New York Times Reporter Parrots GOP Talking Points, Suggests Obama’s Middle East Policy Is ‘Naive’ And ‘Quaint’

By Judd Legum

This morning on Fox News Sunday, New York Times reporter Jeff Zeleny suggested Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East, as articulated in his 2009 Cairo speech, was “naive” and “quaint.” He also speculated, without any substantiation, that the attacks on the U.S. embassy in Libya could be the result of “a major intelligence failure.” The transcript:

If it turns out a month from now that there was a major intelligence failure I think this is going to look pretty irresponsible and silly right now to say this is all because of a trailer for a video. I was at that speech in Cairo in 2009 and I’m struck how much has changed and how much it almost looks some of those comments sound — I don’t know if naive — but quaint given everything that happened with the Arab Spring and things and certainly not really relevant. I think there is time for a reset of that reset and we haven’t heard the president talk about his policy a lot sense then.

Zeleny’s comments parroted the talking points of the Romney campaign and the Republican party. Two days ago, Rudy Giuliani — a prominent Romney surrogate — called Obama’s foreign policy in the Middle East “naive” on CNBC. This week, Sarah Palin and Pat Buchannan offered the exact same critique, citing the Cairo speech.

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http://thinkprogress.org/media/2012/09/16/855741/new-york-times-reporter-parrots-gop-talking-points-suggests-obamas-middle-east-policy-is-naive-and-quaint/

NYT Public Editor: Both Versions Of Story On Romney’s Libya Response Should Have Stayed Online

The New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan weighed in on the issue of a substantially revised story on Mitt Romney's response to the violence against U.S. diplomats in Egypt and Libya, concluding that both versions of the Times' story should have remained online. The paper's approach to editing and revising online stories is always evolving, Sullivan wrote, adding:

But in this case, the stories were very different in wording, if not in intent, and the quotes from Romney advisers were striking ones to remove altogether.

It’s clear to me that these two versions should have been treated as different stories and that both should have remained accessible on the Web site.

The Times explained to TPM on Thursday that the paper preferred to use on-the-record quotes over the quotes from unnamed sources.

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/nyt-public-editor-both-versions-of-story-on