Free Republic

Around midnight on July 16, New York Times chief political correspondent Adam Nagourney received a terse e-mail from Barack Obama's press office. The campaign was irked by the Times' latest poll and Nagourney and Megan Thee's accompanying front-page piece titled "Poll Finds Obama Isn't Closing Divide on Race," which was running in the morning's paper. Nagourney answered the query, the substance of which he says was minor, and went to bed, thinking the matter resolved. But, the next morning, Nagourney awoke to an e-mail from Talking Points Memo writer Greg Sargent asking him to comment on an eight-point rebuttal trashing...

Let us bow our heads for a moment... And then raise them in a cheer! The New York Times and its mutant adoptee, The Boston Globe, are going out of business. Slowly. Horribly. Gushing jobs and blood. Screams of dispair from its terrified, shrinking staff. Think "Cloverfield" at a party at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis. Think "I am Legend" starring "Putz" Sulzberger in an empty Times' newsroom. Think "Going My Way?" from The Twilight Zone, starring P. Steven Ainsley instead of Inger Stevens.

On July 14, the NYT published an op-ed by Barack Obama explaining his security plan for Iraq, in which he argued in favor of removing U.S. combat troops by the summer of 2010, while leaving a much smaller residual force in place. At the same time, Mr. Obama proposed sending at least two additional combat brigades to support the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan. Fair enough - that's what an Op-Ed Page is for. Unfortunately, the NYT failed

Nearly seven years after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the war on terror in this city has evolved into a quiet struggle against a phantom foe.

Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. and Janet Robinson reported grim second-quarter results today—ad revenue down another 10 percent versus the second quarter last year, net income down to $21 million versus the $118 million they made this quarter last year—and just dropped a small bombshell: "We plan to increase the daily newsstand price of the Times from $1.25 to $1.50," said Ms. Robinson on a conference call with investors this morning. It goes into effect on August 18. The paper last raised newsstand prices last July.

The New York Times (NYT: 13.07, +0.21, +1.63%) fell as low as $12.38 this morning after its second quarter earnings missed estimates. Profits plunged 82% to $21 mn versus the $118 mn posted in the same period a year ago, a period that was helped along by the one-time sale of an asset. The share plunge is the lowest since July 1995. Print ads dollars at the Times continue to shrivel, sending operating income in a nosedive, as ad dollars continued their inexorable march toward the Internet. Hotels, automakers, airlines, all hurt by high energy prices, have pulled back sharply....

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson (D) said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is "overreacting" and "whining" in response to The New York Times refusing to run his editorial about Iraq. Richardson, who supports Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president, said in an interview on Fox News on Tuesday that the rejection of McCain's editorial is not surprising because The New York Times turns down many editorials from politicians, including presidential candidates. "Well, look, The New York Times is very fussy. I mean, I've sent many editorials that they've rejected — in fact, most of them," Richardson said.

The New York Post published the op-ed piece that the New York Times rejected from John McCain, as debate continues over the decision to spike it. The piece itself appears to have much the same approach as Barack Obama’s earlier op-ed; in fact, it goes into greater detail than Obama’s while specifically rebutting Obama’s earlier argument.

So, 48% have voted that the New York Times act appropriately in rejecting Sen. John McCain's op-ed piece? Amazing. If the "dems" get the White House, for sure silencing the right's voice is top of the list.

Maybe those Bar-B-Q’s for the press really do work. It looks like the media really is trying to help McCain out, but Matt Drudge seems to really like Obama and isn’t going to let McCain get off easy...

The New York Times has turned down an op-ed written by Republican Presidential candidate John McCain. They are a private organization, and I suppose it is fair to say that they are welcome to publish or turn down whomever they want. His article, Getting Iraq Right, can instead be found at the New York Post. I felt compelled to expand on a couple points in his article. One: McCain makes the point that the Bush Administration waved the “Mission Accomplished” banner “prematurely” as is Barack Obama with his Iraq withdrawal policy. Well, the thing is: the banner did not signify...

EDITORS' NOTE: The New York Times wouldn't print this oped from the GOP candidate.

