Some More Summertime, Old Gray Lady Wankery

I was actually going to cut Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times some slack for the following (from here, in which she tries to make the case that Obama is not getting credit for his successes supposedly like Obama’s predecessor, which is a stretch to say the least)…

It is an argument that sounds eerily similar to the one Mr. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, made to justify an unpopular war in Iraq as he watched his own poll numbers sink lower. Mr. Bush and his aides often felt they could not catch a break; when the economy was humming along — or at least seemed to be humming along — the Bush White House never got credit for it, because the public was so upset about the war.

I can never recall the economy “humming along” under Former President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History (here), but there you are.

However, what really cheesed me off was when Stolberg came back with the following today (here)…

Every president’s calculus is different. Mr. Bush quit playing golf after the August 2003 bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad; he later said, “Playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

As K.O. tells us here from a Media Matters link, Dubya lied even about that; CBS News has records of Bush playing golf as late as Oct. 13 of that year, nearly two months later.

Next time, try reporting.