The New York Times (5/25/11) is reporting, perhaps accurately, that Newt Gingrich may have trouble living down his $500,000 credit line at Tiffany's. But this sentence by Sheryl Gay Stolberg is so Timesian:

The way some voters out in the rest of America might see it, he's a guy who paid more for jewelry than some people pay for their houses.

It will no doubt come as a surprise to folks at a newspaper that reports (1/1/97) that $100-a-bottle wine was an "everyday occurrence," and told readers where they could have dinner for two for under $100 as "an experiment for lean times" (12/10/08; Extra!, 2/09), but the median price for a single-family house in the United States in 2011 is $158,700. That means that Gingrich was spending over three times more on jewelry than most people pay for their houses.

The "rest of America"--the New York Times should come visit us some time.

The United States sent former ambassador Frank Wisner to Egypt to talk to Hosni Mubarak. Wisner garnered headlines when he declared support for Mubarak staying in power, causing the White House to try and argue that wasn't the message the White House was trying to send.

But Wisner's background was worth more attention. As Pratap Chatterjee reported (Inter Press Service, 2/4/11):

Frank Wisner, the former U.S. ambassador that President Barack Obama dispatched to Cairo earlier this week to advise President Hosni Mubarak, is employed by Patton Boggs, a law firm and registered lobbyist. On its website Patton Boggs summarises the contracts that it has won in the last 20 years to advise the Egyptian military, leading "commercial families in Egypt" as well as "manage contractor disputes in military sales agreements arising under the US Foreign Military Sales Act."

Shortly thereafter, Robert Fisk of the Independent weighed in with a column (2/7/11) adding more details about Patton Boggs, noting that Wisner's pro-Mubarak comments were in line with his employer's long-standing ties to the regime and Egyptian corporate interests. Fisk pointed out that this wasn't getting much attention from the corporate media:

Oddly, not a single journalist raised this extraordinary connection with US government officials--nor the blatant conflict of interest it appears to represent.

That's still the case--but some reporters are attempting to debunk Fisk's story.

New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote a piece for the paper's website (2/7/11) where she pointed out that the story of Wisner's conflict "erupted in the blogosphere"--we all know what that means--and that Fisk was wrong:

Mr. Wisner's comments prompted the Independent, a British newspaper, to accuse him of conflict of interest and to assert--incorrectly, Patton Boggs said--that Mr. Wisner "works for a New York and Washington law firm that works for the dictator’s own Egyptian government."

Obviously Wisner does work for Patton Boggs.  What Stolberg is reporting is that the company doesn't work for the Egyptian government (which was part of Fisk's case).  That debunking relies on the word of a Patton Boggs spokesperson, who said this:

But Mr. Newberry said that while Patton Boggs does represent "a very small number" of corporate clients in Egypt, it has had no business with the Egyptian government since the mid-1990s, except for briefly last year, when the Egyptian embassy retained Patton Boggs on a legal matter for which the firm billed less than $10,000.

OK--so does the firm represent Egyptian corporations? Yes. And as recently as 2007 was lobbying on behalf of a company with ties to the regime.

Does it have business with the Egyptian government? No--well, except for that time last year, and many times before then.

So I think I got this one: As the Paper of Record sees it, when Fisk reported that Wisner's firm worked for the Egyptian government and various corporate interests, he was incorrect. The company in fact works for a small number of Egyptian corporations, and worked for the Egyptian government as recently as last year.

Bob Herbert, today in the New York Times (1/25/11):

There has always been feverish opposition on the right to Social Security. What is happening now, in a period of deficit hysteria, is that this crucial retirement program is being dishonestly lumped together with Medicare as an entitlement program that is driving federal deficits.

