Ford fiddles as New York burns

by: Bouldin

Fri Feb 26, 2010 at 23:19:47 PM EST

Playing hard to get, are we, Harold?

If we look back, that run began with the startling Times piece that first alerted a stunned world to this possibility on January 6th.

Then, The New York Times gave him a blow job on January  13th.

That prompted Gawker to create - curate? - the season's best headline: New York Times Allows Harold Ford to Destroy Himself.

Then, on February 6th, we learned that

I'm not comparing myself to Bobby Kennedy by any stretch, but he was opposed by the liberal establishment too," ... "Eleanor Roosevelt was the biggest opponent to him running"

Gack. Bad Eleanor. Oh wait, she was actually dead at the time. Still is, in fact.

And as of today, the newest word from Mr. Ford schedules the climactic moment, will he or won't he, for next week.

That's elastic enough to stretch into July at least, if he keeps this up.  

NY Times: Throw the Bums Out

by: Roatti

Tue Oct 20, 2009 at 00:34:47 AM EDT

New Yorkers have been complaining for many years about their abysmal state government, but it has simply grown worse. The state has become a national embarrassment, a swamp of intrigue and corruption, a $131 billion monster controlled by a crowd of smug officials whose main concern is keeping their soft jobs. By now, most New Yorkers have given up hope that these officials are capable of cleaning up their own mess.

The clock is ticking. In one year, unless the Albany crowd pulls off some miracle, which we doubt will happen, it will be up to the voters to get them out, all of them.

Yet another solid pounding of the culture in Albany by the Times, and kudos to them for using their megaphone on the topic.  But they have done so in several past election cycles, each of which seemed to have qualified for being the election following the last straw that would finally turn voter anger into throwing incumbents out of their jobs.  Yet, that has seldom happened.  So I guess my question is, will the voters ever actually revolt?  What do you think?

NY-20: The Times' Bias: More About Tedisco, Go Negative On Murphy

by: robert.harding

Sun Mar 29, 2009 at 07:42:05 AM EDT

If you read the piece, which is a two-page story, you would get the feeling that the Times wasn't so high on Democratic candidate Scott Murphy. Even though the title of the article suggests something more broad (like voters being concerned about the bonuses AIG received) it is actually more specific than that. The target was Murphy and how his support of the stimulus package means that he supported the bonuses being handed out to AIG executives.

Recently, Irene Jay Liu of the Albany Times-Union termed this line of attack a "stretch." That's exactly what it is. The stimulus package covers a lot of ground and at $789 billion, there are a lot of things in there. Murphy might not support all of it, but he supports the goal: In order to stimulate the economy, we need to invest in our country.

However, one of the most prominent newspapers in the country didn't consider this a stretch. In fact, they essentially helped Tedisco further this talking point. There are a couple of things about this story that should bother the average reader and media critic alike:

- There isn't a single direct quote from Scott Murphy or his campaign and there are only a few select quotes from the debate on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Tedisco has at least two long quotes in the piece from the debate on Tuesday.

- The author of the piece, David Halbfinger, wrote the piece asserting that the AIG bonus issue is the major story in the race's final days leading up to Tuesday's special election. While AIG bonuses might be something on everyone's mind (they have certainly upset us all), to try and say that Murphy's support of the stimulus package means he supports the AIG bonuses is absurd. As others have said in recent days, it is a stretch.

- There is only one passing mention (that you could easily miss if you read the article fast enough) to Tedisco's refusal to take a position on the stimulus package. That is not a stretch, yet the article seems to downplay its significance.

- And here's the important one: There is not one mention of Tedisco's financial disclosure, which includes AIG under the "assets and unearned income" section. That asset is worth between $1 and $15,000, but apparently it wasn't worth inserting into a story about, well, AIG and its impact on the 20th district race.

While we are supporting Scott Murphy in this race, we make our bias known. This is a progressive blog that supports Democratic candidates. We aren't a newspaper with "ethics," although we are a blog with ethics.

