Redstate

By Soren Dayton Posted in 2008 | Barack Obama | John McCain | Media Bias | The New York Times — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Today, the New York Times wrote a whole story about Colin Powell not saying bad things about Barack Obama. The same day, they run another hit piece on John McCain about housing. No wonder, the lefty nutjobs are going to spend $40m because the press has "fallen down on the job." What are they looking for? After all, the New York Times already runs fact-free stories attacking McCain.

Read on for a review of this morning's coverage.

First, the story on Obama:

Former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell may have contributed $2,300 to the Republican presidential campaign of Senator John McCain, but he is reserving his strongest praise for the Democratic candidacy of Senator Barack Obama. ...

“I thought that Senator Obama handled the issue well,” Mr. Powell told ABC’s “Good Morning America.” “He didn’t abandon the minister that brought him closer to his faith, but at the same time he deplored the kinds of statements that the Reverend Wright had made.”

Does anyone remember the last time that Colin Powell attacked anyone? Anyone? I can't remember a single example. Wow. That's newsworthy.

Meanwhile, Michael Cooper manufacturers a flip-flop. The first version of this story was actually titled "McCain Reverses Himself on Mortgage Position" before they changed it to "shifted. While some conservatives are not exactly thrilled with John McCain's housing proposal, it is neither a "reversal" nor a "shift" so much as a fleshing out of a proposal. The opening paragraph shows how silly the reporting is. Cooper first points out that McCain didn't call for "broad government intervention" a month ago, and this time, he calls for "for the federal government to aid some homeowners in danger of losing their homes."

In fact, in March, McCain said:

In our effort to help deserving homeowners, no assistance should be given to speculators. Any assistance for borrowers should be focused solely on homeowners, not people who bought houses for speculative purposes, to rent or as second homes.

What did McCain say yesterday?

The mortgage plan that Mr. McCain unveiled — which his advisers said was designed for needy homeowners, and not financial institutions — would apply to people who were falling behind on payments on their primary residences who could show that they would be able to meet the terms of a new, 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.

That's not very different. So what is the "shift"? No evidence.

Another day, another baseless story out of the New York Times. What's tomorrow?