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JERUSALEM – A prominent article by the New York Times this weekend purporting to investigate the connections between Sen. Barack Obama and former Weathermen radical Bill Ayers omits key associations between the two and in some cases seems to minimize their relationship. One law professor and blogger who was interviewed for the Times says he provided the newspaper with key documentation showing Ayers was directly involved in the formation of the board of an education organization on which Obama served as chairman. But the Times did not present that information and instead made the claim Ayers was not involved in...

JERUSALEM – A prominent article by the New York Times this weekend purporting to investigate the connections between Sen. Barack Obama and former Weathermen radical Bill Ayers omits key associations between the two and in some cases seems to minimize their relationship. One law professor and blogger who was interviewed for the Times says he provided the newspaper with key documentation showing Ayers was directly involved in the formation of the board of an education organization on which Obama served as chairman. But the Times did not present that information and instead made the claim Ayers was not involved in...

’60s Bomber Ayers Repudiates NY Times, Obama Links by Scott Ott for ScrappleFace · 6 Comments (2008-10-04) — William Ayers, founder of the radical Weather Underground group which carried out a bombing campaign against U.S. targets in the 1960s, today attempted to distance himself from both Barack Obama and The New York Times. Mr. Ayers distributed a news release in response to the Times’ 2,100-word investigative story, originally titled “Obama Has Met Ayers, but the Two Are Not Close” and later re-headlined “Obama Met Ayers By Accident, Worked with Him Unwittingly, Can’t Recall What He Looks Like.” “I don’t read...

The NY Times has finally gotten around to covering the Obama-Ayers relationship.

As others have noted, today’s New York Times carries a story on the relationship between Barack Obama and unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist, Bill Ayers. The piece serves as a platform for the Obama campaign and Obama’s friends and allies. Obama’s spokesman and supporters’ names are named and their versions of events are presented in detail, with quotes. Yet the article makes no serious attempt to present the views of Obama critics who have worked to uncover the true nature of the relationship. That makes this piece irresponsible journalism, and an obvious effort by the former paper of record to protect...

We’ve been waiting for the mainstream media to apply one-tenth of the investigative power that they’ve put into Wasilla probing Sarah Palin into Chicago to check on Barack Obama. The New York Times offers about that — a tenth of an effort — into exploring Obama’s connections to William Ayers. Despite the fact that Obama worked for Ayers at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge for several years and with Ayers on the Woods Fund for a few more, the Paper of Record insists that the two men have no real ties at all. The first clue as to their spin? The...

UNSIGNED EDITORIAL: Dick Cheney, Role Model: In all the talk about the vice-presidential debate, there was an issue that did not get much attention but kept nagging at us: Sarah Palin’s description of the role and the responsibilities of the office for which she is running, vice president of the United States. Bob Herbert: Palin’s Alternate Universe: Sarah Palin is the perfect exclamation point to the Bush years. We’ve lived through nearly two terms of an administration that believed it could create its own reality: GAIL COLLINS: Talking in Points: The Republicans were euphoric over Sarah Palin’s debate performance, particularly...

At a tumultuous meeting of anti-Vietnam War militants at the Chicago Coliseum in 1969, Bill Ayers helped found the radical Weathermen, launching a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and United States Capitol. Twenty-six years later, at a lunchtime meeting about school reform in a Chicago skyscraper, Obama met Mr. Ayers, by then an education professor. Their paths have crossed sporadically since then, at a coffee Ayers hosted for Obama’s first run for office, on the schools project and a charitable board, and in casual encounters as Hyde Park neighbors. Their relationship has become a touchstone for Obama’s...

In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt inherited an economic crisis. He understood that his first job was to restore confidence, to give people a sense that somebody was in charge, that something was going to be done. This generation of political leaders is confronting a similar situation, and, so far, they have failed utterly and catastrophically to project any sense of authority, to give the world any reason to believe that this country is being governed.

Wachovia has begun preliminary talks with Citigroup about a potential merger, people briefed on the matter said Friday afternoon. Feelers have also been extended between Wachovia and Wells Fargo and Spain’s Banco Santander, these people said. These talks are early, however, and no deal may emerge from them.

ROANOKE, Va. — Two weeks ago, Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign gleefully publicized a spate of news reports about misleading and untruthful statements in the advertisements of his rival, Senator John McCain. Asked by a voter in New Hampshire if he would respond in kind, Mr. Obama said, “I just have a different philosophy, I’m going to respond with the truth,” adding, “I’m not going to start making up lies about John McCain.” [...] A much criticized, Spanish-language television advertisement wrongly links the views of Mr. McCain, who was a champion of the sweeping immigration overhaul pushed by President Bush,...