There are different standards for the New York Times. They aren't supposed to write pro-Murphy pieces and they aren't supposed to write pro-Tedisco pieces. But that's exactly what they did here. They wrote a piece that is very anti-Murphy and puts Tedisco on higher ground, minimizing his lack of fortitude to take a position on the stimulus package and turning a Republican talking point into a news story. Not once do they directly quote anyone. All the quotes are from Tuesday's debate, except for one quote from one Murphy volunteer which the author of the piece tried to use as justification for the article.

Again, it's a stretch. A big stretch.

If you want to learn about Scott Murphy and what he will do for the 20th congressional district, go to his Scott Murphy or read the many posts written here and even read some of the great articles written by the Times-Union, who I think has covered the race fairly and accurately.

We need a fair fight. We don't need the media picking our candidates and picking the winners for us.  

Meet The New Bill Kristol

by: phillip anderson

Wed Mar 11, 2009 at 18:15:33 PM EDT

The New York Times has hired Ross G. Douthat, a 29-year-old conservative writer and editor at The Atlantic, as an Op-Ed columnist, nearly two months after ending the year-long run of another conservative columnist, William Kristol, officials at the paper said Wednesday.

Asked when The Times last had such a young columnist, Andrew Rosenthal, the editorial page editor, said, "I don't think ever."

Mr. Douthat (pronounced DOW-thut) has written a popular blog for The Atlantic and articles in the magazine, as well as being a senior editor there, and he has had articles published in other publications. He is also the author of the books "Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class" (Hyperion, 2005) and, with Reihan Salam, "Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream" (Doubleday, 2008).

His writing steers away from partisanship - he frequently criticizes Republicans - or doctrine, showing a concern for income inequality that is usually the terrain of more liberal writers. On abortion, he said in an interview, "I'm sort of a squishy pro-lifer," interested in finding areas of compromise. He initially favored the war in Iraq, but later opposed it.

Mr. Douthat will begin writing columns online in mid-April, but his job will soon include columns in the paper and a blog, he and Mr. Rosenthal said.

As far as conservatives go, Douthat is far more David Brooks than Glenn Beck. Given how the Times's recent track record with conservative columnists has gone, they could have done much, much worse.  

So Now Murdoch Wants The New York Times?

by: phillip anderson

Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 16:27:56 PM EST

Murdoch Mulls Buying NY Times, LA Times

Rupert Murdoch's counterintuitive quest to invest in print media helped drive away longtime lieutenant Peter Chernin.

And now that Chernin can't intercede, does Murdoch want to follow News Corp.'s $5 billion buyout of Dow Jones by gobbling up the struggling New York Times Co.?

The answer appears to be yes, as impossible as present economic conditions make it for most deals of any kind to get done.

...

With News Corp. shares trading at $6.79 (up 6% Tuesday), the central question of whether Murdoch could actually pull off such a maneuver is thorny. In the case of the New York Times, a combination with News Corp.'s existing properties would send up all kinds of regulatory red flags, especially in a Democratic administration. The acquisition would be Murdoch's second paper in New York after the Post, alongside two TV stations. Murdoch already had to battle for a waiver from the FCC to own the two TV stations.

There's also the fact that the Times and the Wall Street Journal compete nationally, and the prospect of meshing the Times' left-leaning outlook with the conservative approach of the Journal and the Post.

Reports of Murdoch's interest in the Times have circulated for the past year but he has consistently waved them off. In March, he called such buzz "complete nonsense" and said the move would be "illegal."

Apparently, Murdoch does indeed want the Times, but he's got one huge roadblock in his way, one he has never had to deal with as he swallows media entities whole across the globe, the Sulzbergers.

The family is a much tighter-knit group than the sprawling Bancroft clan that owned the Journal. The Sulzbergers have a fierce opposition to Murdoch, and even a theoretical offer well above the Times' current multi-decade-low stock level of less than $4 a share is not likely to make them relent. And with just eight family trustees, including Arthur Sulzberger Jr., there is less chance of fragmenting their vote in Murdoch's favor.

"Make no mistake, they are already at war against Rupert Murdoch," said Michael Wolff, author of the recent Murdoch bio "The Man Who Owns the News." "And he has been very clear in signaling his interest."

...

