of 20 summit meeting with a few international supporters," is no longer present on the Times's web site.

NYTimes Mag Celebrates 'Iconic' Hillary, 'Highminded' Yet 'Hardheaded' Secretary of State
By Clay Waters | July 3, 2012 | 12:13 PM EDT

Reporter Steven Lee Myers heaped praise on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a 5,500-word profile for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, evident in the title, "Last Tour of the Rock-Star Diplomat."

One of Myers's big scoops is that Hillary Clinton can remember names and personal details, which is apparently just as important as all that foreign policy guff: "Whatever she might have lacked in scholarship or experience in foreign affairs, she has made up for with a politician’s touch....She has an acute attention to detail, remembering names and personal details." Myers concluded by promoting a Hillary run for president in 2016, when she would be "more iconic than ever."

Myers was not nearly as big a fan of a Republican at war, President George W. Bush. He wrote for the Times on February 12, 2008: "Mr. Bush never sounds surer of himself than when the subject is Sept. 11, even when his critics argue that he has squandered the country's moral authority, violated American and international law, and led the United States into the foolhardy distraction of Iraq."

NY Times Suddenly OK With Warring President: Is Obama Intervention in Syria Next?
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).

NY Times Reporter: Shame How Netanyahu and Conservatives Ignored Obama's 'Nuances' on Palestinians
By Clay Waters | May 23, 2011 | 1:16 PM EDT

Saturday’s lead from New York Times reporter Steven Lee Myers did its best to paint Israel’s conservative, pro-security prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as being disingenuous and stubborn in the face of President Obama’s reasonable offer for Israel to give up land to the Palestinians: "Israeli Leader Rebuffs Obama On ‘67 Borders – Both Denounce Hamas – Meeting at White House Underscores Barriers to Peace Process."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel told President Obama on Friday that he shared his vision for a peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and then promptly listed a series of nonnegotiable conditions that have kept the two sides at an impasse for years.

'Critics' (and NYT Reporters?) Say Bush 'Squandered the Country's Moral Authority'
By Clay Waters | February 13, 2008 | 11:28 AM EST

New York Times reporter Steven Lee Myers's "news analysis" on Tuesday's front page, "Trial's Focus To Suit Bush" (on seeking the death penalty for six Guantanamo detainees for the 9-11 attacks) could have more accurately been labeled "one reporter's anti-war opinion." Note the strangely precise excorations that Myers elicited from unnamed "critics."

'Ever Upbeat' Bush Deluded in His Iraq War Optimism, Says NYT
By Clay Waters | August 27, 2007 | 2:37 PM EDT

Reporter Steven Lee Myers's "White House Memo" for Monday's New York Times, "A Familiar Strategy to Help Stay the Course," portrayed the president as deluded in his Iraq optimism and chiding him for not acknowledging anti-war sentiment.

NYT on Karl Rove: Polarizing, Divisive Right-Winger
By Clay Waters | August 14, 2007 | 2:48 PM EDT

The headline to today's lead story in the New York Times by Jim Rutenberg and Steven Lee Myers on the impending resignation of Karl Rove, Bush's chief political advisor, included the subhead "A Bare-Knuckle Style of Politics." Rove as ruthless partisan brawler was indeed a theme that permeated both Tuesday's lead story and chief political reporter Adam Nagourney's accompanying analysis.From Rutenberg and Rove's lead: