New York Times Shops Times Building for Loan

Mainstream Media Financial Woes
The New York Hard Times?

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NY Times Stock: Grey Bag Lady?

The New York Times is trying to drum up some cash and is shopping its building on Eighth Avenue. It would like to secure a $225 million loan, with the NY Times Tower as collateral.

The New York Times Company plans to borrow up to $225 million against its mid-Manhattan headquarters building, to ease a potential cash flow squeeze as the company grapples with tighter credit and shrinking profits.
...
The Times Company owns 58 percent of the 52-story, 1.5 million-square-foot tower on Eighth Avenue, which was designed by the architect Renzo Piano, and completed last year. The developer Forest City Ratner owns the rest of the building. The Times Company’s portion of the building is not currently mortgaged, and some investors have complained that the company has too much of its capital tied up in that real estate.

Regardless of how decrepit the NY Times (the newspaper) is, the building is pretty snazzy.



"The New York Times Building is a skyscraper on the west side of Midtown Manhattan that was completed in 2007. Its chief tenant is The New York Times Company, publisher of the The New York Times, The Boston Globe, the International Herald Tribune, as well as other regional papers. Construction was a joint venture of The Times Company, Forest City Ratner Companies - the Cleveland-based real estate firm redeveloping the Brooklyn Atlantic rail yards - and ING Real Estate."


The NYT's stock price has steadily declined over the past 15 months. Friday, the Times' stock closed at $7.64. It was over $24 in 2007.

Standard & Poor’s recently lowered its credit rating on the Times Company below investment grade, and Moody’s Investors Service has said it was considering a similar move. Times Company stock, which has lost more than half its value this year, closed on Friday at $7.64, down 30 cents.

The New York Times is the fourth-bestselling newspaper in the New York metro area.

One would guess that there's not much demand for "news" with a decidedly left slant.




by Mondo
image/source: Wikipedia, New York Times Tower

NY Times Jodi Kantor: Are Journalists the New Internet Predators?

Parent Alert!
NY Times reporter sought teens on Facebook
by Rhonda Roland Shearer
Stinky Journalism




[ABOVE: Cartoon depicts a NY Times sanctioned reporting method--contacting teens on Facebook-- that new guidelines only require "prior consultation" with editors.]

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Clark Hoyt, The New York Times public editor, recently wrote about a "troubling issue" regarding how the Times deals with minors. Times reporter, Jodi Kantor, wrote what, Hoyt described, was "an unflattering front-page profile of Cindy McCain." Kantor's reporting methods included soliciting teenagers on FaceBook who attended Ms. McCain's daughter's school. Hoyt said, "Trying to find sources for information about Mrs. McCain, a reporter reached out to 16- and 17-year-olds through Facebook, the social networking site."

He continued, "Although the reporter, Jodi Kantor, said in a message to the teenagers that she was ' just seeking some fellow parents who can talk about what Mrs. McCain is like,' people I heard from thought it was wrong. 'Disgusting,' said Gwilym McGrew of Woodland Hills, Calif. 'Will she be contacting my 12-year-old soon, too?' " Indeed.

Kantor claimed she was not trolling for teens, just their parents. But the count tells the truth. She contacted only one school versus "eight or nine" teens. Her asymmetrical actions state loud and clear that Kantor was seeking teens to find out "what she [McCain] is like as a mother?"



[ABOVE: Are journalists a new kind of Internet predator? Must parents warn teens not to speak to journalists? Image of Jodi Kantor, NY Times reporter, who improperly sought teens on Facebook.]


Kantor's negative profile on Ms. McCain would naturally lead one to question, post hoc, if her upbeat message to the teenagers, was pure deception from the start.

Just exactly what did Kantor write?

Continue reading: Parent Alert!


by Rhonda Roland Shearer
image/source: Stinky Journalism

Papercuts Poll Results: MSNBC Judged 'Most Unreliable MSM Organization

PAPERCUT POLL Results:
Which Mainstream Media Organization is Most Unreliable?

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The results of DBKP's poll, "Which Mainstream Media Organization is Most Unreliable?" are in and we have a winner.

35% of respondents chose MSNBC as the most unreliable, biased MSM organization. Fox News was second with 27%.

THE RESULTS:

1. MSNBC - 35%
   
   
2. Fox News - 27%
   
   
3. New York Times - 18%
   
   
4. CNN - 7%
   
   
5. Los Angeles Times - 4%
   
   
6. CBS News - 2%
   
   
7. Washinton Post - 2%
   
   
8. Newsweek - 1%
   
   
9. TIME - 1%

The ran from November 11-30 2008 and 741 people participated.

DBKP's current poll question, "POLL: Which NFL Team Will Win Super Bowl XLIII" runs until November 8 2008.

Currently, the NY Giants lead with 26%, followed by the Dallas Cowboys, Pittsburgh Steelers and the Tennesee Titans.


by Mondo Frazier
image: dbkp file

The Internet, The MSM: The Migration of Failure

Times' Writer Discovers The Internet:
"Professional Journalists" Seek Foundation Funding
Instead of Customers Seeking News

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"They still don't get it, and never will. That's why when their stock value reaches zero, we'll still be here laughing at their demise."
--JammieWearingFool on the New York Times

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Six Hundred Visitors a Day
--and All the Pixels You Can Eat

RICHARD PÉREZ-PEÑA of the New York Times ($7.00 NYSE, down from $21.14 a year ago) turned on his computer and discovered a non-threatening form of Internet--websites that are run by refugees of failed newspapers.

As America’s newspapers shrink and shed staff, and broadcast news outlets sink in the ratings, a new kind of Web-based news operation has arisen in several cities, forcing the papers to follow the stories they uncover.

Here it is VoiceofSanDiego.org, offering a brand of serious, original reporting by professional journalists — the province of the traditional media, but at a much lower cost of doing business. Since it began in 2005, similar operations have cropped up in New Haven, the Twin Cities, Seattle, St. Louis and Chicago. More are on the way.

Their news coverage and hard-digging investigative reporting stand out in an Internet landscape long dominated by partisan commentary, gossip, vitriol and citizen journalism posted by unpaid amateurs.

The San Diego site gets around 18,000 visitors a month--about 600/day--but it's run by "professional journalists" as opposed to "unpaid amateurs", so it's worth some ink in the NY Times. As Jammie Wearing Fool observes ['This Is the Future of Journalism']

Let's see: Partisan commentary, vitriol and gossip? Sounds like your average day on the Times op-ed page. Or, in some cases, what they run on Page 1.

Well, does the Times ever bother to wonder whether some of us also have newspaper experience? Or is that too much for them to comprehend?

Most of us aren't doing this to pay the bills. We're doing it as a counter to the relentless bias brought to us by outlets such as the Times. And over the past several years, those whom they dismiss as unpaid amateurs sure seem to break more news than established outfits.

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Bloggers Do the Jobs
American "Professional Journalists" Won't Do

It's not that the Mainstream Media--The NYT is the poster child for floundering fishwraps--can't do their jobs.

It's that they have refused to do their jobs.

MSM news customers obviously have tired of paying for psuedo-intellectual socialist drivel masquerading as "news": Times' customers have deserted the paper in droves. In response to declining circulation, the NYT has continued the same policies; NYT customers have continued their exodus.

There's certainly a demand for liberal, left-leaning, pompous, arrogant, sniveling newspapers in America.

Not just a very big one, apparently.

It's noticed that the "professional journalists" hope to eventually finance their Internet operation by one of the Left's favorite funding mechanisms: foundation grants.

That figures.

When their journalistic enterprise fails to attract real, live paying customers, their impulse is to ask some foundation to pony up some money to insulate them from the effects of a marketplace that is a regular "professional journalist" whipping boy.

If the Ford Foundation can't spare a dime, maybe these Brave New Journalists can get in line for some bailout moolah.

- - - - -

In the Times' mind, it's the medium, not the message that's at fault.

We would disagree.

MSM "Professional journalists"--whether they're pounding the pavement in search of another gig or pounding the keys posting on the Internet--will likely have trouble attracting new customers. There's only so much demand for their product and it's more than met by ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, TIME, Newsweek, NY and LA Times, MSNBC and the Washington Post.

MSM "professional journalists" on the Internet?

Not a lot to get excited about.

Really.

After all, paraphrasing the Times' Fab Fave 2008 candidate: you can put lipstick on the NY Times, but it's still the Times.


by Mondo
image: dbkp

New York Times Continues its Whitewash of Obama-Ayers

New York Times
Practicing the Politics of Attack

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The former journalistic enterprise known as the New York Times may have fired Jayson Blair in May 2003, but his flame still burns brightly in the Times' editorial office.

Blair was the Times' reporter that plagiarized and fabricated facts to fill in his many stories. One Times' editor wanted to fire Blair in 2002 for the many mistakes and errors that appeared in his stories.

Instead, Blair was promoted.

Apparently, it hasn't escaped the notice of the remaining NYT editors that the way to get ahead at the floundering fish-wrap is to fabricate facts--whether in stories or editorials.

Just minutes after the debate ended last night, the New York Times projectile-vomited a load of anti-McCain-Palin vitriol disguised as an unsigned editorial. No wonder its author wished to remain anonymous: the editorial hurled unsubstantiated charges at the McCain-Palin campaign while purposely ignoring or covering up information that it finds unhelpful to its viewpoint.

It began with:

It is a sorry fact of American political life that campaigns get ugly, often in their final weeks. But Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have been running one of the most appalling campaigns we can remember.

They have gone far beyond the usual fare of quotes taken out of context and distortions of an opponent’s record — into the dark territory of race-baiting and xenophobia. Senator Barack Obama has taken some cheap shots at Mr. McCain, but there is no comparison.

Although there were references to the debate in the editorial--giving the impression that the unnamed Times' writer had watched it--like a good deal of Times' material, it likely was written before the event even took place. Then sprinkled with a few references to the televised showdown to give the piece some ambiance.

The author didn't need the second presidential debate as window dressing for his shrill attack on McCain. It could have been published a month ago or a week from now.

The Times editorial then descended into outright journalistic fraud--over-the-top even for the Times. That was quite a feat, given that the Times' ran a ten-month long cover operation for presidential candidate, John Edwards. The Times' operation was blown when Edwards confessed on ABC's Nightline and forced the paper to explain to its dwindling readership why it had swept the matter under the carpet.

This past week, Sarah Palin and the McCain campaign began doing what the Times failed to do: investigate the years-long association between Barack Obama and domestic terrorist, Bill Ayers.

Instead of investigating, the Times' writer hurls invective at the McCain campaign for having the nerve to bring up the unpleasant matter. The Obama-Ayers connection is one that Barack Obama has mis-represented--and the Times is providing the Obama camapign as much cover on the issue as it possibly can.

That line follows passages in Ms. Palin’s new stump speech in which she twists Mr. Obama’s ill-advised but fleeting and long-past association with William Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground and confessed bomber.

By the time she’s done, she implies that Mr. Obama is right now a close friend of Mr. Ayers — and sympathetic to the violent overthrow of the government. The Democrat, she says, “sees America, it seems, as being so imperfect that he’s palling around with terrorists who would target their own country.”

Her demagoguery has elicited some frightening, intolerable, responses. A recent Washington Post report said at a rally in Florida this week a man yelled “Kill him!” as Ms. Palin delivered that line and others shouted epithets at an African-American member of a TV crew.

Anyone who has done the most elementary research would know better than to characterize the Obama-Ayers connection as "fleeting". The Times had done some elementary research on Obama's connections to Bill Ayers and yet, chose to mis-characterize them as "fleeting".

A Times story on Saturday was headlined Obama and ’60s Bomber - A Look Into Crossed Paths.

Steve Diamond and Stanley Kurtz--both journalists who tracked down Obama-Ayers material begged to differ. Kurtz called the Times' story a "whitewash". Diamond, who gave the Times access to a slew of documents and was interviewed by three different reporters, also called the Times' story a "whitewash".

After the NYT's piece appeared, Diamond wrote, "I was interviewed at length by the New York Times for this story - in fact, this was the third Times reporter to interview me about the Ayers/Obama relationship - and I provided the Times with the letters I discuss here. They are not mentioned in the story at all."

It may not have helped that the reporter, Scott Shane, specializes in the FBI and CIA and did not seem well equipped to understand the structure and dynamics of a non profit entity like the Annenberg Challenge, had no apparent understanding of educational policy issues or debates, had no prior experience as far as I could tell with Chicago politics or culture and expressed his own sense of "boredom" with the Annenberg Challenge records he reviewed.

Instead of relying on the contemporaneous written record that documents Ayers direct personal involvement in the formation of the CAC board, the New York Times relies on the recollection, fourteen years later of "several" unnamed sources who say Ayers was not involved in Obama's recruitment to the board.

Diamond began his piece with, "Some months ago the Times reported without comment the Campaign's lie that the first time Obama met Ayers was in late 1995 at a "meet and greet" held at Ayers' home for Obama when Obama launched his campaign for the state senate."


One would think that The New York Times should have been embarrassed enough by its scandalous behavior in the John Edwards' scandal--when the struggling paper substituted campaign party lines for investigative journalism--that it would have learned a lesson.

It did not.

This ugly, desperate editorial does the John Edwards affair one better: the paper knows better about Obama and Ayers, has access to contrary facts unearthed by the sweat of others and chooses to ignore it all to the benefit of its chosen candidate.

In the wake of the Blair scandal, the Times own internal investigation--"The Siegal committee--made several recommendations, many of which have since been instituted at the paper, including the appointment of a public editor to encourage access to the paper and to monitor readers' complaints about the paper's performance.
--Wikipedia: Jayson Blair

That appointed public editor must have been one of the victims of the Times' recent layoffs.

The unsigned editorial finishes with: "But surely, Mr. McCain and his team can come up with a better answer to that problem than inciting more division, anger and hatred."

The New York Times author should be intimately acquainted with anger and hatred.

This editorial illustrates both--along with pride, sloth and a few other deadly sins thrown in for good measure.

Practically, one of the few things the editorial got right was its opening sentence:

"It is a sorry fact of American political life that campaigns get ugly, often in their final weeks."

One of the ugliest is the former journalistic enterprise known as the New York Times.


by Mondo Frazier
images: dbkp file

Obama, Bill Ayers: Mainstream Media Explain Away Obama-Ayers Connection

McCain Campaign Brings Up the Subject
Of Barack Obama's Anti-American Associates
MSM Leaps to Obama's Defense



Bill Ayers and Barack Obama "crossed paths" according to NY Times; AP Helps Out


John McCain's campaign FINALLY is bringing up the many, many questionable associates of Barack Obama. The Obama campaign will respond through paid advertisements and, more importantly, through unpaid political ads masquerading as "news stories" in the Dinosaur Press of the Mainstream Media (MSM).

MIKE ALLEN, Politico, reports Exclusive: Obama to call McCain 'erratic in crisis'
. According to Allen, Obama is launching a pre-emptive strike: he's going to address his questionable Chicago buddies before McCain's campaign commercials "portray him as having sinister connections to controversial Chicagoans."

Obama officials call it political jujitsu – turning the attacks back on the attacker.

McCain officials had said early in the weekend that they plan to begin advertising after Tuesday’s debate that will tie Obama to convicted money launderer Tony Rezko and former Weathermen radical William Ayers.

But Obama isn’t waiting to respond. His campaign is going up Monday on national cable stations with a scathing ad saying: “Three quarters of a million jobs lost this year. Our financial system in turmoil. And John McCain? Erratic in a crisis. Out of touch on the economy. No wonder his campaign wants to change the subject.

“Turn the page on the financial crisis by launching dishonorable, dishonest ‘assaults’ against Barack Obama. Struggling families can't turn the page on this economy, and we can't afford another president who is this out of touch.”

The entire transcript of the Obama ad.



Barack Obama has already begun getting help in defusing the "sleazy, unAmerican associates" angle. The New York Times ran an article Saturday on Obama mentor, Bill Ayers, that was one part "downplay the Ayers connection" and two part Obama unpaid campaign ad.

SCOTT SHANE of the NYT starts the shilling in the headline, Obama and ’60s Bomber: A Look Into Crossed Paths. Got that? Obama and Ayers, they just "crossed paths", that's all.

Twenty-six years later, at a lunchtime meeting about school reform in a Chicago skyscraper, Barack Obama met Mr. Ayers, by then an education professor. Their paths have crossed sporadically since then, at a coffee Mr. Ayers hosted for Mr. Obama’s first run for office, on the schools project and a charitable board, and in casual encounters as Hyde Park neighbors.

The Times article has quotes aplenty from the Obama campaign and Chicago Mayor Daley to back up it's assertions that really, Ayers and Obama hardly know each other--and besides, these days, Ayers is just another nutty professor.

That attitude is widely shared in Chicago, but it is not universal. Steve Chapman, a columnist for The Chicago Tribune, defended Mr. Obama’s relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., his longtime pastor, whose black liberation theology and “God damn America” sermon became notorious last spring. But he denounced Mr. Obama for associating with Mr. Ayers, whom he said the University of Illinois should never have hired.

“I don’t think there’s a statute of limitations on terrorist bombings,” Mr. Chapman said in an interview, speaking not of the law but of political and moral implications.

“If you’re in public life, you ought to say, ‘I don’t want to be associated with this guy,’ ” Mr. Chapman said. “If John McCain had a long association with a guy who’d bombed abortion clinics, I don’t think people would say, ‘That’s ancient history.’ ”

Sarah Palin began the assault by addressing the subject first broached by Hillary Clinton: Obama's chummy past relationship with domestic terrorist Ayers. Almost immediately, the Obama campaign, through the AP, put out a press release rebuttal disguised as a news story: Palin says Obama 'palling around' with terrorists.

In remarks to GOP donors in Englewood, Colo., on Saturday, Palin said Obama seems to see the U.S. as being so imperfect that, in her words, "he's palling around with terrorists who would target their own country."

