Repubs Flopping in Face of “Widely Respected,” Non-Liberal Hillary

     Friday’s front page is dominated by Patrick Healy’s “Clinton Challenger Pulled From Reagan-Era Hat,” on the newest Republican candidate challenging Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Senate this year.

     Sen. Clinton’s opponent, whoever it turns out to be, is in for an uphill battle. But the Times doesn’t give Kathleen T. McFarland any shot at all (check out that dismissive headline, which seethes with a sense of Republican flop-sweat). Her name isn’t even mentioned until the fifth paragraph.

      Healy’s story fits the bill. “It was supposed to be a marquee Republican campaign of the 2006 elections -- a fusillade-style effort to defeat Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, which, even if it did not succeed, would excite donors nationally, raise millions for the party and perhaps weaken Mrs. Clinton before the 2008 presidential race.

     “Instead, to the chagrin of Republicans in New York and Washington, the party has not recovered from the December implosion of Jeanine F. Pirro's campaign against Mrs. Clinton. Republicans have been desperate for a credible challenger, while party leaders in Washington have tried to fill the vacuum by attacking Mrs. Clinton as ‘angry’ and ‘brittle’ -- criticism they wish was coming from the campaign trail in New York.”

     That “implosion” was at least partially provided by the Times mining its Pirro coverage with negative details (third item).

     High up, Healy tars Republican hopeful John Spencer, the mayor of Yonkers, as having “a caustic manner and a history of infidelity,” two accusations which could apply to Hillary “plantation” Clinton and Bill (too many to list) Clinton, respectively.

     “Those Republican critics are now coalescing around a late entry: Kathleen Troia McFarland, 54, a protégée of Henry A. Kissinger who has not been in public service since working as a Pentagon spokeswoman under President Ronald Reagan. Yet Ms. McFarland, known as K. T., is pretty green: She has been a stay-at-home mother since 1985, and was drawn to the Senate race only because she already believed she was going to lose her bid for a Congressional seat on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.”

     Healy writes: “At the same time, both she and her advisers said the Senate battle provided a crucial chance before the presidential election to test Mrs. Clinton and expose what they see as her liberal voting record.”

     The Times will never simply state the obvious, that Clinton is a liberal senator.

     Then it’s on to a Hillary homage: “No matter who the challenger is, Mrs. Clinton is in formidable shape as a senator with high approval ratings, a widely respected record, and celebrity status in a Democratic-leaning state after eight years as the first lady. Independent polls show her to be remarkably popular in New York, with favorability ratings in the 60 percent range. They have also shown that the attacks on her by Washington Republicans are actually increasing her popularity.”

     Healy doesn’t share his source for that pearl of “independent poll” wisdom, but immediately follows up to confirm it with a no-doubt “independent” source, Clinton pollster Mark Penn: ‘The Republican attacks on Senator Clinton have backfired,’ said Mark Penn, her pollster. ‘It is the Republicans who looked partisan as they continue to sink in the polls.’”

For more of Healy, click here.

Oscar Reporter Likens Treatment of War Critics to McCarthy Era

     Media reporter gone Hollywood guy David Carr loosens up the paper’s usually staid style for his Friday Oscar predictions, “One Last Bet Shot At Calling the Oscars.”

     In his role as the “Carpetbagger” (the name of the Times Oscar blog that he writes), Carr sizes up the prospects of George Clooney stealing the Best Director award from seeming shoo-in Ang Lee (“Brokeback Mountain”).

     Carr sees Iraq War parallels in “Good Night, and Good Luck,” George Clooney’s liberal homage to Joe McCarthy foe, journalist Edward R. Murrow.

     Managing to typecast both the 50s and today as eras of hyper-patriotic jingoism, Carr calls the movie “a well-crafted look at a time in American history when anything less than complete fealty to the republic was seen as treason, which sounds familiar to some moviegoers.”

For Carr’s full rundown of Oscar Night predictions, click here.

The Controversial Patriot Act?

     A revised version of the Patriot Act passed the Senate by an 89-10 margin, but Congressional reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg’s Friday story manages to make the passage sound very controversial.

     “But the vote on Thursday does not end the long-running debate on Capitol Hill over whether the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the government's investigative powers in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, strikes the proper balance between government authority and civil liberties. Some lawmakers who voted for the bill expressed deep reservations about it, and the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee is already drafting further legislation to revise it.”

     Stolberg emphasizes dissent: “Since its adoption in 2001, the Patriot Act has drawn vigorous complaints from advocates for civil liberties, who contend that provisions like those allowing the government to obtain library and medical records infringe on basic civil rights. Then, just before Christmas last year, with Congress rushing to adjourn, the act was caught up in revelations that Mr. Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop without a court order on conversations of Americans and others inside the United States who were suspected of terrorist activity. The resulting impasse prompted Congress to twice extend the original Patriot Act.”

     After quoting Bush  in defense of the bill, Stolberg goes to the measure’s critics. “Critics said the safeguards do not go far enough. Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, pronounced the measure ‘significantly flawed.’

     ‘I tried to have conversations with the White House to improve the bill,’ he said, ‘but my efforts were dismissed.’

     “The Democrat who last year led a filibuster of the bill, Senator Russell D. Feingold of Wisconsin, was so irate over the final measure that he spent much of Wednesday reading the Constitution on the Senate floor to underscore his opposition to ending the debate.”

     Though the bill passed by a huge margin, Stolberg could only find negative quotes about the bill, from Sen. Arlen Specter, who reluctantly voted for it, as well as Sen. Leahy and Feingold.

To read the rest of Stolberg on passage of the Patriot Act, click here.