TimesWatch

Thursday’s New York Times led with Obama’s partisan budget speech, “Taking On G.O.P., Obama Unveils Debt Relief Plan – Calls for Spending Cuts and Tax Increases but Spares Medicare and Medicaid,” and once again did a double-standard dance around the politically inflammatory issue of changes in Medicare spending when proposed by a Democratic president. While previous attempts at reform of…

New York Times critic Mike Hale’s review of an HBO documentary on the evils of guns, “Gun Fight,” is colored with his liberal perspective. Hale is never hesitant to work in his liberal political opinions into his reviews. He clearly favors left-wing public affairs series like Frontline, and has embraced European-style nationalized health care as clearly superior to the U.S. version (until Obama…

New York Times reporter Mark Oppenheimer on Tuesday documented some of the strange conservative allies of African dictator Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast, who is a Christian: “A Strongman Found Support in Prominent Conservative Christians in the U.S.” But some of the labeling was overheated: “A secretive evangelical Christian organization that some say has a right-wing agenda.” When the Times…

It's becoming a habit. The New York Times's chief economics writer David Leonhardt once again called for higher taxes in his column on the front page of Wednesday's Times, especially on “the rich,” in the name of deficit reduction (and also because, hey all civilized countries do it). Wednesday A1, “Do-Nothing Congress as a Cure.” It’s as if tax increases were a mere technicality in any…

New York Times reporter Katharine Seelye is the latest Times reporter to defend government spending, this time on a tiny but "life-affirming" radio station threatened by the Republican budget ax - public radio station WMMT in Whitesburg, Kentucky: “A Regional Radio Voice Threatened From Afar.” The story was accompanied by a cutesy sidebar, “88.7 on Appalachia’s Dial,” describing such original…

New York Times reporter Sabrina Tavernise offered no voices opposed to the liberal cause of D.C. voting rights in Monday’s righteous “Abortion Limit Is Renewed, as Is Washington Anger.” The sound and fury of last week’s budget debate came down to a dollar figure that some members of Congress could have covered by writing a personal check. Elective abortions for poor women in the District…

The New York Times continues to argue against spending cuts, no matter how silly or trivial the program may be. Reporter Adam Nagourney rode to the defense of Sen. Harry Reid’s beleaguered cowboy poets on Monday: “For Cowboy Poets, Unwelcome Spotlight In Battle Over Spending.” Reporting from the small Nevada town of Elko, Nagourney’s tone suggested critics who consider funding cowboy poetry a…

Matt Bai, chief political correspondent for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, celebrated the “grace and gravitas” of former New York State governor and perpetual Democratic presidential hopeful Mario Cuomo, “Papa Doesn’t Preach – Mario Cuomo would be a perfect elder statesman, if only his son’s generation wanted one.” Bai talked to the elder Cuomo, whose son Andrew is governor of New York…

New York Times budget reporter Jackie Calmes’s lead story Monday showcased Obama as (finally) coming off the sidelines to engage in the debate over the future of U.S. finances with a Wednesday speech: “Obama To Call For Broad Plan To Rescue Debt – A Challenge To G.O.P. – Proposal Said to Include Some Tax Increases and Military Cuts.” Examine Calmes’s word choice: While she portrays Republican…

Obama the centrist? That’s the takeaway from New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny’s Sunday “news analysis,” “President Adopts a Measured Course to Recapture the Middle.” The original online headline was even more misleading: “President Obama Adopts Centrist Approach.” President Obama opened the week by calling on Democrats to embrace his re-election campaign. He closed it by praising…

Republican “Dweebs”? So much for the new tone. Jonathan Chait, a sarcastic and partisan writer (and admitted Bush-hater) for the liberal New Republic magazine, has the first story in the latest edition of the New York Times’s Sunday magazine: “The G.O.P.’s Dukakis Problem -- Why Republicans will nominate a dweeb to run against Obama in 2012.” Coming from a writer for a magazine that pitches…

In New York Times-land, only Republicans can be ideologically motivated politicians. Michael Shear, chief writer for the paper’s political blog “The Caucus,” showed stark labeling disparity in two separate stories on the budget compromise averting a government shutdown, one focused on Democrats, the other on Republicans. His Saturday morning post focused on Democratic disappointment about…

The Republican majority in the Texas House has passed a budget with significant spending cuts, giving New York Times Houston-based reporter James McKinley Jr. yet another opportunity to lecture on how ugly things will get in Texas in his Friday news story posted at nytimes.com, “In Texas, Furor Over Proposal for Huge State Budget Cuts.” GOP Gov. Rick Perry, who refuses to commit to Times-…

So much for changing the tone. In the midst of the federal budget battle, Barack Obama raced up to Manhattan Wednesday night to pay tribute to the inflammatory race-baiter Rev. Al Sharpton, a clear effort to shore up the black vote as the 2012 presidential campaign kicks off in earnest. Yet New York City's biggest local paper, the New York Times, virtually ignored Obama's campaign stop…