Free Republic

A story in The Washington Post’s Metro section last week was actually very positive. Those who read the profile on Bishop Harry Jackson got a full picture of the devoted marriage champion who has fought long and hard to save the institution in the District of Columbia. But the Post’s headline writers gave away their extreme bias in the way they introduced the story: “Seeking to put asunder.” And there’s the rub. To the editors of the Post, it is Harry Jackson who is trying to separate—put asunder—those who have been joined together. In framing the issue thus, of course,...

WASHINGTON -- Bob McDonnell's decisive victory is even more impressive if one stops to acknowledge that it came in the face of incredibly daunting opposition, misleading and low-brow campaign commercials, and a "news" organization which often advocates for left-of-center candidates and causes. To win the election, McDonnell had to defeat not only the Deeds campaign, but the DNC, the White House, and The Washington Post. Lest we forget, this is not the first time this "take no prisoners" strategy was employed by the Democrats and The Washington Post against a Virginia Republican. In fact, three years ago, not only was...

Bob McDonnell won big tonight in the Virginia gubernatorial race, as did the entire Virginia Republican party. The implications of the race will be sorted out soon enough. But one big loser is the Washington Post which may unwittingly have helped the Republican, despite their best efforts to put his opponent over the top. On the last weekend in August the Post ran the first of dozens of stories about McDonnell's 1989 masters' thesis, in which he wrote, among other things, that working women were detrimental to families and that government should favor traditional marriage over gay unions. While they...

  The Washington Post’s endorsement of Creigh Deeds is one of the least-surprising newspaper endorsements of all time, and yet, it demonstrates a certain audaciousness on the part of that paper’s editors.The Post endorses Democrats in almost every statewide and national race; the rare exceptions tend to come in races where it will make no significant difference. (The editors endorsed Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich’s reelection bid in 2006, a year in which he looked pretty doomed from the start.) They repeatedly endorsed Rep. Jim Moran despite his embarrassing behavior.If the paper’s endorsement editorials began, “we are, by and large, liberals,...

Today’s Washington Post endorsement of Democrat R. Creigh Deeds in the Virginia gubernatorial race is no surprise, given the Post’s determined and months-long effort to “macaca” Deeds’ opponent, Republican Bob McDonnell. But the editorial endorsement is a self-parody of liberal hyperbole and inconsistency. The Post again raises the strawman of McDonnell’s 1989 graduate dissertation, apparently cribbing from Ted Kennedy’s infamous denunciation of Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court. On July 1, 1987, within an hour of Bork’s nomination, Kennedy delivered a fiery speech saying, “Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back alley...

A LEGACY of sound policies, coupled with the proximity of the federal government, has partially protected Virginia from the harsh retrenchments that the recession has forced on many states. Yet the commonwealth faces a daunting crisis in the form of a drastic shortfall in transportation funding, measured in the tens of billions of dollars, that threatens future prosperity. If the current campaign for governor has clarified anything, it is that state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, the Democratic nominee, has the good sense and political courage to maintain the forward-looking policies of the past while addressing the looming challenge of fixing...

I was struck by the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson’s opinion piece today entitled The Biggest Disappointment of the Obama Presidency. In it he berates Obama for giving short shrift to New Orleans when he visited Thursday. Of all the Post’s writers, Robinson has been the most supportive of Obama, seldom finding fault, but this time he skewers him. "President Obama's brief display of drive-by compassion Thursday in New Orleans was, for me, by far the worst outing of his presidency thus far -- and the biggest disappointment..." "So it was strange and disheartening that Obama would wait nine months to...

“Mom!” my 12-year-old yelled from the kitchen. “President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize!” I told her she had to be mistaken.

Here’s your chance to put your opinions to the test -- and win the opportunity to write a weekly column and a launching pad for your opinionating career! Start making your case. Use the entry form to send us a short opinion essay (400 words or less) pegged to a topic in the news and an additional paragraph (100 words or less) on yourself and why you should win. Entries will be judged on the basis of style, intelligence and freshness of argument, but not on whether Post editors agree or disagree with your point of view. Entry deadline: Oct....

Veteran Washington Post reporter Daryl Fears, part of a two-person writer team, unmistakably wrote that filmmaker John O'Keefe had “said” he “targeted” ACORN, the advocacy group, for his candid-camera expose, because it registered voters to defeat Republicans. O'Keefe said no such thing. It was a non-quote made out of whole cloth by reporter Fears, and published as fact on Sept. 17. Making the falsehood exponentially worse, the Post story then was retailed worldwide by the Associated Press.

