-By Warner Todd Huston
James Taranto of The Wall Street Journal did yeoman’s work showing us a perfect example of the abject bias of The New York Times by highlighting the way the “paper of record” ripped Bush’s Gross National Product report while putting a happy face on Obama’s even worse report.
In his October 30 Best of the Web column, Taranto dug up a 1992 Times report that called George H. W. Bush’s GDP of 2.7 percent a “Gross National Letdown.”
In 1992, The Times carped that the 2.7 percent GDP was not encouraging and scolded President Bush for having a smile about his report, even though it was twice the previous report’s growth rate. Naturally, The Times then wanted a stimulus package big enough to “matter” for further growth.
In all, The Times felt George H. W. Bush was more or less a failure and its down-in-the-mouth editorial was suitably hectoring of the elder Bush.
Ah, but Obama is the light bringer. Taranto noted that this year’s Times editorial was far more upbeat for a far worse GDP report.
This year, The Times felt that Obama’s 2.3 percent GDP was a “Slow but Steady Improvement.” Suddenly all the head shaking and tsk tsking was gone from the paper’s editorial and it was all hope and change.
Why this momentous 2.3 percent growth means that “Mr. Obama has the stronger argument” for this re-election campaign. The paper also felt that this great occasion is “some cause for optimism.”
Yes, for The Times Obama’s anemic 2.3 percent was a cause for celebration whereas H.W. Bush’s 2.7 percent was a sad, sad, day.
Not much bias there, eh?
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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