Obama's AP spokesperson, JIM KUHNHENN, defended Obama noting that "Obama served on a charity board with Ayers in Chicago and has denounced his past activities."

But DBKP readers know that as far as Obama’s Ties to 1970’s Domestic Terrorist Bill Ayers go, there is Disassociation and Little Condemnation

Kuhnhenn thought it of no import to mention that Obama announced his candidacy from Ayer's home or that Ayers wrote the grant proposal for the program that Obama chaired.

Barack Obama would like people to believe that Bill Ayers is "just one of thousands of people that I know." [Obama, Domestic Terrorist Bill Ayers: The ‘Tangential’ Bill Ayers ]

The MSM doesn't mention Bill Ayers at all for months and suddenly, two separate stories appear--which downplay and defend both Ayers and Obama's association with him--within 24 hours of each other? Just in time to defuse potentially-damaging McCain commercials scheduled for after the next debate this week?

What's the chances?

Doesn't sound like there's any coordination between the Obama campaign and its allies in the press, does there?



The MSM is great for parroting the Obama campaign lines--and horrible when it comes to investigating the Chosen One. Obama is the Standard-bearer for over 90% of the people working in the MSM.

How about one or two tough questions for Obama?

Might not one MSM reporter be interested in Obama's many anti-American associates? Might Obama have been influenced by any of them when he accused the American military of killing civilians last year? From Obama: US Troops in Afghanistan must do more than kill civilians:

Asked whether he would move U.S. troops out of Iraq to better fight terrorism elsewhere, he brought up Afghanistan and said, "We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there."

No connection between the above Obama statement and Michelle Obama stating that she was never "proud of America" until her husband ran for president? No connection between the above statement and Obama's pastor of twenty years announcing "God Damn America!" from the pulpit? No connection between the statement above and Bill Ayers' announcing that "I realized...America was an evil... and that I was... living inside the belly of the beast...."?

Is Obama the Jack Murtha of the Senate?

There's been much written in Big Media about how "historic" the selection of Barack Obama as the Democrat candidate has been. That would be right, but a quite different reason.

How many presidential candidates have ever had a buddy (Bill Ayers) who was awarded a ring from the North Vietmanese--while we were at war with them--made from down American airplanes?

The McCain-Palin campaign can run thousands of ads about Obama and his associates. But the McCain campaign will never have enough money to counter the never-ending, unceasing ads running in the MSM disguised as news stories.

All of this would be of little interest if Barack Obama were running for a local office in the Chicago area.

But Obama is running to become commander-in-chief of the United States and must swear an oath to defend the Constitution against "enemies, both foreign and domestic".

Funny how a lot of Obama's associates and family think that the enemy is the United States itself--and have publicly said so more than once.

The flacks and hacks that populate the Mainstream Media feel it is their job to explain it away.

All in the guise of objective "news" stories.


by Mondo Frazier
images: dbkp; RidesAPaleHorse

Palin Assassinates Bullwinkle!

Another Palin Attack?



Click image to enlarge.


by RidesAPaleHorse

McCain: The NY Times Has Found Some Torture It Can Ignore

[Click to enlarge]


Proud progressive, Irony Curtain, of the KG3, has noticed the capitalist media barons at the NY Times enthusiastically support the elimination of the imperialist torture community at Guantanamo Bay in glorious Cuba.

However, his fine, forward-looking eye has also noticed that the imperialist lackeys at the Times has exhibited the good judgment to "look the other way" on tortures carried out by Cuba's comrades in the Workers' Paradise of Vietnam.

As always, we thank Stalin for calling this to our attention.


by Irony Curtain, of the KG3
Source/image: Torture That The New York Times Can Ignore

Barack Obama & Joe Biden
The Democrat Foreign Policy Team:
Their Judgment One Year Ago


“I opposed this war from the beginning. I opposed the war in 2002. I opposed the war in 2003. I opposed it in 2004, and 2005 and 2006. I introduced the plan in January to remove all of our combat brigades out of Iraq by next March. And I am here to say that we have to begin to end this war now – not tomorrow, not the next day, not six months from now, but now."
--Barack Obama, September 12 2007

“It's time to turn the corner in my view, gentlemen. We should stop the surge and start bringing our troops home. We should end a political strategy in Iraq that cannot succeed and begin one that can.”
--Joe Biden, September 11 2007



[Click images to enlarge]


September 11, 2007: General David Petraeus was in Washington, DC to present his report to a Democrat-controlled Congress on how the surge of troops in Iraq was working.

Democrats already knew: the war was lost, the surge was a hoax and Patraeus was "not believable". Democrat after Democrat attacked Petraeus before he spoke a word, both professionally and personally.

According to Kevin Mooney, CNS, "On Sept. 11th of last year, when Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), that the U.S. troop surge in Iraq was working, he was met by a hail of criticism from members of Congress who believed it was failing."

On September 10, MoveOn.org ran its infamous full-age "General Betray Us" ad in the New York Times. The NY Times cut the price of the ad 60%, in effect, co-sponsotomh this ad, in a blatant attempt to influence the political debate on the issue.

But then, that last item does not really qualify as "news".



Petraeus' report, and the notion that the surge was working, was attacked throughout the day by a Murderer's Row of Democrats: Hillary Clinton, Harry Ried, Rahm Emanuel and the Democrat presidential ticket of 2008, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

How have the Democrats' predictions of 'retreat and defeat' played out? Was General Petraeus the puppet or the prophet?

In the intervening year, according to a CNSNews.com database, U.S. casualties in Iraq have dropped to the lowest level since the start of the war six years ago. The Iraqi government, meanwhile, has made real, if faltering, progress toward political reconciliation between Iraq’s Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Just what did General Petraeus report that set off the Democrat Congressional policy poobahs?

What in his report was deceitful? It might be helpful to recall what Petraeus said one year ago today.

As a bottom line up front, the military objectives of the surge are in large measure being met. In recent months, in the face of tough enemies and the brutal summer heat of Iraq, coalition and Iraqi security forces have achieved progress in the security arena.