A few weeks ago Washington Post Managing Editor Raju Narisetti rued in this tweet via his Twitter account: “We can incur all sorts of federal deficits for wars and what not. But we have to promise not to increase it by $1 for healthcare reform? Sad.” Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander cited the tweet in a Friday night blog post about how the newspaper has issued new guidelines, on the use of social network sites, which state “nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment.” That forced Narisetti to close his Twitter account. Alexander recounted:...

Darryl Fears & Carol Leonnig being the Washington reporters who did their level best to make their story about James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles racial: Though O’Keefe described himself as a progressive radical, not a conservative, he said he targeted ACORN for the same reasons that the political right does: its massive voter registration drives that turn out poor African Americans and Latinos against Republicans. “Politicians are getting elected single-handedly due to this organization,” he said. “No one was holding this organization accountable. No one in the media is putting pressure on them. We wanted to do a stunt and...

On Sunday, the home page of the Washington Post website buried the 9-12 rally in tiny type, while the rotating photos at the top of the page were all local stories. On Monday, one of those rotating photos highlighted a Post story on the front of the Metro section on how people attending the Black Family Reunion think that tens of thousands of Americans came to Washington not because they love freedom, but because they hate black people. Metro reporter Yamiche Alcindor began: On Saturday, tens of thousands of protesters thronged to the U.S. Capitol to angrily accuse President Obama...

Welcome to the party fellas. When the president says his plan won't add one dime to the deficit, will cover everyone, will allow you to keep your plan, and will improve the quaIity of care, I usually start thinking that the unicorns will be here any minute. After the president's Hail Mary speech on Wednesday, the AP did a fact check and found many of his claims to be a stretch, at best. For example, on the assurance that "it won't add one dime to the deficit," AP notes that the Barry and the Dems are full of it.

The Washington Post on Wednesday expanded its attack on Virginia gubernatorial candidate Bob McDonnell, branching out beyond the Republican’s 1989 master’s thesis to a hit piece on the removal of a 2003 judge and whether or not it was because of homophobia on the part of the then-state delegate. The story centered around Verbena M. Askew, a Virginia judge who had been accused of sexually harassing a female colleague. Post reporter Amy Gardner, who has written or co-written four of the Post’s 12 anti-McDonnell articles that have run over the last 11 days, stated that the 2003 removal of Askew...

“”Flashback 1991: Gephardt Called Bush’s Speech to Students ‘Paid Political Advertising’ Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.), said “The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students.” Such was reported by the Washington Post on October 3, 1991 “

Has the Washington Post found its new “macaca,” the journalistic storyline to steer Virginia voters away from a GOP candidate? In 2006, the District’s major paper printed a rash of stories recounting something then-Sen. George Allen said during a public event about an opponent‘s staffer. The paper used Allen’s use of the word “macaca” as a cudgel to bludgeon his re-election chances. And it worked. The stories blanketed the paper, from the historical derivations of the word “macaca” to Allen’s attempts to explain precisely what he meant. Here’s the Aug. 15, 2006 Washington Post article’s initial attempt to whip up...

If a dead tree edition of the Washington Post falls on the front porch, and the rest of the media ignores its top investigative story, has it really made a sound? After former Vice President Dick Cheney appeared on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, the MSNBC bloviators were all atwitter and aghast. Among the canards they shouted back at Cheney’s calmly delivered stiletto jabs of facts was “Torture doesn’t work! It doesn’t, it just doesn’t because we say it doesn’t!” As we will see, Matthews, Olbermann, Maddow and Co., will drag any ambiguous quote by a Republican—or someone who...

Back in 2006, during the height of that year’s election campaign, a Virginia Republican observed that he found the Washington Post’s coverage of local politics much more infuriating than its coverage of national politics. He suspected that the average reporter or editor on the Post’s political beat — either living in the northern Virginia suburbs, or having many friends who did — could live with the idea of the country being represented by George W. Bush, but seethed with disbelief at the thought of being represented by a Republican Sen. George Allen. Republicans could grouse about the frequency with which...

In the 2006 campaign season the Washington Post ran more than a dozen front-page stories on Senator George Allen’s reference, at an August 11 campaign stop almost 400 miles from Washington, to an opposition campaign staffer as “Macaca.” One of these stories, perhaps, had enough news value to be worthy of the front page; the others were placed there with the obvious intent of defeating Allen and electing his Democratic opponent Jim Webb, who did indeed win by a 50%-49% margin. Now there’s a campaign on for governor of Virginia, and the news editors of the Post seem to be...