'Ancient History, Apparently' 2003, that is, when the New York Times ran this article on proposed reforms to Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac: The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago. Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry. The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with...

A recent New York Times editorial criticizing the Federal Bureau of Investigation about its seven-year probe into the mailing of anthrax-laden letters to members of Congress, prominent media figures and others is a direct attempt to plant doubt in the minds of its diminishing readership. The editorial read, “None of the investigators’ major assertions, however, have been tested in cross-examination . . .” Sorry, that test is moot when the suspect kills himself. Dr. Bruce Ivins, a mentally unbalanced scientist at the U.S. Army’s laboratories at Fort Detrick, Maryland, killed himself once he was informed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office...

WAZIRISTAN- NY Times editor Bill Keller, and CEO Arthur "Artie" "Little Pinch" Sulzberger have been honored with enshrinement in the International Criminal Gang of Bastards. "We are proud to enshrine our newest members into our organization." reported ICGOB President and Founder Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. He added there were, "no drones in the Waziristan area, and Bin Laden is alive and well," in apparent delusional rant accompanying the announcement today. "Our newest members earned this honor, by leaving no doubt they were leading a leftist propaganda movement. Propaganda is what we need to make the socialist, facist, marxist world revolution a...

Today the New York Times launched its latest attack on this campaign in its capacity as an Obama advocacy organization. Let us be clear about what this story alleges: The New York Times charges that McCain-Palin 2008 campaign manager Rick Davis was paid by Freddie Mac until last month, contrary to previous reporting, as well as statements by this campaign and by Mr. Davis himself. In fact, the allegation is demonstrably false. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis separated from his consulting firm, Davis Manafort, in 2006. As has been previously reported, Mr. Davis has seen no income from...

News outlets as diverse as WCBS Radio; Newsday; Agence France-Presse; Fox News; The New York Sun; Russia's state news agency, RIA Novosti; and even the Voice of America elected to report on the anti-Iran rally held yesterday outside the United Nations. The protest against Iran and its president, Ahmadinejad, was sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, UJA/Federation. CAMERA, and a number of other groups. It featured such speakers as Natan Sharansky, Elie Wiesel, and the Speaker of Israel's Knesset. Some of the reporting media included photos of the crowds and their protest signs, including Fox News,...

John McCain's White House campaign Monday lashed out at the media and declared the venerable New York Times was "150 percent" behind Democratic hopeful Barack Obama. McCain senior strategist Steve Schmidt rebuked journalists he said had failed in their duty to submit Obama to intense scrutiny and accused news organizations of hounding McCain's running mate Sarah Palin. "Whatever the New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization," said Schmidt on a conference call with reporters. "It is a pro-Obama advocacy organization that every day attacks the McCain campaign, attacks Senator McCain, attacks Governor...

NYT editor responds to McCain camp broadside Michael Calderone: NY Times executive editor Bill Keller responded, in an e-mail to Politico, to Steve Schmidt's contention that the paper is pulling for Obama, and that "it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization." "The New York Times is committed to covering the candidates fully, fairly and aggressively. It's our job to ask hard questions, fact-check their statements and their advertising, examine their programs, positions, biographies and advisors. Candidates and their campaign operatives are not always comfortable with that level of scrutiny, but it's what our readers expect and deserve."

The McCain Campaign and the Times   [Byron York] Top McCain campaign officials have just finished a conference call to unveil a new ad, called "Chicago Machine," which highlights ties between Barack Obama and Tony Rezko, William Daley, Emil Jones, and Rod Blagojevich.  The ad, the officials say, will air nationally and "across the depth and breadth of the battleground states." Among other topics covered in the call, campaign officials Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt were asked about a story in the New York Times concerning Davis' role in an advocacy group that included Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Davis defended...

BAGHDAD — At first, I didn’t recognize the place. On Karada Mariam, a street that runs over the Tigris River toward the Green Zone, the Serwan and the Zamboor, two kebab places blown up by suicide bombers in 2006, were crammed with customers. Farther up the street was Pizza Napoli, the Italian place shut down in 2006; it, too, was open for business. And I’d forgotten altogether about Abu Nashwan’s Wine Shop, boarded up when the black-suited militiamen of the Mahdi Army had threatened to kill its owners. There it was, flung open to the world. Two years ago, when...