THE OLD GRAY B*TCH: CENSORSHIP AT THE NEW YORK TIMES Published July 22nd, 2008 The New York Times, which last week printed an op-ed piece by Senator Obama on the Iraq War, has rejected an article on the same subject by Senator John McCain. Says editorial page editor, David Shipley, “It would be terrific to have an article from Sen. McCain that mirrors Sen. Obama’s piece.” (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/07/mccain-oped-not.html) As our Black brethren might say, “Say what???” Since the “paper of record,” “the old, gray lady,” has now become a senile, old, corrupt, censorial b*tch determined to dictate rather than report and...

One of the big topics of the day on the cable news channels is Drudge Report's story about the New York Times rejecting Sen. John McCain's proposed Op-Ed about Iraq. Fox News has Carl Cameron reporting the story, MSNBC's Chris Matthews talked about it on Hardball and Howard Kurtz gave his take last hour on CNN: "One irony of the internet age: the rejected piece will probably wind up getting far more attention by the controversy whipped up by Matt Drudge then if the New York Times had just gone ahead and published it," said Kurtz. We hear prime time...

The Op-Ed section of The New York Times has decided not to publish an opinion piece submitted by Senator John McCain in response to one published last week by his Democratic rival, Senator Barack Obama, on his plan for Iraq. Mr. Obama is on center stage today with his overseas trip to Afghanistan and Iraq, and Mr. McCain is hitting back from home with attacks that he has been right all along in achieving stability in the war zone through sustained support of President Bush’s troop buildup over this year. On Mr. McCain’s Op-Ed, Matt Drudge posted online what he...

When Hillary dropped out under a wave of hostile coverage, she left John McCain the only person standing between Barack Obama and a history-making presidency. With Obama rocking waves of positive coverage overseas, the media tide is out for the Republican nominee, and the Times surely isn't going to give McCain any breaks now. The same New York Times that endorsed McCain (albeit in hold-your-nose fashion) during the Republican primaries now refuses to run an op-ed by him that: laid out recent successes in Iraq; said Obama was wrong in opposing the surge; and accused the Democrat of having "learned...

ABC's Rick Klein and Sara Just report: This is not the easiest week for John McCain to get equal time in the media - not with so many journalists in the Middle East to report on Barack Obama's trip there. And the New York Times op-ed page isn't making it any easier. As first reported by The Drudge Report, Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, submitted an opinion piece to the New York Times last week and the paper has rejected it.

No one I know is surprised that the New York Times neglected to publish McCain’s editorial on Iraq, even though it published a piece written by Obama on the same topic just one week ago. Not even the McCain campaign, which will no doubt raise funds from conservative stalwarts in retribution, are troubled by the editorial board decision. By email, the Times notified the McCain campaign that they would re-consider publishing his article, if McCain writes a piece that “mirrors” the Obama one. There is no need at this point because McCain’s editorial is front page news for two reasons:...

Here is the op-ed piece written by Sen. John McCain that the New York Times declined to run. The piece was released to CNN by the McCain campaign: In January 2007, when General David Petraeus took command in Iraq, he called the situation "hard" but not "hopeless." Today, 18 months later, violence has fallen by up to 80% to the lowest levels in four years, and Sunni and Shiite terrorists are reeling from a string of defeats. The situation now is full of hope, but considerable hard work remains to consolidate our fragile gains. Progress has been due primarily to...

An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES -- less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. The paper's decision to refuse McCain's direct rebuttal to Obama's 'My Plan for Iraq' has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles. 'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece,' NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday to McCain's staff. 'I'm not going to be able to accept this piece...

NYT REJECTS MCCAIN'S EDITORIAL; SHOULD 'MIRROR' OBAMA Mon Jul 21 2008 12:00:25 ET An editorial written by Republican presidential hopeful McCain has been rejected by the NEW YORK TIMES -- less than a week after the paper published an essay written by Obama, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned. The paper's decision to refuse McCain's direct rebuttal to Obama's 'My Plan for Iraq' has ignited explosive charges of media bias in top Republican circles. 'It would be terrific to have an article from Senator McCain that mirrors Senator Obama's piece,' NYT Op-Ed editor David Shipley explained in an email late Friday...

Senator John McCain was all but a sworn enemy of Senator Trent Lott, the former Republican leader. Mr. Lott had quashed Mr. McCain’s most cherished legislative goals. And, worse, Mr. McCain believed that in the 2000 Republican primaries, Mr. Lott had spread rumors about his colleague’s mental stability on behalf of his rival for the nomination, George W. Bush. --snip-- Over the next eight years, he mastered the art of political triangulation — variously teaming up with Mr. Lott against the president or the new Republican leaders, with Democrats against Republicans, and with the president against the Democrats — to...