For more than two years, House Judiciary Committee Democrats and the New York Times editorial board have argued that I personally arranged for Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman to be prosecuted in 2004 for corruption and ordered the removal of eight U.S. attorneys in 2006 for failing to investigate Democrats. The Washington Post editorial board also echoed this last charge. The Times and the Post have published a combined 18 editorials on these issues, which were also catnip to House Judiciary Committee Democrats. Politico's Ryan Grimm reported last year overhearing the Committee's chairman, John Conyers of Michigan, tell two others, "We're...

This fiction peddled by the president that you can keep your current insurance under ObamaCare bothers me every single time I hear it. A fourth grader can see that if your employer is the one deciding what your plan is, then your employer will decide whether you keep it or whether they dump you into the government plan. The employee has nothing to do with it. And when ObamaCare makes it cheaper for the employer to dump you, you will be dumped. End of story. Finally, somebody in the MSM nails Obama on this point.

You know what the real problem is with the town hall protesters according to writer Robin Givhan of the Washington Post? It's not so much their ideas, about which she writes almost nothing. What really irks Givhan is what she considers their lousy sense of fashion which she criticizes harshly in her "On Culture" article. Givhan starts out dripping with disdain on the subject of town hall protester attire: It seems safe to say that of the hundreds of thousands of style guides currently for sale on Amazon, not one of the didactic, shop-your-closet authors was prescient enough to outline...

Here is video of Washington Post Editorialist Jonathan Capehart today on MSNBC's Morning Joe where he slipped up and identified what everyone already knows - he personally idetifies himself as pro-Obama Agenda and as a Democrat. Capehart first said "We've got two problems here," then caught himself and said, "We: I should say the administration or Democrats have two problems." Jonathan - Trying to be someone you are not - a fair and objective journalist - is such a hard thing to do! You know, there are legitimate concerns out there about health insurance reform or health care reform or...

Democratic politicians and the MSM consider it a given that concerns about the "end-of-life counseling" provision in Section 1233 of a House-drafted version of health care legislation are but the unfounded product of right-wing fear mongering. But Charles Lane of the Washington Post, certainly no right-winger, has taken a careful look at Section 1233 and finds that he too is concerned. Lane argues that the "consultations" provided for in Section 1233, while not mandatory, are not "purely voluntary" either as the Democrats have claimed. Thus, he writes "Section 1233 lets doctors initiate the chat and gives them an incentive --...

WASHINGTON -- Two Washington Post journalists are apologizing and their satirical online video series has been canceled following criticism of a joke they told about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli killed the "Mouthpiece Theater" series Wednesday after pulling the latest episode from the paper's Web site Friday. In the video, columnist Dana Milbank and White House correspondent and blogger Chris Cillizza appeared in smoking jackets to discuss the kinds of beer politicians might drink. Milbank said he couldn't reveal to whom President Barack Obama would serve a drink called "Mad B---- Beer." That line...

An article in...Thursday’s Washington Post lashed out at the viral Obama-as-the-Joker posters, attacking them as promoting "coded," "racially charged" images. Staff writer Philip Kennicott smeared the images, which have been showing up in Los Angeles as flat-out bigoted... In the August 6 piece, Kennicott provided this incendiary take on the poster campaign: "Obama, like the Joker and like the racial stereotype of the black man, carries within him an unknowable, volatile and dangerous marker of urban violence, which could erupt at any time." The Post writer did acknowledge that a similar image deriding Bush as the villainous character...But he goes...

Things are looking up for the Republicans, relatively speaking. President Obama's poll numbers have dipped, GOP recruitment for the 2010 elections is going better than expected, and the health-care battle has been rough on the Democrats. On top of that, the surveys show Republicans now leading in this year's two major governor's races, in Virginia and New Jersey. There's just one problem: The country still doesn't like Republicans. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll last week captured the public's mixed verdict. The headlines focused on growing doubts about Obama's health-care plan and the drop in his approval rating, from 60...

The Washington Post's ill-fated plan to sell sponsorships of off-the-record "salons" was an ethical lapse of monumental proportions. Publisher Katharine Weymouth and Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli have now taken full responsibility for what was envisioned as a series of 11 intimate dinners to discuss public policy issues. For a fee of up to $25,000, underwriters were guaranteed a seat at the table with lawmakers, administration officials, think tank experts, business leaders and the heads of associations. Promotional materials said Weymouth, Brauchli and at least one Post reporter would serve as "Hosts and Discussion Leaders" for an evening of spirited but...

