Steven Pearlstein

On CNBC's Kudlow, Bozell Slams Media Double Standard on Ideological Billionaires Investing in Media Companies
By NB Staff | May 1, 2013 | 3:17 PM EDT

"If you're going to say that a known conservative entity like the Koch brothers should not be getting into the business of dictating what a news operation should do, what does that tell you about Warren Buffett," or the Sulzburger or Graham families behind the New York Times and Washington Post respectively, Brent Bozell argued on the April 30 edition of CNBC's Kudlow Report. Bozell also noted the vast sums of money leftist billionaire George Soros pumps into media outlets, while the liberal media raise no concerns about him somehow corrupting journalism with ideological influence.

The NewsBusters publisher and Media Research Center founder was on the program opposite Steven Pearlstein of the Washington Post, who last week offered up an uncharacteristically blustery column -- headlined "How the L.A. Times can stop the Kochs" -- in which Pearlstein coached Times reporters to threaten to quite en masse rather than work for libertarian publishers. [To watch the full segment, click play on the embedded video below the page break]

Quiz: Which Liberal Ex-Reporter Is Acting Like a Bigger Jerk?
By Tim Graham | October 6, 2012 | 10:56 PM EDT

Steven Pearlstein at The Washington Post and Timothy Egan at The New York Times both served as reporters before unleashing their opinions as columnists. Both are passionate liberals. Recently both men wrote arrogant jeremiads. So which article made its author look more like a jerk?

It might depend on which group you sympathize with -- Pearlstein went after Mitt Romney types in finance, while Egan went after the still-undecided voter. In an article titled "I am a job creator: A manifesto for the entitled," Pearlstein used the first person to express arrogant ignorance by his Romney-type:

Selling Socialism: The Media's Campaign for ObamaCare
By Geoffrey Dickens | March 21, 2012 | 10:00 AM EDT

Next week, the Supreme Court will hear arguments on the constitutionality of ObamaCare, but if the media were the judges, the Court would rule 9-0 in favor of it. During its coverage of the health care debate, the liberal press never permitted questions about ObamaCare’s legality to interfere with their dream of a government takeover of the health care sector.

Starting even before Barack Obama became President, the press has been campaigning hard for passage of the most liberal version of health care reform as a cure-all elixir to all of America’s health problems. First, they pitched the public on the desperate need to, as ABC’s Dr. Tim Johnson demanded, fix America’s “national shame” of no universal coverage. (Worst of the Worst quote compiliation with videos after the jump)

WaPo Columnist: GOP Slogan Should Be 'Repeal the 20th Century'
By Tim Graham | September 12, 2011 | 6:59 AM EDT

On the front of Sunday's Business section, Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein slammed GOP candidates: "If you came up with a bumper sticker that pulls together the platform of this year’s crop of Republican presidential candidates, it would have to be: Repeal the 20th century. Vote GOP."

Pearlstein seemed especially insulted that Gov. Rick Perry would suggest John Maynard Keynes and his "stimulus" economics were through, and no one on the Republican stage came to the liberal icon's defense. Somehow, reporters (and former reporters like Pearlstein) always expect there to be a liberal in the other party's fold. Liberals really hate it when you say their ideas are outdated.

WaPo Hawking $300 Online 'Master Class' Course on Economic Literacy
By Ken Shepherd | May 18, 2011 | 10:30 AM EDT

The Washington Post hopes you may want to "Widen Your World," with online "Master Class" courses that cost $200-$300 a pop.

For example, there's Steven Pearlstein's "Introduction to Economic Literacy."

[Lesson number one: don't spend $300 to have a liberal journalist lecture you.]

Budding oenophiles can bone up on "The Wines of Bordeaux" with Joseph Ward, which you may need after exploring the mind-numbing complexity of "How the Government Budgets and Operates."

For an image of the advertisement as I received it in my inbox this morning, check below the page break:

Washington Post’s Pearlstein Charges Republican Policies ‘Kill People Rather than Jobs’
By Brent Baker | January 10, 2011 | 2:35 AM EST

Talk about incendiary and toxic talk. In Friday’s Washington Post, business section columnist Steven Pearlstein proclaimed that “what's particularly noteworthy about” congressional Republican “fixation with ‘job killing’” Democratic policies, such as Obamacare, “is that it stands in such contrast to the complete lack of concern about policies that kill people rather than jobs.”

Pearlstein, a former reporter who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, charged: “Repealing health-care reform, for instance, would inevitably lead to thousands of unnecessary deaths each year because of an inability to get medical care.”