"It'd be awfully tempting if he puts 60 bucks a share on the table like he did the last time" with Dow Jones, said Edward Atorino, a research analyst who covers the Times Co. for Benchmark Capital, a broker-dealer that owns no shares in the company. "But the Times Co. thinks it can tough it out. They don't have the bank pressure that has hit other media companies. That won't kick in for another year or two and they hope, by then, that the economy will have recovered."

I, for one, welcome our trash peddling Aussie overlords...

Neuroses of the rich and famous

by: Exile on Ericsson St.

Tue Dec 16, 2008 at 22:17:40 PM EST

So what popped up when I last visited the New York Times website?  An article about the difficult psychological problems hedge fund managers are facing:

One patient, a hedge fund analyst, came to me recently in a state of great anxiety. "It's bad, but it might get a lot worse," I recall him saying. The anxiety was expected and appropriate: he had lost a great deal of his (and others') assets, and like the rest of us he had no idea where the bottom was. I would have been worried if he hadn't been anxious.

Over the course of several weeks, with the help of some anti-anxiety medication, his panic subsided as he realized that he would most likely survive economically.

But then something else emerged. He came in one day looking subdued and plopped down in the chair. "I'm over the anxiety, but now I feel like a loser." This from a supremely self-confident guy who was viewed by his colleagues as an unstoppable optimist.

He was not clinically depressed: his sleep, appetite, sex drive and ability to enjoy himself outside of work were unchanged. This was different.

The problem was that his sense of success and accomplishment was intimately tied to his financial status...

Good Lord, cry me a river.  I don't blame this therapist for pocketing $300 an hour listening to some Brioni-clad clown blubber about the tragedy of watching his fortunes drift into the low seven figures, but why on earth would the Times publish this when there are people out there who are losing their jobs, losing their homes, losing their access to health care, all because of the miscalculations of people like his clients?

NY Times Endorses Obama

by: Roatti

Fri Oct 24, 2008 at 00:13:43 AM EDT

Hyperbole is the currency of presidential campaigns, but this year the nation's future truly hangs in the balance.

The United States is battered and drifting after eight years of President Bush's failed leadership. He is saddling his successor with two wars, a scarred global image and a government systematically stripped of its ability to protect and help its citizens - whether they are fleeing a hurricane's floodwaters, searching for affordable health care or struggling to hold on to their homes, jobs, savings and pensions in the midst of a financial crisis that was foretold and preventable.

Good start.

Given the particularly ugly nature of Mr. McCain's campaign, the urge to choose on the basis of raw emotion is strong. But there is a greater value in looking closely at the facts of life in America today and at the prescriptions the candidates offer. The differences are profound.

(snip)

The American financial system is the victim of decades of Republican deregulatory and anti-tax policies. Those ideas have been proved wrong at an unfathomable price, but Mr. McCain - a self-proclaimed "foot soldier in the Reagan revolution" - is still a believer.

Mr. Obama sees that far-reaching reforms will be needed to protect Americans and American business.

(snip)

Mr. Obama was an early and thoughtful opponent of the war in Iraq, and he has presented a military and diplomatic plan for withdrawing American forces. Mr. Obama also has correctly warned that until the Pentagon starts pulling troops out of Iraq, there will not be enough troops to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Mr. McCain, like Mr. Bush, has only belatedly focused on Afghanistan's dangerous unraveling and the threat that neighboring Pakistan may quickly follow.

(snip)

It will be an enormous challenge just to get the nation back to where it was before Mr. Bush, to begin to mend its image in the world and to restore its self-confidence and its self-respect. Doing all of that, and leading America forward, will require strength of will, character and intellect, sober judgment and a cool, steady hand.

Mr. Obama has those qualities in abundance. Watching him being tested in the campaign has long since erased the reservations that led us to endorse Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries. He has drawn in legions of new voters with powerful messages of hope and possibility and calls for shared sacrifice and social responsibility.

(snip)

The nation's problems are simply too grave to be reduced to slashing "robo-calls" and negative ads. This country needs sensible leadership, compassionate leadership, honest leadership and strong leadership. Barack Obama has shown that he has all of those qualities.

As I said, none of this is surprising.  But it still doesn't mean I don't love hearing it from what is perhaps the world's most influential newspaper.  

As they say, go read the whole thing.  