He's right. Where did I last read someone trying to pull off that dishonest accounting? Oh yeah--it was in yesterday's New York Times. Sheryl Gay Stolberg reported on a poll that found people unwilling to support cuts to

Medicare and Social Security, the programs that directly touch millions of lives and are the biggest drivers of the long-term deficit.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg has an article in the New York Times (12/26/10) about what President Obama's trips to Hawaii say about him: "Mr. Obama's disappearance behind the palm trees reveals much about his presidential style, and also his thinking about how to balance work and play." She contrasts these trips to his birth state with his rejection of the traditional presidential vacation spot: "He rarely goes to Camp David, the presidential retreat in the Catoctin Mountains of Maryland, and when he does, it is not to conduct business."

One problem with Stolberg's analysis: Since taking office, Obama has been to Camp David 15 times, and to Hawaii twice.

The lead story in today's New York Times (1/12/10), written by Sewell Chan, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and David E. Sanger, focused on allies' complaints about Barack Obama's economic policies:

There was no way to avoid discussion of the fundamental differences of economic strategy.... Major disputes broke out between Washington and China, Britain, Germany and Brazil.

Each rejected core elements of Mr. Obama's strategy of stimulating growth before focusing on deficit reduction. Several major nations continued to accuse the Federal Reserve of deliberately devaluing the dollar last week in an effort to put the costs of America's competitive troubles on trading partners, rather than taking politically tough measures to rein in spending at home.

You see the influence of Hoovernomics on the story, as "tough measures to rein in spending at home" are taken for granted as an answer to "America's competitive troubles"--rather than a sure way to exacerbate those troubles, as countries like Ireland, Spain and Greece are demonstrating anew (Guardian, 11/12/10).

After quoting German Chancellor Angela Merkel lecturing Obama ("I am not one, and Germany is not one, who says growth and fiscal consolidation are contradictory"), the story throws in an observation that has the effect of validating the conservative politician's pro-austerity rhetoric: "Mrs. Merkel is credited with avoiding spending heavily on stimulus programs and emerging with the most successful recovery in Europe."

There's a couple things wrong here: It's true that Merkel is credited with avoided stimulus, but in reality Germany had Europe's biggest stimulus program--82 billion euros, or $110 billion.  (Germany's economy is roughly one-fourth the size of the U.S.'s.)

Secondly, the phrase "most successful recovery in Europe" conceals the fact that Germany's recovery, so far, has been less successful than the United States', at least in terms of GDP growth--from the latest figures available, the U.S. is at 99.4 percent of its pre-recession GDP, while Germany is at 97.3 percent. Pointing this out, though, might have put a wet blanket on what the Times obviously felt was a stirring call for responsible fiscal policy.

The New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg (9/22/10), writing about "brusque and brilliant economist" Lawrence Summers stepping down as President Obama's chief economic adviser, cited House minority leader John Boehner's charge that "Mr. Obama's team lacked 'real-world, hands on experience,' a direct shot at Mr. Summers' career as an academic." She followed this by writing, "News of Mr. Summers' departure set off speculation that Mr. Obama would replace him with a corporate executive to counter the impression that he is anti-business."

The Washington Post's Lori Montgomery (9/22/10) reported similarly, "Sources said the White House is considering whether to choose a candidate who could blunt criticism that the administration has been anti-business, such as a corporate chieftain or prominent investor."

This suggestion that Summers represents an "anti-business" strain of economic thinking is absurd. While it's true that most of his career has been spent in academia and government, prior to joining the administration he was working as a managing director at DE Shaw, a gigantic hedge fund that paid him $5.2 million for his services in 2008.  In the same year, he collected $2.7 million in consulting fees from other financial firms, including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch. Clearly Wall Street was not turned off by his "anti-business" attitudes.

This background was rehearsed just yesterday in a New York Times blog post (DealBook, 9/21/10), which noted that "Mr. Summers has often been criticized for his close ties to the financial sector and dubbed a conduit for Wall Street to influence the White House." Such criticism does not seem to have been noticed by Stolberg.

After citing Obama's praise of Summers, Montgomery at least notes that "congressional Republicans--and some Democrats--have been more critical of Summers' tenure." But she goes on to say that Boehner accuses the White House "of pursuing misguided economic policies that ran up record deficits without creating jobs or significantly improving the economy"--a view, Montgomery says, that is rejected by "many prominent economists."  The complaints that "some Democrats" have about Summers are left unspecified, the idea that there is anything "anti-business" about Obama's Wall Street-friendly economic adviser goes unrebutted.

