Today's New York Times offers a rare opportunity for a side-by-side comparison of how the newspaper covers Democrats and Republicans with similar policies.

Here is a passage from a Times news article about President Trump proposing an arms sale to Taiwan: "The proposed sales come as President Trump and his campaign strategists try to paint him as tough on China in the run-up to the election in November. They are eager to divert the conversation among American voters away from Mr. Trump's vast failures on the coronavirus pandemic and the economy, and to paper over his constant praise for Xi Jinping, China's authoritarian leader, and his earlier encouragement or tolerance of some of Mr. Xi's most repressive policies, including in the regions of Xinjiang and Hong Kong."

It's remarkable to see this reference to "Mr. Trump's vast failures on the coronavirus pandemic and the economy" in the middle of what is supposed to be not an opinion article or editorial but a straight up news article. All the more so because the same page carries a news article about Senator Schumer, a Democrat, getting tough on China without ascribing to Schumer any such political motivations. Rather, the Times reports, the Democratic initiative "comes as relations between Washington and Beijing have spiraled downward, setting the stage for a new era of confrontation, and as President Trump and congressional Republicans, especially in the Senate, have sought to harness Americans' growing animosity toward China as a political weapon against Democrats."

Got that? When the Republicans are tough on China, it's a "political weapon." But when Democrats are tough on China, the Times reports it relatively straight, dialing back the sneering. Meanwhile, we are supposed to believe both that Trump constantly praises Xi Jinping and, simultaneously, that Washington-Beijing relations have spiraled downward?

It's almost like the Times is having a hard time restraining its partisan enthusiasm as the election approaches.

It is true that Trump has praised Xi Jinping from time to time. My read on that has been that it is transactional and comes when he needs China to do something, such as sign a trade deal or allow shipments of medical supplies to the United States.

Over at the Algemeiner, I have a piece headlined "New York Times Marks World War II Anniversary With Harsh Criticism of U.S."

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A subheadline in the New York Times magazine, over an article about Donald Trump, Jr., reports, "Of all the president's children, he has the strongest connection to the politics, voters and online disinformation ecosystem that put his father in the White House."

And here I thought that Hillary Clinton's decision not to go campaign in Wisconsin or FBI director James Comey's letter about Hillary Clinton's emails were the reasons Trump is in the White House. I've seen evidence that Russia used online disinformation to try to influence the election, but nothing to indicate that it affected the outcome. The idea that an "online disinformation ecosystem" put Trump in the White House neatly fits the leftist world-view of Times editors and maybe many readers, because it is a way out of confronting the possibility that someone with accurate information would vote for Trump. It's the left-wing equivalent of conservative talk radio hosts describing Democrats as "low-information voters." That allows people to dismiss the idea that voters accurately and sincerely assessed their own situation, interests, and values. Instead it makes the voters passive, the subject of manipulation by the real actors, the disinformation agents.

What's the real "online disinformation ecosystem"? The Twitter platform that allows Trump Jr. to communicate more or less directly with individual Americans? Or the New York Times website that tells readers the president is in the White House because of an "online disinformation ecosystem"?

In this Sunday's New York Times Book Review, reviewing Lesley M.M. Blume's Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up and the Reporter Who Revealed It to the World, William Langewiesche writes: "The subject of nuclear war is too important not to fascinate, and though we have avoided it for 75 years, the possibility now looms closer than before."

If the possibility of nuclear war indeed "now looms closer than before," you'd think this would be a matter for some front-page New York Times news articles and headlines, rather than a throwaway line midway through a book review. Personally, I don't see it. We've got a president who just spent his speech at the convention boasting about how he has "kept America out of new wars." Iran's nuclear facility at Natanz was recently damaged, and the Iranian regime has been crippled by tough economic sanctions re-imposed by Trump after our previous president was airlifting cash to Iran. U.S. relations with Russia, the other big nuclear power, are so friendly that some people worry that Putin will try to interfere to re-elect Trump. Missile defense technology to guard against an accidental launch is more advanced than ever. Even U.S.-North Korea relations appear to be warming.

Maybe this came in as "closer than ever before," and some editor took out the "ever." That helps but doesn't fully resolve the problem or authenticate the claim.

A New York Times editorial, "Steve Bannon's Art of the Grift," says in part:

The looming question, however, is whether President Trump will keep Mr. Bannon at arm's length. Americans can feel little confidence that Mr. Bannon will receive a fair trial and, if convicted, a fair punishment. By commuting Roger Stone's sentence in July, Mr. Trump demonstrated a willingness to shelter his current and former associates from the legal consequences of their actions.