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has sent a letter to the New York Times, protesting the paper's naming of a former CIA anti-terrorism interrogator. The CIA had objected to revealing of the man's name, but the Times decided to go ahead anyway. There was a case a while back in which many on the left became very upset about the revelation of a CIA employee's name. So far, that does not seem to be happening in this case. In any event, this is the letter from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to the Times:...

Pinch Sulzberger has taken perhaps the most recognizable media brand in the country and run it into the ground. Can the Gray Lady be saved?

Generations of recovering alcoholics, soldiers, weary parents, exploited workers and just about anybody feeling beaten down by life have found solace in a short prayer that begins, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.� Now the Serenity Prayer is about to endure a controversy over its authorship that is likely to be anything but serene. For more than 70 years, the composer of the prayer was thought to be the Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, one of modern Christianity’s towering figures. Niebuhr, who died in 1971, said he was quite sure he had written it, and...

Times climb - again! Man scales paper's headquarters to protest Al Qaeda BY WIL CRUZ and JILL COFFEY DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS Updated Wednesday, July 9th 2008, 4:34 AM Taggart for NewsDavid Malone keeps climbing after hanging a banner on the Times building early Wednesday morning. Another climber with a cause has gone up the side of The New York Times Building in midtown.But unlike the two men who made it to the top of the 52-story structure June 5, David Malone only made it to about the 11th floor early this morning.Malone called the Daily News and acknowledged...

Continued Unfitness for Command By Mark Hyman Published 7/8/2008 12:08:20 AM Perhaps John Kerry and the New York Times should have adhered to the old adage to let sleeping dogs lie. It appears the Times' Kate Zernike used Kerry campaign talking points rather than the facts in her breathless account of how the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth "smeared" John Kerry over his Vietnam record during the 2004 presidential campaign. In her 1,283-word "Veterans Fight to Reclaim the Name 'Swift Boat,'" Zernike came across as a Kerry campaign spokesman rather than as an independent journalist. Zernike wrote, "'Swift boat' has...

"New and Not Improved," avers everyone's favorite left-wing establishment newspaper, the New York Times, in an editorial page headline. The reference isn't to John McCain. It's to Barack Obama, whom the Times' editorial writers and columnists have been suiting up for sainthood. What's this, then? "[T]here seems to be a new Barack Obama on the hustings," the Times notes dejectedly. First the guy "broke his promise" to stay within public financing limits during the campaign. Then he "abandoned his vow to filibuster an electronic wiretapping bill if it includes an immunity clause for telecommunications," engaging in a "classic, cynical Washington...

Like most working journalists, whenever I type seven letters — Fox News — a series of alarms begins to whoop in my head: Danger. Warning. Much mayhem ahead.

Pointing Fingers The New York Times takes on the gasoline shortage today, and allocates responsibility just where you would expect: Over the last 25 years, opportunities to head off the current crisis were ignored, missed or deliberately blocked, according to analysts, politicians and veterans of the oil and automobile industries. Of course, when the Times talks about what was "blocked," it doesn't mean drilling offshore or in ANWR. Rather, the Times devotes its analysis mostly to CAFE standards. The paper seems to think the gas shortage could have been averted if only, years ago, the federal government had forced automakers...

At one time, Limbaugh did his program from a Midtown Manhattan skyscraper he dubbed, with tongue-in-cheek grandiosity, the Excellence in Broadcasting Building. These days, he mostly broadcasts out of a studio in Palm Beach, Fla., which he calls the Southern Command, and describes on the air as a “heavily fortified bunker.” In fact, Limbaugh’s show emanates from a nondescript office building on a boulevard lined with tall palms. There isn’t even a security guard in the lobby. The elevator opens directly onto a pristine anteroom furnished in corporate glass and leather. An American flag stands in the corner. Only...

WASHINGTON: In a makeshift prison in the north of Poland, Al Qaeda's engineer of mass murder faced off against his Central Intelligence Agency interrogator. It was 18 months after the 9/11 attacks, and the invasion of Iraq was giving Muslim extremists new motives for havoc. If anyone knew about the next plot, it was Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. The interrogator, Deuce Martinez, a soft-spoken analyst who spoke no Arabic, had turned down a CIA offer to be trained in waterboarding. He chose to leave the infliction of pain and panic to others, the gung-ho paramilitary types whom the more cerebral interrogators...