The New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes today (8/31/10) about the possible steps Obama might take to bolster the economy:

With voters angry about government spending, and economists divided about just what approach is the correct one, such aggressive steps are by now out of the question. "There’s a deep frustration among economists that they simply don’t know what to do under these circumstances, at least in terms of fiscal policy," said Bruce Bartlett, an economist who advised Republican presidents.

"I think there are a lot of economists who, in principle, would support some new fiscal stimulus, perhaps a jobs program where people were directly employed by the government or something of that sort," Mr. Bartlett said. "But politically it's simply not possible to do anything remotely like that under the current circumstances."

How many voters are truly angry about government spending? Take a look at this recent Newsweek poll:

"Which one of the following do you think should have the higher priority for policy-makers in Washington right now:

37 percent: Reducing the federal budget deficit
57 percent: Federal spending to create jobs
6 percent:  Don't know

Other recent surveys show that voters think unemployment is a much more urgent problem than the deficit (FAIR Action Alert, 6/24/10).

If it's "politically impossible" to introduce another stimulus bill, it's not because voters are angry about spending--it's because of the false narrative of voter anger about spending that the corporate media won't let go of.

Noting that policies like the stimulus plan tend to poll pretty badly, New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes (7/16/10) that Obama says he has pursued such policies because they're "the right thing to do for America." To Stolberg, that sounds familiar:

It is an argument that sounds eerily similar to the one Mr. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, made to justify an unpopular war in Iraq as he watched his own poll numbers sink lower. Mr. Bush and his aides often felt they could not catch a break; when the economy was humming along--or at least seemed to be humming along--the Bush White House never got credit for it, because the public was so upset about the war.

Two things.

One, I think we can all agree that efforts to stimulate the economy are actually nothing at all like the invasion of Iraq.

Two, the "humming" Bush economy? Now that actually sounds familiar.... Where have we heard the argument that Bush wasn't getting enough credit for his economic boom? Oh yeah--that was from Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times:

FAIR Action Alert

NYT Falls for White House Spin on Economy
No one 'envies' Bush GDP record

1/28/08

The New York Times (1/28/08) claimed in a front-page story that George W. Bush's economic growth record "would be the envy of most presidents." This claim has no basis in fact and should be corrected by the newspaper.

The assertion was part of a "White House Memo" by Sheryl Gay Stolberg. Opening with the question, "Will George W. Bush be remembered as the president who lost the economy while trying to win a war?," she continued:

Mr. Bush has spent years presiding over an economic climate of growth that would be the envy of most presidents. Yet much to the consternation of his political advisers, he has had trouble getting credit for it, in large part because Americans were consumed by the war in Iraq.

As that alert noted, this was not the first time Stolberg had tried to applaud the Bush boom:

More than a year ago (7/12/06), Stolberg described Bush as "blessed with a growing economy but facing voters who do not give him much credit for it." She claimed that "by standard measurements, the economy does look good," citing "a gross domestic product that grew an average of 4 percent in the past three years."

As Dean Baker wrote in response to Stolberg's 1/28/08 piece: "President Bush's growth record is better than his father's, but it is worse than the record of every other president in the last half century. It's not clear why they would be envious."

It's troubling that Stolberg seems so peculiarly wedded to this idea.

Once again, the New York Times is setting up a false debate over healthcare policy, contrasting White House-style "pragmatism" with left-wing "ideology." The lead of Sheryl Gay Stolberg's piece today (12/18/09):

In the great healthcare debate of 2009, President Obama has cast himself as a cold-eyed pragmatist, willing to compromise in exchange for votes. Now ideology -- an uprising on the Democratic left -- is smacking the pragmatic president in the face.

