What kind of evil game is the NYTimes playing?

Two incidences does not mean correlation but let’s just say my tin foil antenna are twitching.

Yesterday, the NYTimes posted an article on the unemployed who are 55 or older.  They feature a picture of the subject of the article.  Patricia Reid, to put it kindly, is overweight, with a double chin and is no longer a young blooming rose.  Not only that but it looks like she’s taking a nap at her computer terminal.  Then, there are the details of her demise: when she was first unemployed, she didn’t curb her spending, she took extravagant vacations to Turkey, she employed the use of a chiropractor, she tapped into her 401K and spent most of it, she’s got significant credit card debt and a 3000 sq ft house.

The portrait of this person is highly unflattering.  She’s unattractive, foolish and lazy or so we are lead to believe.  You come away from this article thinking that Ms. Reid deserved it.

Here’s another one from the NYTimes about exhausting unemployment benefits.  In this one, the subject is a bit younger but still obese and past her prime.  The article mentions she was on “disability” before she was laid off.

I take it back.  There is definitely a trend here. Here’s a third article about exhausting unemployment bennies.  Again, the subject of the article is a middle aged woman, obese, with bleach blond hair.  More unflattering details in this one include the fact that the woman has grown children who have not offered her a place to live.  She’s virtually homeless.

Now, none of the unemployed friends I know look or behave anything like these women.  They’re all well educated, dedicated, hard working, responsible people who simply were in the wrong place at the wrong time.  But if you read the NYTimes, you get the impression that the unemployed are fat, lazy, middle aged women who must have done something wrong or they wouldn’t be facing eviction.  They don’t deserve our help.  The unsympathetic characterization of the long term unemployed makes me think that Glenn Beck is editing.

Does anyone have a reasonable explanation for this phenomenon?  Anyone?  Bueller?

Pitch Perfect Analysis on a Mama Grizzly from a Big Dawg

H/t to commenter fif for linking to this piece in the morning thread. From George Snuffleupagus (I just don’t want to typo his name) at ABC… Bill Clinton on Palin: ‘Resilient,’ Like Me, Don’t ‘Underestimate’ Her:

I sat down with the former president  as he kicked off the sixth annual Clinton Global Initiative. Palin, who recently made a high profile trip to Iowa, was the subject of Mark Halperin’s “One Nation” column Monday. I asked Clinton to react to Halperin’s take on the former Alaska governor that “Most of all, she is like Bill Clinton: what doesn’t kill Sarah Palin makes her stronger.”

Clinton laughed and then offered his own observations.

“I do think she’s a resilient character. And we may be entering a sort of period in politics that’s sort of fact free, where the experience in government is a negative,” he told me.

“I think she’s clearly a public figure who is, who speaks well and persuasively to the people who listen to her.  And she’s somebody to be reckoned with,” he said. “And she’s tough.”

I love Bill Clinton. This analysis is the most concise and most accurate I’ve ever seen.

Another tidbit:

So is she qualified to be president?  Clinton said the “American people can elect whomever they want.”

“But [she] served, you know, not a full…term as governor, and she went out and did this. We don’t even know if she’s going to run for President,” he said.

Be sure to read the rest at the link if you haven’t come across Bill’s remarks already. I agree 100% with everything Bill is saying about Palin. Both he and Hillary are class-acts and smart to boot. They are way too astute to give ammo to Palin’s base by dismissing her populist appeal to her supporters.

The Obama Left has been doing everything possible to damage the center-left brand and convince voters that government can’t work and all the left cares about is hating on conservative women (the Obama Left has nothing to run on, only a bimbostein bogeywoman to run against).

Meanwhile, Bill and Hillary have very wisely picked their battles. They have done nothing but take the high road and try to remind people of a center-left grounded in facts and reason. With Hillary’s recent response to Christiane Amanpour about the tea party, and Bill’s statements on Palin (and also his statements about being wrong that Obama’s healthcare policy would be popular), it is clear that they get what is going on.

Bill and Hillary…keep on fighting for us… and keep on dancing.