SOURCES: BUSH ANGER AT COMING NEW YORK TIMES STORY DETAILING HUNT FOR BIN LADEN... The newspaper is planning to expose a 'highly classified Pentagon order' authorizing Special Operations forces to hunt al-Qaida leader in mountains of Pakistan... DEVELOPING....

NYT shocked to find a politician instead of a virgin posted at 9:11 am on July 4, 2008 by Ed Morrissey Send to a Friend | printer-friendly The New York Times editorial board went to bed with a virgin and woke up with a … well, a pro, in milder terms, or so they seem to imply in today’s unhappy missive.  The editorial castigates Obama for his replacement of just about everything he has professed from January 2007 to May 2008 with his all-new, 50%-more-”centery” agenda that rejects everything that made him attractive to the Left in the first place. ...

As of 12:45 EST this morning, Drudge was still advertising a developing story posted hours earlier: “Sources: Bush anger at coming New York Times Story detailing hunt for Bin Laden…The newspaper is planning to expose a “highly classified Pentagon order” authorizing Special Operations forces to hunt al-Qaida leader in mountains of Pakistan. ‘Operation Cannonball’. Operation Cannonball was the code name given to the Al Qaeda hunt in Pakistan by the C.I.A. in 2006.

FALSE beliefs are everywhere. Eighteen percent of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth, one poll has found. Thus it seems slightly less egregious that, according to another poll, 10 percent of us think that Senator Barack Obama, a Christian, is instead a Muslim. The Obama campaign has created a Web site to dispel misinformation. But this effort may be more difficult than it seems, thanks to the quirky way in which our brains store memories — and mislead us along the way. The brain does not simply gather and stockpile information as a computer’s hard drive does. Facts...

SOURCES: BUSH ANGER AT COMING NEW YORK TIMES STORY DETAILING HUNT FOR BIN LADEN... The newspaper planning to expose internal debate surrounding 'highly classified Pentagon order'; Special Operations forces hunt al-Qaida leader in mountains of Pakistan... DEVELOPING.... Thats the Story from drudge, OMG if the Times is gonna report this... Good GOD.... This is Huge. ( yea and Series) This is NOT a good thing for national Security and I am just a housewife. Even I can see and call a Traitor, a Traitor, but the Editor and the signing off authority that Prints this, to bee seen by the...

WASHINGTON — Soon after American forces toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003, Gen. Tommy R. Franks surprised senior Army officers by revamping the Baghdad-based military command. The decision reflected the assumption by General Franks, the top American commander for the Iraq invasion, that the major fighting was over. But according to an Army history that is to be made public on Monday, the move put the military effort in the hands of a short-staffed headquarters led by a newly promoted three-star general, and was made over the objections of the Army’s vice chief of staff. “The move was sudden and caught...

I caught a bit of "The Factor" on TV. Dick Morris was talking about his new book (don't recall the title). In discussing the book, Morris mentioned the Society of Professional Journalists, which has established explicit guidelines for members - guidelines that affect the manner in which the "news" is presented to a largely unsuspecting public. For example, on this page http://spj.org/blog/blogs/diversity/archive/2008/06/23/20797.aspx the SPJ explains why one should not use the term "illegal immigrant". A sample: Both national and local media regularly refer to undocumented immigrants as illegal immigrants, or the most inflamatory phrase, illegal aliens (as if they came...

In an astonishing stroke of irony, the New York Times has outed the name of the CIA operative who interrogated 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, over the objections of CIA Director Michael V. Hayden and a lawyer representing the operative. Agency officials and legal counsel told the Times that publishing the agent's name would "invade his privacy and put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency." In an Editor's Note linked from the story on KSM's interrogation, the Times defended its decision by stating that "other government employees" had been "named publicly in...

Too bad, because an otherwise fascinating story about the scramble to build a counterterror apparatus after 9/11, the merits of coercive vs. non-coercive interrogation, and the stings that nailed Abu Zubaydah and KSM is going to be submerged in a debate over their decision to publish the lead interrogator’s name against his wishes and those of CIA chief Michael Hayden. Here’s the obligatory editor’s note justifying the decision. Quote: "After discussion with agency officials and a lawyer for [the interrogrator], the newspaper declined the request, noting that [the interrogator] had never worked under cover and that others involved in the...