New York Times: Shelly is "Unworthy of his Office"

by: Roatti

Tue Apr 08, 2008 at 16:27:38 PM EDT

Rarely does one man have a chance to do so much harm to so many.

New Yorkers should remember Monday as the day Sheldon Silver, the Assembly speaker, used the power of his office to deprive them of $354 million in federal funds to help mass transporation, ease traffic congestion and improve the air that all New Yorkers breathe.

Backed by his Democratic conference, the speaker killed congestion pricing in the most cowardly way: without even holding a vote. Mr. Silver said so many members of his own conference were against the plan that it would never pass. How many? Who knows? The speaker hid behind closed doors to keep the public from watching his cronies do the deed.

(snip)

We've seen Mr. Silver's style of leadership before. In 1999, he cavalierly killed the commuter tax, costing the city, so far, more than $5.5 billion. It's always difficult to pinpoint the motivations of the opaque and narrowly political Mr. Silver. Certainly, the speaker has made little effort to disguise his personal dislike for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who proposed congestion pricing. But there is no place for personal grudges in leading the state and city of New York.

The congestion-pricing plan was not perfect, but it improved over time. Mr. Silver did not seem to put any effort into addressing the concerns of its opponents or into moving his members to do the right thing.

He failed to put New Yorkers' needs before his personal agenda. That makes him unworthy of his office.

Shelly's idiot cheerleaders will have you believe that none of this matters because the vote in the Assembly Democratic caucus was overwhelmingly opposed to pricing.  However, one item they selectively ignore is that the GOP minority was largely in favor of it, and the only point of debate was if Tedisco could actually deliver the unanimous vote of his conference.  

Of course, we will never know if Tedisco would have been able to deliver his conference unanimously or if it actually would have passed the whole Assembly, but the vote wouldn't have been by as wide a margin as Shelly's brown-nosers would like to portray it.

Additionally, Azi has an explanation why pricing was never brought to a vote:

It should be noted that one practical reason that Silver didn't bring the bill to the floor for of the state Assembly for a vote, where his Democratic conference outnumbers Republicans 107 to 43, is that if he did, and if the Republican minority decided to vote together for the measure, it could have passed with a minority of support from the Assembly Democratic conference. And that would have established a precedent which would destablize the absolute control Silver has in that house.

It's democracy as defined by the members of an unassailable supermajority.

Poll below the fold- I fully expect it to be freep'd, but I don't care.  

UPDATE: The Brennan Center Blog says this:

We would remind everyone that a consensus among the majority of the Assembly majority does not constitute a majority of the Assembly. We would also note that voters have the right to know their representatives' stance on key issues, regardless of whether legislators proactively use their "right and ability" to share their points of view. This is just one highly charged example of Assembly leadership protecting its members from accountability with their constituents.

NYT: Spitzer Behind Brunogate?

by: Soundpolitic

Mon Mar 24, 2008 at 18:39:52 PM EDT

Via the Front Page of the New York Times and into the Metro Section, the former Governor's claims that he had nothing to do with a "conspiracy" to discredit Bruno are bogus:

The governor has previously said he was not personally involved in the effort, suggesting only that he was vaguely aware that his aides had responded to a reporter's inquiry about Mr. Bruno's travels on state aircraft.

But testimony and other information gathered by the Albany County district attorney, P. David Soares, indicate that the governor's participation was extensive and reflected Mr. Spitzer's intense desire to damage Mr. Bruno, the people with knowledge of the case said.

Sadly, there's more below the fold...

Rudy snubbed for Times endorsement

by: robert.harding

Fri Jan 25, 2008 at 11:50:14 AM EST

After the (appropriate) snub, Giuliani had this to say:

"I probably never did anything the New York Times suggested I do in eight years as mayor of New York City, and if I did, I wouldn't be considered a conservative Republican," Giuliani said during a Republican debate Thursday night hosted by MSNBC in Boca Raton, Florida.

"I changed welfare, I changed quality of life, I took on homelessness -- I did all the things that they think makes you mean and I believe show true compassion and true love for people."

First off, conservative Republican Rudy? Really? That's news to a lot of people - including the Republicans. Rudy also played the "New York Times is a liberal rag" card when explaining why he didn't get the endorsement.

