The leftist bias of the New York Times beautifully encapsulated in seven words used about a week before two presidential elections. Headline over Saturday’s editorial on the third quarter GDP creeping up to 2.0 percent under Democrat Barack Obama: “Slow but Steady Improvement.” Headline twenty years ago (October 29, 1992) when Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush was in the White House and the third quarter GDP nearly doubled to 2.7 percent: “Gross National Letdown.”
FNC’s Bret Baier noted the contrasting spins, speculating in his Tuesday night “Grapevine” segment: “The New York Times seems to be changing with the time when it comes to interpreting the country’s economic outlook.”
He then read from the portions of the two editorials which were highlighted in Monday’s “Best of the Web Today [1],” where James Taranto headlined his item: “Two Papers in One!”
From the New York Times editorial, “Gross National Letdown [2],” of Thursday October 29, 1992:
President Bush smiled when he learned this week that economic growth during the third quarter reached a surprising 2.7 percent, almost twice the previous rate. But his smile shouldn’t be broad. The new figure almost certainly exaggerates the health of the economy, which continues to creep along at a painfully slow pace. Even the 2.7 figure is half the normal rate of recovery and not enough to bring down unemployment.
New York Times editorial, “Slow but Steady Improvement [3],” from Saturday October 27, 2012:
The slow pace of the nation’s economic recovery has picked up a bit lately. In the third quarter, the economy grew at an annual rate of 2 percent, beating expectations and the dismal 1.3 percent growth in the second quarter. Over the past year, the growth rate has been 2.3 percent. At that pace, there’s enough momentum to keep unemployment, currently 7.8 percent, from getting much worse.
-- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here [4] to follow Brent Baker on Twitter.