Though improvements have been uneven across Iraq, the overall number of security incidents in Iraq, for example, has declined in eight of the past 12 weeks. During this time, ethnosectarian violence has also been reduced and the number of overall civilian deaths has declined, though both are clearly still at troubling levels.

The progress is a result of many factors. Coalition and Iraqi forces have dealt significant blows to al Qaeda-Iraq and have disrupted Shi'a militia extremists. Additionally in a very significant development, we and our Iraqi partners are being assisted by tribes and local citizens who are rejecting extremism and choosing to help secure Iraq.

Iraqi security forces have also continued to grow and to shoulder more of the load albeit slowly and amid continuing concerns about the sectarian tendencies of some elements in their ranks.

“Innumerable challenges lie ahead, however, coalition and Iraqi security forces have made progress toward achieving sustainable security.

The BBC noted the Democrat attacks: "Sen Obama - one of the Democratic nomination frontrunners - called the war a "disastrous foreign policy mistake" and said the impact of the surge had been modest given the resources."

According the CNS, "Passage of Year Makes Petraeus Look Good, Congressional Critics Look Bad":

“I opposed this war from the beginning,” Obama told the crowd in Clinton on Sept. 12, 2007. “I opposed the war in 2002. I opposed the war in 2003. I opposed it in 2004, and 2005 and 2006. I introduced the plan in January to remove all of our combat brigades out of Iraq by next March. And I am here to say that we have to begin to end this war now – not tomorrow, not the next day, not six months from now, but now.

“The administration points to selective statistics to make the case for staying the course. Killings and mortar attacks and car bombs in certain districts are down from the highest level that we've seen. But they're still at the same horrible levels that they were 18 months ago or two years ago. Let me repeat that,” Obama said.

“Yesterday, General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee pointing to this reduction in violence,” Obama added.

“We are at the same levels of violence now that we were back in June of 2006. That is the improvement that's been made after an additional 30,000 troops and billion dollars have been spent in Iraq,” he said.

Obama's running mate, Joe Biden, supposedly picked as vice-president for the 'foreign policy experience' he added to the Democrat ticket exhibited that experience one year ago.

“It's time to turn the corner in my view, gentlemen. We should stop the surge and start bringing our troops home. We should end a political strategy in Iraq that cannot succeed and begin one that can.”
--Joe Biden, September 11 2007

What did John McCain say in September 2007? According to the BBC:

"Republican Senator John McCain, a contender for his party's presidential nomination, defended the US strategy in Iraq, saying: "Congress must not choose to lose in Iraq and I will do everything in my power to ensure that we do not."

He said failure in Iraq would turn that country into a haven for terrorists and would let Iran come to dominate the Middle East."

Harry Reid, who had declared the war "lost" in April 2007, questioned General Petraeus' honesty before even hearing the General's report.

On Friday, Reid went so far as to question not only the true source of the report but also the four-star general's honesty.

"He has made a number of statements over the years that have not proven to be factual," Reid said.

Harry Reid also led the charge to the rear for the Democrats, beginning in April.

“Now, I believe myself that the secretary of State, the secretary of Defense – and you have to make your own decision as to what the president knows – that this war is lost and that the surge is not accomplishing anything, as indicated by the extreme violence in Iraq yesterday.”
--Harry Reid, April 19, 2007 press conference.

Four days later, Reid was even more explicit about his mistrust of Patraeus and his report in a CNN interview with Dana Bash.

“No, I don't believe him, because it's not happening,” said Reid. “All you have to do is look at the facts. The factors are this has been going on for three months. American deaths are at the highest they've been in two years. We have – it's like a balloon. Things have quieted down a little in Baghdad, but just a little bit.

“They've even moved up in the Kurdish area now. Have tremendous explosions up there, killing two dozen people today. The situation in Iraq is not getting better, and it won't until we change course,” he said.

The other senator from Illinois, majority whip Richard Durbin, was even more insistent that he had a clue.

"President Bush is preparing to tell the nation, once again, that his strategy in Iraq is succeeding. We know what the Bush-Petraeus report will say: The surge is working. Be patient. The reality is despite heroic efforts by U.S. troops, the Bush surge is not working."

"By carefully manipulating the statistics, the Bush-Petraeus report will try to persuade us that violence in Iraq is decreasing and thus the surge is working," he said. "Even if the figures were right, the conclusion is wrong."

Illinois had the honor of having a foreign policy three-fer: Rep. Rahm Emanuel joined Obama and Durbin in piling on Petraeus.

"We don't need a report that wins the Nobel Prize for creative statistics or the Pulitzer for fiction."

"Time will tell" is the smart rejoinder when arguing about future events. It is one that the Democrats may have used to their advantage on September 11, 2007. It would have meant a lot less time spinning on September 11, 2008.

However, Congressional Democrats had their talking points already written before they had heard the Petraeus Report.

They chose to attack the man in charge of winning the war in Iraq, General Patraeus, because what he had to say did not support their own views and agendas.

One year later, time has told its tale.

To the exoneration of General Petraeus--and the chagrin of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

The two Democrats now trying to convince the country, on September 11, 2008, that they have the foreign policy judgment to lead the USA forward through a dangerous world.

by Mondoreb
chart: cybercast news service

Mainstream Media Sarah Palin Bias: Dog Bites Man Story

Two More Examples of the Unbiased MSM:
Take the US magazine Bias Comparison Taste Test
New York Times: 3 Days, 67 Anti-Palin Articles




The Mainstream Media's favorite meme--other than Sarah Palin = AntiChrist--is that they are an unbiased news source. The anti-Palin MSM coverage is reaching frenzied heights--even for the MSM.

MSM bias is a 'dog bites man' story--to everyone but the perps in Big Media.

Hysience sums up the MSM 'reporting' on Sarah Palin with one image: the one pictured above. From Media Coverage of McCain/Palin:

In case you didn't know already, Us publisher Jann Wenner is a prominent Obama donor who also publishes Rolling Stone, which deified Obama in March. Michelle Malkin points out that "the use of the gossip rags to shape the election is all part and parcel of the Brangelina-fication of the Obamas that I wrote about earlier this summer. They are pulling out all the stops to glorify The One and demonize all who stand in his way.

