The New York Times is proving once again that it is simply a tool of the progressives that are presently running the United States.
Earlier in the week President Obama made House minority leader John Boehner public enemy number one in his effort to save the Democratic Party from total electoral disaster this November. In a speech made in Cleveland Ohio, the President called out the minority leader eight times in his 45-minute address, saying that Boehner has no new ideas. Of course when you look at it the President’s only excuse for his policy failures over the past 20+ months is to blame it on his predecessor, not exactly a unique or helpful approach.
On Friday, Nancy Pelosi followed up on the president’s attack. She criticized Boehner for meeting, “countless times with special-interest lobbyists in an effort to stop tough legislation” that would regulate corporations and protect consumers.
Today, the New York Times did their job as press agent for the progressive agenda by running a front page anti-Boehner hit piece that seems to have been written to give some meat to Pelosi’s comments.
Continuing in the Times’ “hit piece tradition,” all of the “hits” are supplied by an anonymous source. This anonymous Times source is a D. C. lobbyist who supposedly is part of a group that regularly meets with the Congressman. This lobbyist claims the minority leader makes decisions based on his influence:
One lobbyist in the club — after lauding each staff member in Mr. Boehner’s office that he routinely calls to ask for help — ticked off the list of recent issues for which he had sought the lawmaker’s backing: combating fee increases for the oil industry, fighting a proposed cap on debit card fees, protecting tax breaks for hedge fund executives and opposing a cap on greenhouse gas emissions.
Now think about that list of issues/positions for a second, they are all positions that a conservative Republican who believes in smaller government and free enterprise would take. Does the Times and its “anonymous source, really expect us to believe Boehner opposed “cap and trade” because of some lobbyist? As a registered Republican, if the minority leader supported “cap and trade” I would have personally driven to Washington to take away his secret Conservative Republican decoder ring, and millions of conservatives would have joined me. Cap and trade, is anti-business, expands government and raises taxes, Boehner’s opposition is a “no-brainer.”
Apparently the story’s writer had no interest in finding out the truth. According to Byron York:
Boehner spokesman Michael Steel says he received a fact-checking email from Times reporter Eric Lipton Friday evening asking if Boehner did in fact oppose the cap on greenhouse gases, the tax change for hedge fund executives, the debit card fee cap, and increased fees on oil and gas companies. “Yes, that is correct,” Steel responded to Lipton, adding “I can tell you why, if you care.” Steel says he received no further notes from Lipton…
“They were offered the opportunity to find out if this was true, and they chose to rely instead on the word of an anonymous lobbyist,” says spokesman Michael Steel. “They intentionally refused to get the information to prove that this allegation was false.”
Mr. Steel may be upset that the Times has no desire to report the truth, but he forgets that the “Gray Lady” has a lot invested in this President. This is the paper that did its best to sabotage the campaign of John McCain, Obama’s opponent in the 2008 campaign. It was the Times that made up a story about John McCain having an affair, even printed an op-ed from candidate Obama but wouldn’t let McCain respond. The “Paper of Record” threw journalistic integrity out the window a very long time ago, so why expect them to be fair now?
The timing of this article is a bit on the strange side, coming the day after a Nancy Pelosi attack on John Boehner based on his lobbyist ties. There is no proof, but when I first read the article, I wondered of Pelosi received advanced word of the article. Her comments Friday and the article being released Saturday seem like an interesting coincidence. But this is the Times; I highly doubt that it would be that blatant and unprofessional.
Or would they?
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