Free Republic

All three broadcast network evening newscasts led Thursday night with the New York Times story alleging an improper relationship by John McCain with a female lobbyist, but questions about the journalistic standards of the newspaper were given as much consideration as the allegations against McCain. All three ran a soundbite from Rush Limbaugh denouncing the paper while ABC and CBS featured establishment media observers who castigated the Times for basing a story on the feelings of unnamed sources: Ken Auletta on ABC and Tom Rosenstiel on CBS. “John McCain began his day answering questions about a story in the New...

Even now, at 81 and with her memory beginning to fade, Gloria Donadello recalls her painful brush with bigotry at an assisted-living center in Santa Fe, N.M. Sitting with those she considered friends, “people were laughing and making certain kinds of comments, and I told them, ‘Please don’t do that, because I’m gay.’” The result of her outspokenness, Ms. Donadello said, was swift and merciless. “Everyone looked horrified,” she said. No longer included in conversation or welcome at meals, she plunged into depression. Medication did not help. With her emotional health deteriorating, Ms. Donadello moved into an adult community nearby...

We're not "not winning." We've lost. So declares Bush critic Frank Rich in Sunday runs of the NEW YORK TIMES. MORE Taking it all the way, this time, Rich writes: "The actual reality is that we have lost in Iraq." "The Iraq-Vietnam parallels at this juncture are striking," Rich explains, in an op-ed he has titled: "THE SUNSHINE BOYS CAN'T SAVE IRAQ." Rich declares: "As bad as things may seem now, they can yet become worse, and not just in Iraq. "The longer we pretend that we have not lost there, the more we risk losing other wars we still...

Times are so tough at the New York Times that the publishing giant can't afford to move many of its staffers into its glitzy new Eighth Avenue headquarters. With office rental rates soaring in Midtown, Times chief Janet Robinson and head bean-counter Len Forman said this week that the company is actively looking to rent out even more than the five floors it had marked for other tenants earlier this year. The Times had originally planned to put its employees in all 28 of its floors in the 52-storey skyscraper, set to open this spring. Some of that space was...

Former Gov. James McGreevey, who resigned after acknowledging a gay affair, said he would tie the knot with his partner if state lawmakers decide to allow gay marriage. "Marriage would offer the ability to bless our relationship in a committed way," McGreevey, 49, told The New York Times. McGreevey's comments followed a state Supreme Court ruling Wednesday that same-sex couples must be given the same rights as married people. The court left it up to the Legislature to decide whether to extend those rights under the structure of marriage or something else. Some gay-rights advocates said the decision didn't go...

by Mark Finkelstein September 11, 2006 - 07:24 Did the editorialists of the New York Times and its Beantown subsidiary the Boston Globe have a little side bet as to who could fashion the viler 9/11 editorial? If so, for all the Times's earnest editorial effort to heap bile on Pres. Bush, I'm going to give the nod to the Globe. For in its editorial of this morning, the Globe made explicit what the Times only suggested: George Bush is a bigger threat to America than radical Islamic murderers. Said the Globe of 9/11: "In the long run, the reaction...

Defense lawyers for Saddam Hussein released a letter on Thursday that he recently wrote in prison that attempts to persuade the American people to demand a troop pullout because President Bush misled them into the Iraq war. The 5,000-word letter is a rambling treatise outlining what Mr. Hussein asserts are the false reasons that the Bush administration used to justify the war in Iraq, from weapons of mass destruction to Iraqi links with Al Qaeda. Mr. Hussein blames Iran and pro-Israel interests for helping lead the Americans into war. He invokes the specter of Vietnam and the spirit of Mao...

Share secrets with the enemy and their lawyers, the NY Times says -- Yesterday's New York Times editorial said Congress should make sharing secrets with the enemy the law of the land: “...Congress could create a new kind of military commission, operating as closely as possible to United States military law. That is the proposal of Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, one of the Senate’s experts on military law, and Arlen Specter, the Judiciary Committee chairman. It sounds reasonable, as long as lawmakers resist pressure from the administration to deny the prisoners any real rights, barring them from...

The duo of Eric Lichtblau and James Risen have published the details of yet another classified national-security program. This time, they exposed the workings of a database of financial records that the administration has used to track al Qaeda's banking transactions: The Bush administration has made no secret of its campaign to disrupt terrorist financing, and President Bush, Treasury officials and others have spoken publicly about those efforts. Administration officials, however, asked The New York Times not to publish this article, saying that disclosure of the Swift program could jeopardize its effectiveness. They also enlisted several current and former officials,...

Opinion: The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week 4. Penny Ante The New York Times Co. (NYT:NYSE - commentary - research - Cramer's Take) is feeling the pinch of aggrieved shareholders. Big investors took a shot across management's bow this week by withholding 28% of votes from the company's board slate. A 5.6% holder, Morgan Stanley Investment Management, wants to eliminate the Class B stock that gives the Sulzberger family control of the board despite its tiny financial stake. "MSIM believes that the dual-class voting at The New York Times Company, which is an exception to the general...