Sixty-Seven and Counting...


Don Surber notes that once the New York Times gets a meme in its teeth, it doesn't let go:

The new New York Times mantra: Palin is no Hillary. In 3 days since Palin appeared, 67 New York Times articles have made that clear.

Palin’s not Hillary. Palin’s better. Palin didn’t accept bribes disguised as “cattle futures” money. Palin did not tolerate the serial sexual harassment of women by her husband as a means of grabbing power. Palin worked up from city council, and did not waltz into the United States Senate on her husband’s name. Palin can hunt, fish and help make a go of it in business.

Holders of the NY Times stock can't scream "SELL!" loud or fast enough.

NY Times Dishes Palin Dirt; Loses 30,000 More Subscribers


Surber also notes:

Sarah Baxter of the Times of London, a good reporter, asked, “Will America fall in love with Palin or will she fizzle, like Dan Quayle, the vice-president to George Bush Sr who could not spell ‘potatoe’?

Don’t worry. Palin’s from Idaho. They spell potato before they learn the whole alphabet.

Baxter's also an excellent plagiariser, Times Online Stealing Blogger's Content.

We already remarked on US News & World Report's over-the-top piece, Sarah Palin, Hillary Attacks: Fear and Loathing in the MSM.

To catalog all the craziness would be a full-time job for a dozen MSM watchers.


PUMAs Roar; Anti-PUMAs Roar Back


We've received some comments along the lines of "Hillary Clinton supporters will never support Sarah Palin". It's also a big meme for the Mainstream Media.

However, one PUMA does see the MSM bias and remarks on it:

* New York Times corrects one lie, ABC gloats over trash

While one blog remarks sums up the Obama (and MSM) take on PUMAs:

* gluing
Which summed up Clinton's DNC speech, thus:

It was a fine speech, and hopefully some of that dumbass PUMA crowd will realize that voting for a candidate who holds the complete opposite views as their beloved HRC is utterly useless. Probably not. But I can hope.

PUMAs know.

It's all about presenting the "news" to US consumers in a fair and unbiased way.


by Mondoreb
images: hysicence; andyandval, Free Republic

John Edwards, Sarah Palin: Tale of Two NY Times' Stories

NY Times Tale of the Investigative Tape:
John Edwards: Ten months
Sarah Palin: Five days



It all boils down to what you're interested in investigating.

ITEM: It took the New York Times ten months to muster the willpower to look into the John Edwards affair, scandal and ongoing cover-up. It took the Grey Shady only five days to swing into action on Sarah Palin.

ITEM: It was reported today that the NY Times lost another 30,000+ subscribers.

Are the two items related?

The Times' investigative sleuths better go back to Dirt Digging 101: the dirt as seen through the eyes of the proud party progressives who labor in the editorial room wouldn't fill a small sweeper bag.

Times' "reporter", Elisabeth Bumiller is worried about the "vetting process" by the John McCain campaign when they chose Palin. After all, Palin's daughter is pregnant and Palin's husband had a DUI 22 years ago.

From Disclosures on Palin Raise Questions on Vetting Process:

On Monday morning, Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd, issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant and that she intended to marry the father.

Among other less attention-grabbing news of the day: it was learned that Ms. Palin now has a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner; that she was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede; and that Mr. Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge.

A drunken driving charge against Todd Palin from twenty-two years ago raises the red flags for Elisabeth Bumiller; Edwards impregnating a paramour while campaigning on morality and making "family" a centerpiece of his campaign, didn't.

A wayward teen daughter concerns Ms. Bumiller, while funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars through associates, lying to the public, and the dozens of curious connections in the John Edwards story only served as a sort of journalistic sleep aid for her and the NY Times.

While there was no sign that her formal nomination this week was in jeopardy, the questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions.

John McCain makes a decision which absolutely shores up--what was until his announcement of Palin for VP--lukewarm conservative support, and the NY Times is scouring the globe to find Republicans who are worried that "Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment"?

FLASH!

If John McCain had chosen Jesus Christ as Vice-President, Democrats would have used the selection for political gain: that's what political parties do. There would have been the odd Republican worried about it and the Times would have all over that RINO like John Edwards on a videographer in a NY bar.

The Mainstream (Progressive) Media is always "worried" about whether Republicans and conservatives will hurt themselves while playing in the political street. It's an old game--and one that NY Times' ex-readers were onto a long time ago.

Huffington Post reported today that the New York Times Circulation Plummets, as another 30,000+ subscribers scrubbed the Times' brand of "journalism" off their list.

The Times can't even interest people in New York City: it's now the fourth-largest seller among NYC resident.

The New York Times has lost almost 20% of its circulation in New York City between 2001 and 2004, its competitor, The New York Post reports. And the Post gleefully notes that its own circulation in NYC has soared 29% in the same period. So comparing the papers' circulation in New York City today, the Post sells 371,341 copies to the Times' 260,526.

One other Times' "bombshell" was that Palin "was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede".

Leave aside for the moment how many thousands of disgusted Americans might feel the same way; thousands of New York Times' readers continue to vote with their pocketbooks about seceding from the Times' subscriber list.

The investigative timelines for John Edwards and Sarah Palin gives them another good reason to flee the New York Times.


by Mondoreb
image: bentartgallery

John Edwards: New York Times State of Mind

New York Times John Edwards Coverage:
Let Sleeping Dog Lie


Our Watchdog Press


Exhibiting that "New York Times state of mind" that has characterized the paper's (lack of) investigative effort in the Edwards story, Times' columnists, David Brooks and Gail Collins, argue that, after the Times' 11-day coverage of the affair, the John Edwards affair is ready to "recede[s] into history".

From State of Affairs

Gail Collins:David, we’re about to embark on back-to-back conventions, so let’s find something else to talk about besides the presidential race. Before the John Edwards affair recedes into history, should we discuss Lessons Learned?

Lessons Learned?