On last nights Saturday Night Live, there was an eight minute clip that focused on the NY Times coverage of Sarah Palin. The skit addressed a fictional meeting where the Peter Conolly Assignment Editor of the NY Times explains his plans to send 50 reporters to Alaska, to dig dirt on the Palins. The media may try to play this off as SNL bringing up the topic of incest in the Palin household.  The real story is that SNL framed the NY Times and it's staff for precisely what kind of tactics they have used against the Palins so far. ...

Yes, immigration is a complicated and combustible issue for political candidates — and the economic meltdown is everyone’s top priority. No, that is no excuse for ignoring immigration or lying about it to voters, as John McCain and Barack Obama have been doing.

A September 11, 2003 New York Times article shows that President Bush proposed “the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.” His proposal: An agency within the Treasury Department to supervise mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Fearing that mortgages would no longer be available to people who were unable to pay them back, Democrats eventually killed the proposal. The current meltdown in the mortgage industry is a direct result of giving mortgages to people who could not pay them back, a practice protected by Congressional Democrats.

My NewsBusters colleague Noel Sheppard, in the course of detailing how the New York Times devoted four items and over 6,000 words today to attacking Sarah Palin, cited Frank Rich's column and its malicious message. Rich's column is such a treasure trove for chroniclers of Palin Derangement Syndrome that I'd like to devote a bit more time to deconstructing it. For sheer paranoid fantasy, it will be hard to outdo the scenario Rich sketches. In having mentioned Harry Truman in her convention speech, Rich sees nothing less than a "creepy" clue to what Palin has in mind. Truman, you see...

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin lives by the maxim that all politics is local, not to mention personal. So when there was a vacancy at the top of the State Division of Agriculture, she appointed a high school classmate, Franci Havemeister, to the $95,000-a-year directorship. A former real estate agent, Ms. Havemeister cited her childhood love of cows as a qualification for running the roughly $2 million agency. Ms. Havemeister was one of at least five schoolmates Ms. Palin hired, often at salaries far exceeding their private sector wages. When Ms. Palin had to cut her first state budget,...

As we watched Sarah Palin on TV the last couple of days, we kept wondering what on earth John McCain was thinking. If he seriously thought this first-term governor — with less than two years in office — was qualified to be president, if necessary, at such a dangerous time, it raises profound questions about his judgment. If the choice was, as we suspect, a tactical move, then it was shockingly irresponsible. It was bad enough that Ms. Palin’s performance in the first televised interviews she has done since she joined the Republican ticket was so visibly scripted and lacking...

Where is it written that only senators are qualified to become President? Surely Ronald Reagan does not subscribe to that maxim. Or where is it written that mere representatives aren’t qualified, like Geraldine Ferraro of Queens? Representative Morris Udall, who lost New Hampshire to Jimmy Carter by a hair in 1976, must surely disagree. So must a longtime Michigan Congressman named Gerald Ford. Where is it written that governors and mayors, like Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco, are too local, too provincial? That didn’t stop Richard Nixon from picking Spiro Agnew, a suburban politician who became Governor of Maryland. Remember...

The New York Times has a Monday column for readers to submit stories about life in NYC. Here are four of my items the Times has published, in reverse chronological order: No. 4: The Lollipop Our B train was being held at 96th Street a few weeks ago. After repeated pleas for passengers to stop blocking the closing doors, the conductors began running out of patience. “Is there a police officer on the platform?” one of them called out. No response. So one of the crew passed through our car, determined to find the problem himself. When he returned, he...

BUSH 7, TERRORISTS 0September 10, 2008 Morose that there hasn't been another terrorist attack on American soil for seven long years, liberals were ecstatic when Hurricane Gustav was headed toward New Orleans during the Republican National Convention last week. The networks gave the hurricane plenty of breaking-news coverage -- but unfortunately it was Hurricane Katrina from 2005 they were covering. On Keith Olbermann's Aug. 29 show on MSNBC, Michael Moore said the possibility of a Category 3 hurricane hitting the United States "is proof that there is a God in heaven." Olbermann responded: "A supremely good point." Actually, Olbermann said...