Liberals were outraged in 2004 when they nominated Sen. John Kerry, who by the way, served in Vietnam, and some veterans who served with him on Swift Boats had the audacity to challenge his war heroism. So how will they greet cranky old leftist author Gore Vidal who does some "swift boating" of his own in the Sunday New York Times Magazine? Interviewer Deborah Solomon talked to the "literary lion" about John McCain, and Vidal suggested the "rumor" of McCain’s heroism should be so questioned, we might even doubt he actually served time as a POW:

It turns out that Hugo Chávez is an adaptable man. The Venezuelan president, who has championed — and almost certainly helped arm — Colombia’s FARC rebels, called last week for the rebels to lay down their weapons and unconditionally surrender their hostages. We suspect this change of heart has been driven more by self-interest than conviction. Mr. Chávez is increasingly unpopular at home and increasingly isolated abroad, especially as evidence has mounted of his meddling in Colombia. The change nevertheless is welcome and well timed. The FARC, which long ago chose drug trafficking over liberation, has been under assault from...

When Senator Kent Conrad wanted a mortgage for his beach house,he turned to a Washington insider, Johnson, former head of Fannie Mae, the government mortgage giant, who then put the senator in touch with Angelo Mozilo, chief executive of the mortgage lender Countrywide Financial. The ensuing telephone call between Mr. Conrad of North Dakota and Mr. Mozilo led to two Countrywide mortgages, including one in which the company bent its rules to give Mr. Conrad a loan. Those loans are among a number of Countrywide mortgages at the center of an examination into whether a number of top politicians in...

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — A couple of years ago, a Canadian magazine published an article arguing that the rise of Islam threatened Western values. The article’s tone was mocking and biting, but it said nothing that conservative magazines and blogs in the United States do not say every day without fear of legal reprisal. The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal will soon rule on whether the cover story of the October 23, 2006, issue of Maclean’s magazine violated a provincial hate speech law. "The First Amendment is a gift, like the article says, that nobody else has. Once you start...

The New York Times (NYT) is in the business of changing the American culture, especially what it perceives as really bad American habits. One of them is free speech. In an article (Unlike Others, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend in Speech) the NYT tried to address the issue of the different approach that American judicial system takes on the important issue of free speech. The article is a marvelous study in the architecture of deceit. What is omitted and what is included create a much distorted picture of the issue at hand. It all starts in the first paragraph: “A...

ROME (CNS) -- The seven deadly sins are still key to understanding and healing the social and personal ills plaguing humanity today, said an influential Jesuit journal. The capital vices of lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride are not outdated and have not been made irrelevant by psychotherapy or other mental health counseling, La Civilta Cattolica said. The journal cited a survey commissioned by the British Broadcasting Corp. that found most people surveyed felt the list of deadly sins defined in the Middle Ages no longer applied to modern-day life and should be updated. The survey, released in...

In my previous column, “Rarely Do I Agree With the Rev. Jeremiah Wright - An Open Letter to the New York Times,” I sought to expose how a New York Times article by Jodi Kantor had used fraud and deception to portray those hesitant about voting for Barack Obama as racists. Unfortunately, I had no idea of just how far and dishonest she and the Times had been, something I found out only upon further investigation. In the midst of her shameful and race baiting piece, Kantor quoted one Rabbi Ruvi New wholly out of context. When I first read...

A few days ago I had an opportunity to discuss the pithy but engagingly written book War and Decision with its author, Douglas Feith. The book is lengthy -- with endnotes it runs to 653 pages -- but has the virtue the other books about the internal processes on the Iraq war decision-making lack. It is well-detailed and superbly documented rather than the on-the-fly and off-the top-of-the-head self-serving and extensively reviewed accounts written by the other authors. Feith's version of events is drawn from memos, briefings and his personal contemporaneous notes which, to the extent that they've been declassified, you...

A few days ago I had an opportunity to discuss the pithy but engagingly written book War and Decision with its author, Douglas Feith. The book is lengthy -- with endnotes it runs to 653 pages -- but has the virtue the other books about the internal processes on the Iraq war decision-making lack. It is well-detailed and superbly documented rather than the on-the-fly and off-the top-of-the-head self-serving and extensively reviewed accounts written by the other authors