The New York Times' Tea Party convention coverage continues to be dreadful
February 06, 2010 2:53 pm ET by Eric Boehlert
I'm getting the feeling that if Tea Party conventioneers told the Times' Kate Zernike that the earth was flat she'd run with it.
As noted earlier, she referenced Tea Party organizers who claimed "millions" had marched at Tea Party protests within the last year; a figure that appers to be fabricated.
Now in a follow-up piece, Zernike writes [emphasis added]:
Susan and Gil Harper from Cushing, Me. — she a lawyer who telecommutes to New York, he a furniture maker — said they had limited their political involvement to voting. But Mr. Harper said the bank bailout outraged them, and pushed him to his first Tea Party rally.
By Christmas, he told his wife that what he wanted was a ticket to the Tea Party Convention. When she gave it to him, she said she would go along, but only incognito, wearing a hat and sunglasses.
“Because of Nancy Pelosi calling people who believe in the Tea Party movement Nazis,” she explained. “My grandfather’s family, as Polish Jews, escaped Nazism. To call us Nazis is an abomination.”
Fact: Nancy Pelosi never called Tea Party supporters "Nazis." Period. But the Times quotes a conservative making that slanderous claim. The Times treats the outlandish allegation as fact.
What ever happened to "qualifying" a quote so as to make it clear when someone's opinion ranges far from the truth?
Randy
It's the way the media works today. I'm surprised they still hire people with a college degree. Literally anyone could simply write down what someone said.
Someone joined a movement simply because somebody else called them "Nazis" ??
I mean, I know Pelosi never actually said that, but ...
Does that mean this person also joined the Obama administration and the skinhead movement because someone called them "Nazis" as well?
This "Tea Party" movement seems largely about mainstreaming the crazies ...
The way see that's ENTIRELY what it's about. If it weren't for them, the Republican's would be clear to take much much of the Democratic majority, and at a stretch, the congress. But with these wild cards on the Right, potentially fielding third candidate and screwing up Republican primaries, who knows...
----------------------------------------------------------------
Right now they're the Right's worst enemy.
It's that simple.
Bush bailed out the banks BEFORE the election (TARP), and the guy that lost the election supported that bailout.
I called into the NPR program asking for a clarification or correction (or better yet let me make the point that the teaparty is about lying and ignorance, and their own interview proved this), and the screener told me that NPR was not obligated to correct nonfactual information in the lead-ins to their program, and they would not let me do it on air because they would only accept call-ins from tea baggers.
Is history, even recent history, really that hard?
Also, for the person who was mad that we bailed out the banks, I'm sure said person would be even more mad if unemployment had gotten to say, 20 percent, and a large portion of our economy failed, and we went into a deep depression (which is what most economists said would have happened had we NOT bailed out the big banks).
I mean, really, these folks should just come out and say, "We hate Obama" and leave it at that, instead of hiding behind some sort of "movement".
How much you want to bet she will be carrying a sign comparing Obama to Hitler. Poor little Tea haggers, feel only they have a right to compare other people to the nazis.
To me, believing something is true only because Rush and Fox news reports it is an abomination.
Class is Over Taxed...and the Tea Party is real...much like Boston
in the Colonial times.
pl
She seems more interested in helping them become a 'force.' Good for her career no doubt.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/us/politics/07teaparty.html?hp
I found that out with 30 seconds of google power: "susan harper cushing". She is a liar. I know it. You know it. Why didn't the NYT bother to spend the time to find it out?
“Because of Nancy Pelosi calling people who believe in the Tea Party movement Nazis,” she explained referring to the House speaker, who actually did not call Tea Party members Nazis, but noted that some protesters had carried swastikas. “My grandfather’s family, as Polish Jews, escaped Nazism. To call us Nazis is an abomination.”
However, at least one of the NYT syndication's subscribers (The San Francisco Sentinel) still has the wording you have above, without the addition.
PELOSI: I think they're Astroturf; you be the judge. They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on health care.
I know. She was only commenting that they were carrying the swastika signs as an expression of disapproval of the Nazi regime. Of course. How would anyone have gotten a different understanding of why she said that? Get real, people!