On March 6, 2007, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof published an article entitled "Obama: Man of the World." In it, Kristof addressed Barack Obama's upbringing, including his early life in Jakarta when he "got in trouble for making faces during Koran study classes in his elementary school." For some reason, the link to this piece doesn't work anymore. Does the New York Times no longer want folks to read the following paragraphs (h/t Gateway Pundit via NBer mitchflorida): (UPDATE: Link to article in question now works as of 6:45PM)

CNN) – Sen. Barack Obama and former president Bill Clinton will share a private lunch together on Thursday, September 11, CNN has confirmed. Clinton issued the invite to Obama after learning he would be in Manhattan for a joint appearance with Sen. John McCain on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, according to Clinton Foundation spokesman Matt McKenna. The luncheon is another sign that the Clinton and Obama camps are moving forward in the spirit of unity. Major steps toward healing the party came during the Democratic National Convention where Bill Clinton and Sen. Hillary Clinton, individually...

Sarah Palin’s baby shower included a surprise guest: her own baby. He had arrived in the world a month early, so on a sunny May day, Ms. Palin, the governor of Alaska, rocked her newborn as her closest friends, sisters, even her obstetrician presented her with a potluck meal, presents and blue-and-white cake. Most had learned that Ms. Palin was pregnant only a few weeks before. Struggling to accept that her child would be born with Down syndrome and fearful of public criticism of a governor’s pregnancy, Ms. Palin had concealed the news that she was expecting even from her...

Drudge: NY Times Prepares To Front Expose on Palin's Baby...Developing...

INCREDIBLE SHRINKING TIMES FEELS THE 'PINCH' By KEITH J. KELLY Posted: 4:36 am September 6, 2008 The New York Times yesterday said it will cut back the number of sections it has in the daily paper it sells in the metro New York area beginning next month, the latest cost-saving move at the beleaguered newspaper. The change returns to four the number of sections in the paper, and represents an about-face from the daily's fanfare-filled move in 1997 to expand to six sections and incorporate color onto its pages. As part of the move, the Sports section will now be...

Yesterday the McCain camp hit back hard on this front-page NYT story by Elisabeth Bumiller reporting that Sarah Palin had been a member of the Alaska Independence Party in the 1990s. Today, the paper ( New York Times ) writes: " The chairwoman of an Alaskan political party that advocates a vote on the state’s secession from the union said Tuesday that she had been mistaken when she said Gov. Sarah Palin was a member of the group. A front-page story in The New York Times on Tuesday ... The information in the Times article was based on a statement...

Folks, I hate to say this, but I value honesty above partisan credentials. I’ve reluctantly concluded that we’ve come to a point in time when a Presidential candidate is simply using the female gender to nakedly appeal to voters. It’s transparent and, I have to be honest, it’s pathetic. Maybe I’ll at least get an Yglesias Award. Read the ugly story of why I’ve come to this conclusion in the extended entry. The New York Times has the sordid details. Senator Barack Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women to undercut Gov. Sarah Palin and Senator John McCain, dispatching...

LONDON -- Rupert Murdoch is considering an acquisition of The New York Times , according to a report by Vanity Fair's Michael Wolff, who wrote a profile and interviewed the News Corp. chairman and chief executive. Wolff speaks of watching Murdoch "go through the numbers, plot out a merger with the Journal's backroom operations, and fantasize about the staff's quitting en masse as soon as he entered the sacred temple." The article doesn't directly quote Murdoch on his reported interest. There would be clear regulatory obstacles to a New York Times acquisition in addition to a likely reticence on the...

If ever there was a crash that tugged at the heart of the entire state, it was the one that took the lives of Joe Biden’s wife and baby daughter and hospitalized his two toddler sons 35 years ago, just weeks after his precocious election to the U.S. Senate. It was an unbearable turn of events, from one of the most daring political breakthroughs in Delaware political history to unspeakable grief, and there is no reason to make the accident appear worse than it was. While campaigning in Iowa for the Democratic presidential nomination, however, Biden did. “Let me tell...

This is a post that I meant to do several weeks ago, when the Public Editor of the New York Times, Clark Hoyt, wrote a column titled "The Painful Images of War". The column addressed the issue of whether news outlets like the Times should publish pictures of dead or wounded American soldiers, even over the objections of the military and the soldiers' families. Hoyt quoted a Times photographer whose graphic images of a dead U.S. serviceman were controversial: "Looking at photographs of the gravely wounded or dead is a profoundly affecting and emotional experience,” she said. “However, I do...

