Felicia Sonmez

WashPost Hails Obama's 'Bold Act' in Making Recess Appointment While Senate's Still In Session
By Ken Shepherd | January 5, 2012 | 10:52 AM EST

Washington Post scribes David Nakamura and Felicia Sonmez dutifully set out today to paint President Obama as the hero of the masses for his "bold act of political defiance" in naming "Richard Cordray as head a new consumer watchdog agency Wednesday, bypassing Republican opposition in the Senate that derailed his nomination last month."

Nakamura and Sonmez waited until the 10th paragraph in their 33-paragraph page A1 story to get to the Republican side of the argument, that "precedent, over the past two decades, has been that no president can make such an appointment during a recess of less than 10 days."

MSNBC's Hall Moderated CBC Event Where Rep. Carson Blasted Tea Party
By Matthew Balan | August 31, 2011 | 5:09 PM EDT

On Tuesday, The Washington Post's Felicia Sonmez noted how MSNBC's Tamron Hall moderated the recent Congressional Black Caucus town hall where Rep. Andre Carson smeared the Tea Party by accusing them of wanting to bring back Jim Crow laws and endorsing the lynching of blacks. Former Obama aide turned NBC employee Joy-Ann Reid also attended the CBC event, but omitted Rep. Carson's attack from her report.

During the August 22 town hall in Miami, Carson, a leader within the liberal Congressional Black Caucus from Indiana, actually apologized to Hall in the midst of his inflammatory remarks against the Tea Party:

Liberal-Media Super Committee Beefs Emerge: Too White and Male, Too Pro-Defense?
By Tim Graham | August 15, 2011 | 11:06 PM EDT

Just days after suggesting the Republicans who didn't agree to the compromise that created a budget Super Committee were crabby and irresponsible, several media outlets began complaining about the deficiencies of the new super committee. The Washington Post found it to be too white and male, and the AP lamented its representatives were too cozy with defense contractors.

Post reporter Felicia Sonmez asserted the super-committee had ideological diversity, "But the group’s membership is marked by a problem that has plagued Congress — a lack of gender and racial diversity."  It was "dominated by white men," the subheadline underlined. The bean-counting began:

Nineteen Democrats Scorn Pelosi in Speaker Vote, WaPo Buries Story on Page A8
By Ken Shepherd | January 6, 2011 | 4:02 PM EST

The first vote cast by the 110th Congress on January 4, 2007 was for election of Speaker of the House. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) won all 233 Democratic votes (including her own). All 202 Republicans voted for Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio. Two years later Pelosi secured 255 (including her own), and there was only one Democrat, one Rep. Gutierrez who did not vote. Minority Leader Boehner received every Republican vote, save for his own and three other Republicans who didn't vote.

By contrast, yesterday's vote for Speaker witnessed a total of 20 Democrats -- 10 percent of the party caucus -- defecting from the Pelosi line. Eleven voted for Blue Dog Democrat Heath Shuler (N.C.) while the other eight generally liberal Democratic defectors voted for other Democrats. And that doesn't include liberal Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon, who made sure to absent himself from the chamber so as to not have to register a vote.

It was certainly an inauspicious way for Pelosi to enter the new Congress as minority leader, yet when the Post reported the story, it elected to bury the news in a 6-paragraph digest item on page A8.

WaPo Finds It Scandalous Beck Would Challenge Obama's Religious Beliefs
By Tim Graham | August 30, 2010 | 7:23 AM EDT

The Washington Post found it newsworthy that "Beck challenges Obama's religious beliefs after rally in D.C.," but emphasized how Glenn Beck's views could cause a backlash, and papered over Rev. Jeremiah Wright's wild-eyed radical sermons as merely focusing on "the importance of empowering the oppressed." In the story on page A-4, Post reporter Felicia Sonmez made no mention of the president's avoidance of church services while she repeated the White House assertion that he's a "committed Christian." Here's the summation: 

During an interview on "Fox News Sunday," which was filmed after Saturday's rally, Beck claimed that Obama "is a guy who understands the world through liberation theology, which is oppressor-and-victim."

"People aren't recognizing his version of Christianity," Beck added.