One of the lessons DBKP has learned thus far: Don't depend on the New York Times to break anything of consequence on politically-sensitive news that affects Dem pols. Subtract from the Times' John Edwards' coverage the stories:
A. the Times stole from bloggers;
B. the Times covers itself for not covering the Edwards story; and,
C. that either furiously spun why it didn't investigate Edwards or conversational pieces like the Collins-Brooks gabfest.

What's left? Not much.

If forced, The NYT may comment only as much as is necessary on the National Enquirer's investigative work--before it assigns another reporter on its possible story about Edwards' possible past dalliance with a Duke co-ed.

Collins continues to echo the "Edwards scandal was a sex story" MSM meme--demonstrating that the Times is perfectly willing to let others beat it to the bigger story of the cover-up and the money trails that even now have our "crack research department" reaching for the Dramamine.

I hope the mainstream media doesn’t decide that this means they should commit their limited investigative resources to trailing every allegation of political adultery The National Enquirer uncovers. We all have specialties in life — I’m good with letting The National Enquirer folks hang onto their niche.

Could Collins be referring to the niche known as "news"?

As voters, our interest in which big names are sleeping around is real but limited. One limit is that you don’t torture also-rans. If Edwards had ever had a serious chance of becoming the Democratic nominee, this would have been a huge matter. He’d made his marriage a major part of his campaign — by the end, it was really the main thing he had going. Imagine the chaos the Democrats would be in right now if he had the nomination locked up.

"Imagine the chaos the Democrats would be in right now if he had the nomination locked up."

Actually, the REAL mental exercise would be imagining the chaos right now in the Times' editorial office. How would they go about reporting on a Dem nominee's scandal and cover-up that they had never written about?

Collins and the Times still don't get it: this was an affair--big deal. But it was, and is, an elaborate cover-up undertaken at precisely the time when the Times, and others in the MSM, failed to perform their traditional duties vetting and investigating candidates running for president.

Collins would have been spared the mental gymnastics of "the chaos the Democrats would be in right now if he [Edwards] had the nomination locked up", if the Times had assigned a mail room worker to do even the most elementary investigation on a home PC.

Regardless of their opinions of the National Enquirer, the tabloid presented the MSM with a gift-wrapped box of facts to check out in December on John Edwards, when he was very much in the running for the Democratic nomination.

What's more important than what media watchdogs, Gail Collins or DBKP think about the Times, are what readers, advertisers and stock buyers think about the decrepit Grey Lady. From a few months ago;

THE New York Times once epitomised all that was great about American newspapers; now it symbolises its industry’s deep malaise. The Grey Lady’s circulation is tumbling, down another 3.9% in the latest data from America’s Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC). Its advertising revenues are down, too (12.5% lower in March than a year earlier), as is the share price of its owner, the New York Times Company, up from its January low but still over 20% below what it was last July. On Tuesday April 29th Standard & Poor’s cut the firm’s debt rating to one notch above junk.

At the company’s annual meeting a week earlier, its embattled publisher, Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger, attempted to quash rumours that his family is preparing to jettison the firm it has owned since 1896. Carnage is expected soon as dozens of what were once the safest jobs in journalism are axed, since too few of the staff have accepted a generous offer of voluntary redundancy.

Note to Colins, et.al.:
New York Times stock price (Aug 22 2008) - $13.21, down from the $23.65 of a year ago.

Might be time for the New York Times to change that "All the News That our Hopeless Editorial Staff Decides is Fit to Print" slogan to something a little catchier.

Like maybe, "We read the Enquirer, too"?


by Mondoreb
images: dbkp file

John Edwards Scandal: NY Times is "Gray Shady Lady"?

"Deceiver was steadily working this story long before the Times printed one word. All it takes is a one-sentence credit to avoid these things. Play fair."




New York Times' top researcher?

Will the New York Times be known the "Gray Shady Lady" before it becomes the "Gray Bag Lady"?

Today, Gawker takes notice of a disturbing rip-off: [Times Takes Edwards Scandal Info From Blogger Without Credit]

Yesterday the New York Times ran a story about the John Edwards affair, detailing the circumstances behind the meeting of Edwards and Rielle Hunter in a Beverly Hills hotel that ended up getting the ex-VP candidate caught by the National Enquirer. The story includes various bits of background info on Bob McGovern, a new-age friend of Hunter who set up the meeting. Just about all of that background appears to have been taken from a post more than a week earlier on Deceiver.com—although the Times didn't credit them at all. That's stealing.

The Mainstream Media has been getting ripped--well, by everyone, but the blogosphere, in particular--for not covering the John Edwards scandal until August 8, when it went from "it's not news" to "Hey, it's 24/7 news".

Now, the MSM is ripping off the bloggers, who along with the National Enquirer, were the only ones to cover the John Edwards scandal for months.

Yesterday, DBKP wrote about the theft of material from both here and website, Deceiver, by the MSM, and one of the reasons behind it.[Mainstream Media Uses Blogosphere as Unpaid Research Wing in Edwards Scandal - UPDATED]

Of course, the MSM wouldn’t have had to resort to these shady practices if just one of the members of their clubby community had investigated allegations surrounding John Edwards nine months ago: but that would’ve put a dent in the invitations to the wine-and-cheese parties.

The only investigation came from the National Enquirer and a few bloggers. But, you wouldn’t know it if you watched the Big Media frenzy of this past weekend. Some stories didn’t even mention the National Enquirer by name–it became an unnamed “tabloid”.

Gawker concludes it piece comparing the Times and Deceiver pieces:

"Deceiver was steadily working this story long before the Times printed one word. All it takes is a one-sentence credit to avoid these things. Play fair."

NOTE: If the MSM had taken Gawker's advice to "play fair" prior to August 8, they'd have no reason to steal now, trying to play catch-up.

by Mondoreb
dbkp file image

Bill O'Reilly: Tap Dancing Around Alleged Obama Scandal?

While the New York Times continues to falter and sink...






We're not the only ones with a sharp eye. Yesterday a video was posted on Youtube by someone who believes they heard Bill O'Reilly and Tony Snow on The O'Reilly Factor allude to the still unsubstantiated scandal of illegal drugs and gay sex surrounding Senator Barack Obama.