The NYT's have finally admitted what pretty much everyone has already figured out for themselves. The surge has worked. But all that we have gained, all we have achieved could be undone by a precipitous withdrawal: Yet for all the signs of fatigue, General Petraeus is preparing to leave Iraq a remarkably safer place than it was when he arrived. Violence has plummeted from its apocalyptic peaks, Iraqi leaders are asserting themselves, and streets that once seemed dead are flourishing with life. The worst, for now, has been averted. And so in the general’s exhaustion comes the glimmer of hope,...

In her weekly Q&A session for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, reporter Deborah Solomon conducted a strongly hostile interview with Brigitte Gabriel, Lebanese-American journalist and opponent of radical Islam, while the headline blurb referred to Gabriel as a "radical Islamophobe." Here are some of the questions Solomon poses to Gabriel: Are you an agent of the U.S. government? Are you underwritten by the C.I.A.?

Oh dear! Jerome Corsi, author of the bestselling "Unfit for Command" in 2004, a book that turned the phrase "swift boat" into a verb which helped defeat John "Reporting for Duty" Kerry, has written a new book about Barack Hussein Obama. It's officially published only today but it's already # 1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The Times, naturally, is in a swivet lest Corsi's book undermine The Messiah's planned advent in November and they have wheeled into print with a longish dismissal masquerading as a review. "Significant parts of the book," the authors write, "have already been...

Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dear. Jerome Corsi, author of the bestselling Unfit for Command in 2004, a book that turned the phrase “swift boat” into a verb and helped defeat John “Reporting for Duty” Kerry, has written a new book about Barack Hussein Obama (yes, I know I am not supposed to mention his middle name, but I am going to anyway) called The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality. It’s officially published only today (you can order it from Amazon here), but already it is # 1 on The New York Times bestseller list with...

Gawker.com notices that the New York times never balked at calling McCain a "fighter pilot" until this year. Their full commentary is at this URL: http://gawker.com/5035890/times-retracts-12-years-of-calling-mccain-fighter-pilot An excerpt: "The Times published two amazing corrections this morning, starting with one stating that the newspaper had erroneously called Republican presidential candidate John McCain a "fighter pilot" on Sunday and in "numerous other Times articles the past dozen years." Wow, a correction that spans more than a decade! When McCain was famously shot down over Vietnam, he was flying his usual plane, a small jet aircraft known as the A-4 Skyhawk, which the...

THE John Edwards “love child” story finally hit the national news media and made the front page of yesterday’s Times. For weeks, Jay Leno joked about it, the Internet was abuzz, and readers wondered why The Times and most of the mainstream media seemed to be studiously ignoring a story of sex and betrayal involving a former Democratic presidential candidate who remains prominent on the political stage.

Pity the poor New York Times Company! In addition to all its other woes, one of the company's newspaper distributors has been accused of defrauding the company with thousands of phantom subscriptions, recycling the papers supposed to have been delivered to the nonexistent subscribers, and collecting about $227k in fraudulent delivery fees. Dan Slater of the Wall Street Journal Law Blog brought this case to our attention. The alleged fraud took place in La Crosse, WI, a pleasant small city on the Mississippi River  that is home to a campus of the University of Wisconsin. Whereas the Times formerly averaged...

NEW YORK The question of how strongly race will play out in the November election -- that is, how many whites will prove to be colorblind -- has dominated the discussion of racial politics in the Obama-McCain race so far. But coming this Sunday, The New York Times Magazine looks at what the Obama candidacy ultimately means for blacks. The cover story, by frequent contributor Matt Bai, is titled "Post-Race" and the Times, in its preview, asks, "Is Obama the end of black politics?" More from the teaser: "For older black leaders whose road to Washington began with civil rights...

In perhaps the most biased, incorrect, misleading and blatantly disgusting piece of journalism this campaign season, the Global Edition of the New York Times - The International Herald Tribune has published an article entitled...

...In recent weeks, Mr. McCain has been waving the flag of fear (Senator Barack Obama wants to “lose” in Iraq), and issuing attacks that are sophomoric (suggesting that Mr. Obama is a socialist) and false (the presumptive Democratic nominee turned his back on wounded soldiers). Mr. McCain used to pride himself on being above this ugly brand of politics, which killed his own 2000 presidential bid. But he clearly tossed his inhibitions aside earlier this month when he put day-to-day management of his campaign in the hands of one acolyte of Mr. Rove and gave top positions to two others....

Wiping the nervous sweat off his brow, Adam Nagourney at the New York Times tries to figure out who misplaced the emperor’s clothes.