Tag: The New York Times

  • ‘Joe the Liar’

    (Photo: Jim Young/Reuters) Wurzelbacher speaking to Sen. Barack Obama about taxes while the candidate campaigned near Toledo, Ohio, last week. And so “Joe the Plumber” dies a swift, ignominious death. In so doing, he enters the pantheon of fictitious Republican agitprop–such as Reagan’s apocryphal Cadillac-driving welfare queens–that have no basis in reality. “Joe the Plumber,”…

  • A wanderer arrives

    When I was a young newspaper reporter (a nerdy one, at that) at The Record in Hackensack, N.J., one of the journalists I looked up to was Michael Powell. Mr. Powell was then at New York Newsday but he had passed through The Record in what was becoming an itinerant career, with stops at Newsday,…

  • Giving Credit

    I have never hesitated to beat up the mainstream media and my former colleagues in the press for their failings. What I don’t do is praise good work. Let me point to a couple of samples of good work: The Washington Post thoroughly debunked the major thrust of Sen. John McCain’s recent outbursts and smears…

  • Thumbs on the scale

    FROM MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA During a speech to the Israeli parliament yesterday morning, President Bush attacked Barack Obama, comparing him to Nazi appeasers for the Illinois senator’s willingness to hold discussions with Iran. One problem: Bush’s speech came just hours after The Washington Post reported that Bush’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, said that the…

  • 'Race and American Memory'

    Roger Cohen of The New York Times (or should I say the International Herald Tribune?) is fast becoming my favorite columnist. He is a great writer with a searching conscience and vision. Cohen was writing about the decision by Congress in 2003 to spend $500 million to build the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American…

  • Vintage New York Times

    Check out this story from The New York Times, circa 1916, about legendary Suffragette icon and former Rep. Jeannette Rankin, R-Mont., the first woman ever elected to Congress. On the other hand, the language is not nearly as shocking as you find in the paper’s coverage of race. Love0 Share Tweet Share Pin

  • Inauspicious

    I cannot say how refreshed I was when I woke up this morning. Probably not much. I dragged my raggedy butt out to the gym. I was pathetic there so I left. I went for a run. After about half a mile, a glorious sun rose but did not improve my performance and, at about…

  • Not getting the Times

    Yesterday, the leading Democratic candidate for President, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, came to New York City to deliver a major speech on the economy right at the time when the economy appears to be teetering on the edge of a deep recession. He was introduced by Mayor Michael Bloomberg who himself had flirted with…

  • McCain-iacs

    I have been saying all along that media types are suckers for Sen. John McCain, (R-AZ), especially over at Newsweek. I don’t know why he wastes money having a media relations staff when most people in the industry are more than happy to be his toady. Now, Neal Gabler explores the issue on the op-ed…

  • . . . when we talk about . . .

    Obama addressing a crowd the day after his race speech (Davis Turner/European Pressphoto Agency) A not-too-bad round-up on the history that led to the Speech Sen. Barack Obama, (D-IL), gave in Philadelphia last week. The article shows, in some ways, how far we still have to go in our society to get to that bridge…