O'Reilly and Snow were discussing the story put out by the New York Times which alluded to an affair between the top Republican candidate for President, Senator John McCain, and one cute blond lobbyist, Vicki Iseman.

Excerpts from the show's transcripts:

SNOW: But it seems that Bill Keller, the executive editor, thought this was a sloppy piece of work and kept resisting it. There was a lot of pressure out of the Washington bureau. "Hey, we've got something saucy, boss." And whether Bill Keller, for whatever reason, knuckled under and figured that this is the way to sort of get along, I don't know.

But having been in journalism for nearly 30 years, I've got to tell you, no editor is going to look at something like that and say that it measures up, because it doesn't. It doesn't even measure up in terms of gossip.

Reporting more on the level of the gossip rag, the National Enquirer, the Times piece on McCain was indeed, sloppy, and guilty of printing a story full of unsubstantiated gossip and innuendo, the foundation of the story built on the quicksand of "unnamed" sources.

O'REILLY: Well, here's the real tragedy, and this is an American tragedy, because this is stuff that's been going on for far too long. There isn't an accusation that McCain broke any law. There isn't an accusation that he actually had an affair with a woman. They don't say he did. Both parties deny that. OK?

All they do in The New York Times article is insinuate, is suggest, based on no hard evidence.

Snow and O'Reilly go on to discuss the pattern of journalistic misbehavior by the once venerable New York Times and other organizations whose readership is in decline:

SNOW: Look, I also think that there is a problem right now in journalism. Everybody's trying to get on air as rapidly as possible with something as sensational as possible. This is why we get all of these Britney Spears stories.

But the fact is that this is a presidential campaign. People are sick of this stuff. They're sick of the kind of cannibalism that goes on in Washington. They're sick of sloppy smears. What they like is somebody who's actually talking about stuff.

O'REILLY: See, I disagree with you there.

SNOW: No.

O'REILLY: There has been a longstanding rumor, and you know it, about a Democratic, powerful Democratic person in this country, longstanding, been around, people have looked at it, never reported by anyone, never mentioned by anyone. Easily done in the same way The New York Times did it. I could do it. I could do it. I could do it tomorrow, anonymous sources told me this individual in America, again, a prominent Democrat... Source - FOXNews

Is O'Reilly alluding to the Obama story swirling around the blogs, of a gay man who is accusing the squeaky clean Senator of two incidents of illegal drug use and oral sex? The story no one in the MSM dare not investigate nor dare not speak of?

While the MSM turns its collective noses up at verifying whether the Obama story is true the Times made the decision to print the hit piece on McCain. This isn't the first nor will it be the last time people will be outraged over the shenanigans over at the Times. Howls of protest they're used to, but not a steady decline in readership and advertising, the cash cow that keeps them going.

We agree with Snow and O'Reilly. The Times has failed Journalism's most basic tenets, reliable sources, facts back by hard evidence. In other words, after all these years of leaning hard to the Left, the Times finally fell into the realm of "slacker" journalism, or even lower, a "rag" mag.

But there's that other story sitting in the background, on another candidate running for President, a very popular Democrat candidate. The story concerns alleged illegal drug use and gay sex, also "unsubstantiated" and no "hard evidence" other than the man who claims he was a participant back in 1999.

The story hidden within the story is why the Times went with the "hit" piece on McCain and continues to ignore the story on the Democrat front-runner, Barack Obama.

We've attempted to get an interview from Larry Sinclair, the man at the center of the drug and sex allegations aimed at Obama.

We're not sure what's going on over at the Times, if reality has been supplanted by a Liberal Ship of Fools intent upon steering the course of American politics, while their ship founders and slowly sinks into the Journalistic Sargasso Sea.

By LBG

Image - Ship of Fools
Source - Obama: Gay Man Threatened Over Sex and Drug Claims
Source - Youtube - Obama's Limo Sex and Drug Party



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.
Source - Youtube

John McCain: New Female Lobbyist Scandal?

New York Times says "Waves of Anxiety"
Swept Through McCain Camp

A new scandal for the McCain campaign?

And even though The New York Times doesn't have much credibility in the news or editorial departments, we're going to comment on it.

Lobbyist Vicki Iseman is caught up in a scandal involving Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

Both McCain and Iseman, naturally enough, have denied having any romantic relationship.



John McCain

From the NY Times, a member in good standing of the Mainstream Media wing of the Democratic National Committee:

Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, in his offices and aboard a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself - instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s clients, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

We'll start by saying that any regular readers knows that there's no love lost between DBKP and John McCain.

McCain is not a conservative, but his backers continually chastise conservatives for not kowtowing to the "Straight Talker".

But, our intense disdain for the New York Times and their "reportage" is legendary.

The fact that this story showed up in the Times reveals more about the NY Times than John McCain.

The POS Times, who remained deaf and dumb and blind during, after and through the present-day concerning the John Edwards Love Child scandal and, more recently, the Larry Sinclair allegations about Barack Obama, finally have found some unnamed sources they deem worthy to report on.

So, when considering how much weight to give to this story, remember the source.

Back on December 21, DBKP reported on an unnamed female Telecom lobbyist that McCain had shown special favors to.
"John McCain and Lobbyists: Not Exactly News"

We wrote four or five stories on McCain's lobbyists relationships, quashed stories and such. But we wrote over 25 stories on the tawdry affair and subsequent cover-up of John Edwards and Rielle Hunter.

Where was the august NY Times then?

For that matter, where is the Times now?

Not one drop of ink was spilled on the Time's pages about that affair, which is still on-going.

The Times is also silent on the Larry Sinclair allegations and federal lawsuit concerning Barack Obama.

Of course, McCain has an "R" beside his name, while Obama and Edwards have the "Time's Anointed" "D" besides their's.

So our skepticism concerning the NY Time's John McCain story is well-deserved.

Until the Times shows the same balance in reporting unnamed allegations, they're still the same tired, mistrusted New York Times.

News that's fit for the supermarket checkout line--sometimes--and that's about it.

by Mondoreb
image: Alaska Report
Source: NYTimes
* Vicki Iseman in John McCain Scandal



Death by 1000 Papercuts Front Page.