No, I think the New York Times did just fine in saying why they didn't give the endorsement to you:

"The Rudolph Giuliani of 2008 first shamelessly turned the horror of 9/11 into a lucrative business, with a secret client list, then exploited his city's and the country's nightmare to promote his presidential campaign," the paper writes, describing Giuliani as "a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man."

That hits the nail on the head. The man who is running on one issue: Sept. 11, 2001.  

Remembering Steve Gilliard

by: phillip anderson

Sat Dec 29, 2007 at 10:51:07 AM EST

Invisible Blogger

Steve Gilliard was born into this Harlem and took it all in, but he wouldn't find his voice on the corners. He was quiet, bookish, overweight. He won entrance to an elite high school, where he passed his time reading obscure military histories, then studied history and journalism at New York University. He found his true calling, though, on the Internet. In 1998, when he was 34, Gilliard joined a new site called NetSlaves.com, whose blogger-reporters chronicled the misadventures of the new high-tech work force, and there he discovered his own kind of incendiary oration. It was by the dim light of a computer screen, rather than on the sunlit corners of Harlem, that Gilliard took to expertly excoriating the moneyed establishment.

By 2003, Gilliard had become one of the first official "guest bloggers" on Daily Kos, then on its way to becoming the most influential of the new liberal political blogs, where he informed his indictments of the Iraq war with detailed references to the British occupation of Mesopotamia. Eventually he created his own site - "Steve was a big personality, and it was clear he needed his own stage," Daily Kos's creator, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, later wrote - and became one of a small group of early political bloggers with his own devoted following (and a self-sustaining, if modest, income from ads). On Gilliard's "News Blog," along with the partisan attacks on Republicans that made him a hated figure on the conservative blogs, he specialized in applying history to the present day, which made him an unusual and distinctive voice. In 2004, he banged out a remarkable 37-part series, the equivalent of about 200 typed pages, chronicling the foibles of European colonialism.

Though Gilliard, unlike many bloggers, always used his real name, few readers knew much about him. They didn't know, for instance, that at age 39 he had open-heart surgery to repair an infected valve. They didn't know he lived alone in a small apartment in East Harlem. And, although Gilliard often wrote about race and alluded to his own perspective, a lot of readers never realized he was black. In the incident that brought him the most infamy, Gilliard acidly attacked Michael Steele, the black Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland in 2006, as a traitor to his race. Black conservatives like Steele infuriated Gilliard, who couldn't understand how any African-American could support a party that exploited racial prejudice. "I's Simple Sambo and I's Running for the Big House," read Gilliard's caption, below a doctored photo of Steele as a minstrel. Only after the post earned him headlines in major newspapers and recriminations from politicians of both parties did a lot of readers come to understand that a white man hadn't written it - although, for Gilliard's critics, that hardly made it less offensive.

The paradox of Gilliard's existence is a familiar story on the blogs, where people often adapt avatars that are more like the selves they imagine being. Online, he was vicious and uncompromising. In person, Gilly, as his close friends called him, was reserved and enigmatic. His writing at times betrayed a sense of loneliness and dislocation. In 2000, after seeing the movie "High Fidelity," he posted on NetSlaves.com a melancholy reflection on life as a geek. "Geeks live in an eternal conflict between their love of topic and love of people," he wrote. "I wonder if people substitute fascination with things they can control over things they can't - other people. You start to wonder if you've created a world so limited that you can't really reach beyond it." He lamented that he didn't know what it was to "wake up naked in a strange bed," but, he wrote, "at 35, I've figured out that this is it, at least for now. Anything I do, any life I make, is going to revolve around words and computers and strange, bright people."

It was a life both short and loud. What began with a bad cough just after Valentine's Day became a spiraling infection that ravaged Gilliard's vulnerable heart and kidneys, and he spent most of his last four months hospitalized. The identities he kept separate for most of his 42 years collided in the days after he died; the few dozen mostly white bloggers who came to Harlem for the funeral saw for the first time the stark urban setting of Gilliard's childhood, while his parents and relatives groped to understand what kind of work he had been doing at that computer and why scores of people had come so far to see him off. They must have been confused when Gilly's online pals, sickened by the way some right-wing bloggers were gloating over his death, advised them not to disclose where he was buried, out of fear that someone might deface the site. The grave, like Gilliard himself, is known only to a few.