Recently in the Washington Post Ceci Connolly did a wonderful job proving that she is a member of the vast left wing conspiracy trying to protect Obamacare but didn't do such a good job proving her legitimacy as a journalist. At issue is her story about the meanies in talk radio that she is claiming is trying to "frighten seniors" about Obama's healthcare policies. The main problem with Connolly's story is that she offers little proof that talk radio is trying to "scare seniors." But she did spend an inordinate amount of space explaining away the very Obama policies that...

Regarding the July 24 editorial "Focus on the Fed": What a sad day for a newspaper with a storied reputation for exposing waste, fraud and abuse in government, to oppose the Federal Reserve Sunshine Act, legislation that would simply increase transparency at the Federal Reserve. The Fed has expanded its balance sheet by more than $1 trillion in taxpayer dollars in response to the financial crisis. Who received this money? Is it being used primarily to help ordinary Americans or just the wealthy and well-connected? What conflicts of interest exist between members of the Fed and Wall Street bankers? This...

The first part of this video shows Sean Hannity last night reporting on a Washington Post editorial this past weekend which blasted President Obama for not being open and honest with the American people about the real cost of his Health Care Plan, that he "sometimes presents health-care reform as a pain-free proposition." . . . . (Watch Video)

I’ll give you the sample up front to save you time. Dems 33, Reps 22, Inds 41; Libs 20, Mods 39, Cons 38. That’s actually the smallest percentage of Democrats sampled in a WaPo poll in 18 months. The good news? She’ll have plenty of time and money now, thanks to SarahPAC, to turn the numbers around. The bad news: The last line, obviously, is the killer. This same poll finds the current GOP field shaking out this way: Huckabee 26, Romney 21, Palin 19, which may sound like a fluke but isn’t really. As noted the last time I...

Here's something fishy. I had a WaPo story dated October 28, 2001 detailing the program as proof the Dems were well aware of it, I even looked at it this morning and it was still there. Now that I came across the below story I was going to link it, funny thing is now its been scrubbed entirely from the WaPo website, not even a cached version is available. One hell of a coincidence especially considering the significance of the story.....

The Washington Post has published a glowing article about likely incoming AFL-CIO president, Richard Trumka (photo), titled "Trumka Hopes to Mend the AFL-CIO." Writer Chris Cillizza asks in the very first sentence of his story, "Can Richard Trumka reunite the labor movement?" Cillizza portrays Trumka as genuinely puzzled over the reason for the big split in the labor movement: With Trumka's election virtually ensured, the central question is whether he can heal the rift that occurred four years ago when the Service Employees International Union and the Teamsters (among others) left the AFL-CIO to form a new labor coalition known...

Reporters from roughly 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend. Why didn't you know that? Because they were sworn to secrecy. We reported yesterday that Politico's Mike Allen was spotted milling about as a guest at the White House's "backyard bash" by the pool reporter, who was allowed into the event for 40 minutes and kept in a pen before being ushered out. When Allen quoted from the pool report in his Playbook column the next day, he deleted a reference to his own name...

Post publisher apologizes for paid dinner plan Washington Post publisher apologizes for plan to hold paid dinners with officials, journalists On Sunday July 5, 2009, 6:59 am EDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Washington Post's publisher apologized to readers Sunday for a plan to charge business leaders and lobbyists for intimate dinner discussions with government officials and the newspaper's journalists. A flier surfaced last week promoting a plan to charge $25,000 to sponsor one of a series of dinner parties that would include off-the-record conversations with Post journalists and access to Washington insiders. The series was canceled Thursday.

The Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (LDA) regulates federal lobbyists and organizations that lobby. The law defines and specifies the following: Who is a Lobbyist? Any person who: Receives compensation of $5,000 or more per six-month period, or makes expenditures of $20,000 or more per six-month period, for lobbying; Makes more than one lobbying contact; and Spends 20 percent or more of his or her time over a six-month period on lobbying activities for an organization or a particular client. Unless each of these criteria is met, there is no registration requirement for that individual. An organization is required to...

WaPo cancels lobbyist eventBy: Mike Allen and Michael Calderone July 2, 2009 08:04 AM EST Washington Post publisher Katharine Weymouth said today she was canceling plans for an exclusive "salon" at her home where for as much as $250,000, the Post offered lobbyists and association executives off-the-record access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors. The astonishing offer was detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he felt it was a conflict for...

The blogosphere is in an uproar today over the latest kerfuffle regarding the sometimes-sickeningly sweet relationship between U.S. president Barack Obama and the media, and most especially the Washington, D.C. media coterie that seems to surround and protect Mr. Obama in a blanket of exceedingly favorable new reportage. News reports breaking today, by Politico.com and others, are again highlighting this questionable relationship — which in this case seems to be that the Washington Post has been attempting to create “salons” in the home of Post publisher Katharine Weymouth in which lobbyists could pay from 25,000 to 250,000 dollars for what...