In this worldview, "ideologues" are those who push for reforms--including single-payer--that they believe will lower costs and offer more comprehensive coverage. "Pragmatists," meanwhile, are moving in the opposite direction, toward higher costs and less coverage, in order to theoretically win the political support of some conservative lawmakers.

Using language like this doesn't tell you much about the debate in Washington, but it speaks volumes about where the New York Times is coming from.

Printing a letter to the editor from Leila McDowell (8/26/09), the New York Times has "Another Look at Obama's Speech to the NAACP"--from the group's on vice president of communications.

McDowell starts with the fact that the "Times distinguished itself from most major media by virtually ignoring the 100th anniversary of the NAACP, which was started in New York"--and then, "when the Times finally did send a reporter...the resulting article ("Obama Gives Fiery Address at NAACP," July 17) focused on personal responsibility," even though "that was the least prominent part of Mr. Obama's speech":

What was noteworthy was his discussion of racial disparities, the barriers facing African-Americans and the policies to redress social gaps.

This is a theme President Obama has rarely spoken about with such depth.

Urging personal responsibility in our communities is as traditional as shouting "Amen!" to the preacher's sermon in black churches and civic organizations.

What is new is the president's forceful articulation of the disparities we fight every day. Personal responsibility will not remove the barriers that a legacy of racism and exclusion has left for millions of African-Americans.

"The familiar refrain of personal responsibility," though "an important issue... articulated by black preachers long before Mr. Obama," is, McDowell writes, "an old story and standard fare." Listen to FAIR's radio show CounterSpin: "Dedrick Muhammad on Obama's NAACP Speech and 'Tough Love'" (7/31/09).

Steve Benen of Political Animal points out a couple of strange questions posed by corporate journalists--one to each of last year's major presidential candidates. In this post, Benen quotes an unnamed New York Times reporter (apparently either Sheryl Gay Stolberg or Steven Lee Meyers) basically red-baiting Barack Obama: "The first six weeks have given people a glimpse of your spending priorities. Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?" The same reporter, or maybe a different one--I guess they were speaking ex cathedra--later pressed Obama: "If you're not a socialist, are you a liberal?"

In a later post, Benen ponders Fox News' Chris Wallace asking John McCain, "You ever feel like saying 'I told you so'?" (McCain declined to do so, though he said, "I'm sure that would be a pleasant feeling.") As Benen notes, it's not clear what McCain told us, or what in the first six weeks of the Obama administration would cause us to reevaluate it. But as he says, the implication is clear: "Looking back at the presidential campaign, McCain was right about...something."

Fox sometimes points to Wallace to show that they're not out of the mainstream of corporate media.  The scary thing is that they might have a point.

Having already caught "the infamous GOP talking point that the stimulus package contains gobs of cash for saving marsh mice" having "found its way into a New York Times story, without the paper mentioning that the claim is untrue," blogger Greg Sargent (Plum Line, 2/24/09) now finds that "earlier drafts of the story did describe the claim as 'misleading'--but Times editors removed that description from the copy":

A reader tells me that he emailed the author of the story, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, to discuss the omission. Here is part of her reply to him in her email, which I obtained:

I did write in the story I submitted that the assertion was misleading, but I’m sorry to report that language was removed by editors and that I didn’t notice the deletion. My initial text read like this:

“….as Republicans decry, often misleadingly, what they see as pork-barrel spending for projects like marsh mouse preservation.” [Sargent's emphasis]

So the words “often misleadingly” were removed by editors.

Often such editing decisions are made in haste or to save space. But this was only two words, and it’s worth recalling that the notion that there was millions in the bill to save the marsh mouse in Nancy Pelosi’s district isn’t just some garden variety talking point. It has been a major component of GOP push-back for weeks, repeated by high profile GOP officials in all sorts of settings.

Stolberg's contention that "wording as published was not inaccurate" is refuted by the simple observation by Sargent that "the story doesn’t note that there are no such funds in the bill"--to the contrary, "the paper removed its own reporter’s assertion that it was 'misleading' before publishing." Besides, we all know how much corporate media economic reporters love news about critters....