I miss him more everyday.

Purgatory For Alan Greenspan

by: Intrepid Liberal Journal

Sun Sep 16, 2007 at 12:21:39 PM EDT

The topic below was originally posted on my blog, the Intrepid Liberal Journal as well as the Independent Bloggers Alliance, The Peace Tree and Worldwide Sawdust.

Alan Greenspan belongs to the Club of Emasculated Moderate Elites who enabled corporate theocrats to destroy the American Dream at home and annihilate our moral authority abroad. A prerequisite for membership is to first allow crazy ideologues to exploit their prestige and later disown the disastrous policies their reputations facilitated. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell is a charter member of this club and a pathetic figure who criticizes the Bush Administration about Iraq when it no longer matters. Powell's domestic policy soul mate, Alan Greenspan, joined him with his new memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures In a New World.

Damn That Liberal Media Bias...

by: phillip anderson

Wed Mar 21, 2007 at 04:32:09 AM EDT

Classy.

More Brodsky Follies

by: Bouldin

Thu Mar 08, 2007 at 14:10:24 PM EST

Take, for example, this short paragraph:

This country is a beacon of liberty not because of steamrolling chief executives, but because of legislatures that limit their power. Reform in Albany requires a credible, independent and active Legislature that can challenge the governor, improve or stop his proposals and protect the system of checks and balances that define a democracy.

...and contrast it with this from the Brennan Center blog (the folks at the Brennan Center are the ones who describe Mr. Brodsky's beacon of liberty as the most dysfunctional legislature in America):

Unfortunately, it seems that the Assembly Majority is not committed to creating a more responsive, deliberative, accessible, accountable, and efficient legislative process. Members may boo when the Assembly is called dysfunctional, but it's hard to see how the epithet isn't still deserved.

(Cross-posted at The Daily Gotham)

More Brunogate: 'Nice Work If You Can Get It' Edition

by: phillip anderson

Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 14:36:34 PM EST

From the New York Times:

Bruno's Friend Was Given Stock Incentive, Document Says

While Joseph L. Bruno, the State Senate's majority leader, was helping to direct state assistance to an upstate technology company, the company was rewarding Mr. Bruno's friend Jared E. Abbruzzese with a stock incentive for his role in securing state aid, according to a company document.

Nice. More crony-licious goodness on the flip....

A Very Prickly Joe Bruno Speaks To The Times. Plus Bruno Loses His Lawyer

by: phillip anderson

Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 14:07:50 PM EST

Perhaps it's his coffee. Joe "Brunogate" Bruno spoke to the New York Times for today's edition and, man, is that guy grumpy! Oh, and his long time chief counsel hit the road Friday afternoon. The guy just can't seem to catch a break.

His Omnipresence May Show His Clout, but Now Bruno Is on the Defensive

But at what should be his crowning moment, Mr. Bruno finds himself on the defensive as never before. The F.B.I. is investigating his business ties, newspapers are exploring his financial relationships with people seeking help from the state, some Republicans are grumbling that he is tarnishing their troubled party, and for the first time, a member of his conference, Senator John J. Bonacic, a Hudson Valley Republican, is calling on Mr. Bruno to step down.

....

"I have 33 votes in my conference, as I sit here, out of 34," he said.

And Mr. Bruno bristled at news reports that the federal government was investigating his decision to award a $500,000 member item grant - the type that goes to individual lawmakers' pet projects - to Evident Technologies, a company with a former director, Jared Abbruzzese, who had business dealings with Mr. Bruno. Mr. Bruno said that the state gave aid to Evident before he did, and that the money was intended to keep the company from moving out of state.

"It gets me a little bit excited, because they all want to moan and groan and point to Evident," he said in his office. "Evident is one of the most worthwhile projects to be funded that I have funded. Now the fact that a friend of mine, it turns out, that I had a financial relationship with - too damn bad. What am I, a second-class citizen? Is he a second-class citizen? We vetted that through the whole process, O.K.?"

"I'm getting crucified," he said. "And you know something? Tomorrow, if I had that situation to do over, I'd do exactly what I've done."

More on the flip....