Washington Post's Pearlstein: Passing Health Bill Will 'Restore...Trust and Confidence in Ourselves'
By Brent Baker | March 19, 2010 | 12:47 PM EDT
“It's shaping up to be a great weekend here in Washington,” Washington Post business section columnist Steven Pearlstein proclaimed in a piece in Friday's newspaper, and not because of the “spectacular weather,” but because of the likely “vote in the House that would finally have the United States join the rest of the industrialized world in offering health insurance to all its citizens.”

Pearlstein, a former reporter who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, concluded his column by asserting passage would prove Washington is capable of “solving” a major problem and by indulging in self-congratulatory ruminating about how such success would “restore...trust and confidence in ourselves.” More like trust and confidence by journalists in their own influence. His final paragraph:
Most of all, enacting health-care reform would be a desperately needed victory for a political system teetering on the verge of breakdown. Years of polarization, partisanship and stalemate have led to a widespread and cynical belief that Washington is simply incapable of solving any major problem. Passing a health-care reform bill would restore not only a measure of trust and confidence in our political process but also, more significantly, trust and confidence in ourselves.
Brown's Win Evidence of 'Wretched' State of the Union, Whines Washington Post's Pearlstein
By Brent Baker | January 27, 2010 | 1:07 PM EST
Scott Brown replacing Ted Kennedy in the Senate really irritates the Washington press corps, as evidenced by Washington Post business section columnist Steven Pearlstein, who in Wednesday's paper cited Brown's victory as an example of the “wretched” state of the nation while he scolded Massachusetts voters for selfishness in picking Brown to replace Kennedy who had fought “for social justice.”

In “The State of the Union speech Obama would give in a more honest world,” Pearlstein, a former reporter who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, recommended President Obama begin: “My fellow Americans, the state of our union is...well, quite wretched at the moment.” Amongst the “wretched” indicators:
Massachusetts, which for nearly half a century proudly sent a senator to Washington to fight for social justice and universal health care, has chosen as his replacement someone who campaigned in effect on the slogan “We've got ours, so the hell with everyone else.”
WaPo Columnist Smears GOP as 'Political Terrorists' on Health Care, But His Own Data Is Dubious
By Rich Noyes | August 7, 2009 | 11:42 AM EDT

In Friday’s Washington Post business section, columnist Steven Pearlstein — who last week condemned the conservative “fantasy” that raising taxes is damaging to the economy — blasted Republicans as “political terrorists” who are “poisoning the political well” by peddling “lies” about liberal health care plans, lies that are “so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage.”

"As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don't agree," Pearlstein claimed before warning: "Today, I'm going to step over that line."

But the “facts” Pearlstein uses to slam the anti-ObamaCare “terrorists” line up better with Democratic talking points than the analysis of non-partisan sources such as the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). For instance, Pearlstein claims it is a lie that the Democratic bills would push people out of private insurance, that it is a lie that the price tag is $1 trillion, and trumpets “offsetting savings” as bringing the cost down to “less than 1 percent of a national income that grows at an average rate of 2.5 percent every year.”

Washington Post Headline Encapsulates Press Corps Attitude
By Brent Baker | August 3, 2009 | 1:11 AM EDT
As the weekend ends, catching up with a Wednesday Washington Post article which encapsulated how journalists are revolted by conservative economic policy and upset at how an aversion to tax hikes may prevent passage of Obama's health care takeover.
WaPo Business Columnist Tells David Gregory Taxes Are Going Up
By Noel Sheppard | April 19, 2009 | 2:29 PM EDT

As Tea Parties ensued from coast to coast last week, the Obama administration and their media minions depicted attendees as not understanding that the new president has decreed taxes will be going down for 95 percent of Americans.

On Sunday's "Meet the Press," Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein let the cat out of the bag: Tea Partiers are right. Taxes are going up.

This revelation occurred after host David Gregory said to the Post's Pulitzer Prize winner, "There may be doubts about President Obama, but he is cutting taxes."

Pearlstein responded:

Pulitzer-Winner Blames Those Who 'Refuse to Raise Taxes'
By Brent Baker | August 3, 2008 | 3:27 AM EDT
Washington Post business columnist Steven Pearlstein, who won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, on Friday contended “it is not the protectionists of the AFL-CIO or CNN who are primarily to blame for the erosion of public support” for free trade, instead:
The blame lies squarely with a business community that continues to support Republican politicians who refuse to raise the taxes and spend the money necessary to provide the economic safety net for American workers that a free-market economy has not, and will not, provide.
In his column bannered across the top Friday's “Business” section, “Wave Goodbye to the Invisible Hand” Pearlstein argued that “just as the Gilded Age gave way to the Progressive Era and the New Deal gave way to the post-war era of big government, big business and big labor, the current era of free-market capitalism seems to be giving way to something else” as “the larger truth may be that the social and economic costs of the next increment of globalization probably outweigh the benefits for many people, and that reality has now been reflected in the political marketplace.”