Matt Bai

New York Times political reporter Matt Bai still hasn’t forgotten the "overtly racist" Willie Horton ad and sees "a racial element" in just about every attack against President Obama, no matter what the issue. His latest "Political Times" column, "Race and Republican Attacks on Obama," posted online Tuesday, pivoted from Newt Gingrich’s latest press drubbing to the matter of racism and the G.O.…

After accusing presidential candidate Newt Gingrich of racism during an interview on Sunday's Meet the Press, NBC host David Gregory later posed this question to the show's political panel: "Do you think he [Gingrich] dialed back the reputation as...a flamethrower?...I mean, talking about Obama and anti-colonial views, about anti-Americanism." The mostly liberal panelists used the…

Newt Gingrich: He’s No Mario Cuomo "Whatever can Newt Gingrich be thinking? That’s the question a lot of political handicappers are asking now that Newt, as he is universally known in Washington, has decided to enter the 2012 campaign, with an announcement expected on Wednesday. Until recently, most of my colleagues assumed that the former speaker of the House, who flirted with running four…

Newt Gingrich: He’s no Mario Cuomo. New York Times political writer Matt Bai’s "Political Memo" Wednesday was pretty hostile to the battle-scared Republican leader considering a 2012 run for president: "Gingrich’s Run Reflects His Sense of History." Bai led off by asking "Whatever can Newt Gingrich be thinking?" given that he "has never been elected to anything outside his old Congressional…

This week’s edition of MRC’s Notable Quotables newsletter is chock full of liberal media quotes showing reporters’ slanted approach to the tax and budget issues now at center stage. In fact, there’s so much bad material, we had to add an extra page to our usually three-page newsletter (you can view/download the PDF here). The whole issue is up over at www.MRC.org. Here’s a baker’s dozen of…

Matt Bai, chief political correspondent for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, celebrated the “grace and gravitas” of former New York State governor and perpetual Democratic presidential hopeful Mario Cuomo, “Papa Doesn’t Preach – Mario Cuomo would be a perfect elder statesman, if only his son’s generation wanted one.” Bai talked to the elder Cuomo, whose son Andrew is governor of New York…

Matt Bai’s upcoming New York Times Sunday Magazine cover profile of Chris Christie, New Jersey's attention-getting Republican governor, has its questionable moments, but the overall tone was far more temperate than a teaser the Times used to promote it, featured on the front page of nytimes.com Thursday evening. The segment of Bai's long story the Times chose to highlight is one that just…

On Sunday, New York Times political reporter/columnist Matt Bai wondered if we are at the start of a “terrifying new” moment in political violence in “A Turning Point in the Discourse, but in Which Direction?” Bai argued that the act of Republican politicians saying standard political things was somehow fueling the rhetorical flames. He at least appeared evenhanded at the beginning. Within…

On Sunday, the New York Times issued a surprise half-correction to the unverified claim, made in Matt Bai's July 18 story, that racial epithets were hurled at Democratic congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis during protests against Obama-care at the U.S. Capitol on March 20. Bai wrote:The question of racism in the amorphous Tea Party movement is, of course, a serious one, since so much of…

Just how much of a liberal cocoon does New York Times political reporter Matt Bai live in? Apparently a mighty thick one judging by the fact that he thought he could repeat a provably false lie about a supposed example of Tea Party racism in his most recent article. Almost everybody with even a little bit of political savvy can already guess what example I am referring to but let us allow Bai to…

New York Times writer Matt Bai's Thursday "Political Times" column, "A Risky Campaign Tactic: Unpleasant Truth," heralded the comeback of former liberal Republican Lincoln Chafee, who left the party after losing his re-election bid in 2006 and is running for governor of Rhode Island as an independent. What brave-if-brutal "truth" is Chafee telling? The need for tax hikes, naturally.There's a lot…

One of the New York Times's favorite themes is the ever-impending Republican civil war that will ruin the party's chances in whatever election that's coming up. Former chief political reporter Adam Nagourney is a past master, but he's now covering the West Coast. Luckily, Times contributor Matt Bai was there to fill the gap Thursday, explaining how the Republicans may blow a great opportunity…

The New York Times's embrace of Barack Obama's candidacy, and its fervent defense of him against John McCain's "racist" and unfair attacks, made 2008 a particularly bias-packed year for the paper. During the 2008 campaign Times bias often came with a smile, instead of a snarl, with the Times and the rest of the mainstream media having fallen hard for Obama's "historic" candidacy (jilting its…

The New York Times posted on its website Wednesday political writer Matt Bai's long profile of Barack Obama, which will be featured in the next edition of the Times Sunday Magazine. Near the end of the 8,800-word piece, in which Bai talked to Obama on his campaign plane, the Democrat dropped a backhanded tribute to Fox News, which by his lights is not only frustrating him in the polls, but is…