The Washington Post has long prided itself on its access to the capital's elite. Now, it appears, the paper is willing to sell that access. In a flier circulated to Beltway lobbyists, the Post touted a "salon" program which gives "exclusive access" to "Obama administration officials, Congress members, business leaders, advocacy leaders and other select minds" for between $25,000 and $250,000. (View an image of the flier.) White House officials said privately Thursday that the administration had no idea that the Post was peddling access to its officials. The first event, entitled "Health-Care Reform: Better or Worse for Americans" is...

The Washington Post has taken a page from politicians by offering access to Obama officials and its own reporters for a fee. From the Politico For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors. The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier...

Are Christian missionaries “pernicious”? The Washington Post seems to think so. You know the word “pernicious,” which Webster’s defines as “highly injurious or destructive.” Webster’s then offers these synonyms for “pernicious,” including, “noxious,” “deleterious,” and “detrimental.” As is so typical of the Post, and of the MSM in general, this little bit of bigotry was a throwaway, a gratuitous dig–-a dig, of course, that reveals much about The Post’s underlying mentality. In a review of a book about a botanical garden in Hawaii, Carolyn See, a longtime contributor to the Post’s “Style” section, includes this nasty little aside about newcomers...

Time Magazine's Joe Klein has a piece on Time's Swampland blog decrying the editorial page of the Washington Post:The Washington Post's increasingly strident op-ed page offers a double-barreled neocon assault on President Obama's Iran position today by Charles Krauthammer and Paul Wolfowitz.The fascist left brooks no deviation from the party line. The Post is still a liberal paper, but because it is not a mirror image of the New York Times in that paper's undying love of all things Obama, the moonbats are turning their sights on The Post with probably the cruelest insult to a liberal newspaper:hellslittlestangel Says:Friday, June...

These signs have been popping up all over northern Virginia. I thought the press was not supposed to be biased nor actively campaigning for a particular candidate?

Standard & Poor's on Friday said it may cut its ratings on the Washington Post Co, citing increasingly negative trends in the company's newspaper and magazine businesses. The rating warning came after the Washington Post swung to a quarterly loss because of restructuring and buyout charges and reported a 33 percent drop in advertising revenue at its namesake newspaper. [Snip] S&P said it is concerned that worsening revenue trends will continue over the intermediate term in the company's newspapers and magazines. [Snip] S&P said it will also review pressures in the broadcasting business and growth prospects in the company's education...

The Washington Post Co. swung to a loss for the second time in less than a year, as the company's first-quarter earnings were dragged down by losses in its newspaper and magazine divisions and expenses in its education division.... The newspaper division reported an operating loss of $53.8 million caused by steep fall-offs in advertising, which are being felt across the industry. Print advertising revenue at The Post plummeted 33 percent in the first three months of this year, compared to the same period last year, and revenue at The Post's online properties -- chiefly, Washingtonpost.com -- dropped 8 percent...

How the CNN & WP Legitimize murdering little chidren (by racist Arabs / Islamic bigots) on the basis of their origin - "occupation" crap   April, 2009   Regardless of the facts that most Palestinian Arabs are children or grandchildren of immigrants from surrounding middle eastern countries, the term "occupation" has been used by Arab leaders to wage genocidal wars since the 1960's, never mind that the racist attacks on Jews started long before that 1960's occupation excuse, in the 1920's in particular (with clear declarations of "driving all Jews into the sea, "Itbach al Yahud" - AKA Kill Jews, wiping...

Dear Reader: I wish to apologize to you for my behavior last week. On Tuesday, I learned that I am a right-wing hack. I am not a journalist. I am typical of the right wing. I am why newspapers are going broke. I write garbage. I am angry with Barack Obama. I misquote Obama. I am bitter. I am a certified idiot. I am lame. I am a Republican flack. On Thursday, I realized that I am a media pimp with my lips on Obama's butt. I am a bleeding-heart liberal who wants nothing more than for the right to...

Think Obamamania is limited to only His Messiahship and Michelle Obama's well toned arms and J. Crew wardrobe? Think again. Today's front page of the Washington Post features "Move Over, Miley. In Washington, The Obama Girls Are the Latest Craze" by staff writer Ellen McCarthy. The tone of this thoughtful analysis is set early in the article: The tween girls of the Washington area have transcended differences of race, class and wealth to reach a single, resounding conclusion: They really, really, really, really want to be friends with Malia and Sasha Obama. They lap up every shred of information about...