The Times' signal of concern that Bannon "receive a fair trial," is touching, but the newspaper sure isn't helping matters by running an editorial denouncing him as a grifter before he's even had the chance to mount a defense.

Do the Times editorialists really lack confidence that the federal judge to whom the case is assigned, U.S. District Court Judge Analisa Torres, an Obama appointee, will give Bannon a fair trial? Or is the issue that a Manhattan trial jury won't be fair to Bannon?

If we were Bannon's lawyer, William Burck—yes, the same William Burck who just won a huge Fourth Amendment victory in State of Florida v. Robert Kraft—we'd ask to have the case dismissed, or at least the venue changed, on the grounds that not even the New York Times editorialists think Bannon will get a fair trial.

Perhaps the editorial page editors can be called to testify about why they think New Yorkers and the federal courts that sit there could be trusted to give a fair trial to al Qaeda figure Khalid Shaikh Mohammed but not to Steve Bannon. Has the Trump presidency so adversely shaken the senses of New York jurors and federal judges? Or has it just deranged the liberal newspaper's editorial writers? In 2011 the Times blessed the prospect of a trial in New York City of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed as an "opportunity to prove the fairness of the federal court system and restore the nation's reputation for providing justice for all," but the same editorial column now doubts that justice for Bannon is possible. I predict Bannon will eventually be cleared of these charges. The Times editorial sets the stage to denounce that as somehow unfair. For an editorial column concerned about fairness, setting it up so that if the guy is cleared, it's automatically evidence that the trial was unfair—well, let's just say if we were ever charged with a crime, we sure wouldn't want any New York Times editorial writers on our jury.

A Times news article reports on the City of New York moving homeless people, some of them mentally ill, substance-abusing, or sex offenders, at government expense into hotels on Manhattan's Upper West Side. It includes this sentence: "The owner of a well-known French bistro, Nice Matin, which adjoins the Lucerne, said he believed the harsh rhetoric among some in the neighborhood had hurt business."

If the bistro is indeed "well-known," it's unnecessary to inform Times readers of that—they already know, so it is redundant. "Well-known" is like the word "famous"—in cases where it's accurate, it's almost always unnecessary.

The same redundancy objection applies, by the way, to the term "French bistro." Are there non-French bistros? It is late August so maybe all the editors who would ordinarily catch this sort of thing are on vacation, but maybe even at peak levels this is just about what you can expect of Times editing care these days. Would this sort of thing ever have gotten through back in the days when Allan M. Siegal was running the copy desk?

It may be that the Internet has made things worse, because unnecessary words used to carry a cost to the publisher of unnecessary paper and ink and space in delivery trucks, in addition to the cost to reader in time.

A New York Times news article on President Trump's announcement of a presidential pardon of Susan B. Anthony reports: "Unlike other people the president has pardoned, Anthony is not someone whose work Mr. Trump has spoken of during his campaign or his presidency."

Trump's March 10 2017 Weekly Address said, "We are a greater, stronger, and more just Nation today because of women like Clara Barton, Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman, and so many others."

In a March 2017 panel discussion on women's empowerment, Trump said, "we've had leaders like Susan B. Anthony—have you heard of Susan B. Anthony?—[laughter]—I'm shocked that you've heard of her—who dreamed of a much more equal and fair future, an America where women themselves, as she said, 'helped to make laws and elect the lawmakers.'"

In a 2018 five-paragraph statement on Susan B. Anthony Day, Trump said in part, "Fighting inequality became one of Susan B. Anthony's most passionate pursuits, as she paved the way for the 19th Amendment to the United States Constitution. Her tireless efforts to rally and advocate for women's rights helped change the course of human history. Her work helped our Nation to realize the egalitarian principles enshrined in the seminal Declaration of Sentiments of the Seneca Falls Convention: that all men and women are created equal by God." He issued similar presidential statements marking Susan B. Anthony Day in February 2019 and in February 2020.

Trump's 2017 Women's History Month Declaration said, "During Women's History Month, we pause to pay tribute to the remarkable women who prevailed over enormous barriers, paving the way for women of today to not only participate in but to lead and shape every facet of American life. ...We also remember incredible women like Mary Walker, the first woman to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor; Harriet Tubman, who escaped slavery in 1849 and went on to free hundreds of others through the Underground Railroad; Susan B. Anthony, the publisher and editor of The Revolution and her friend, Dr. Charlotte Lozier, one of the first women medical doctors in the United States, both of whom advocated for the dignity and equality of women, pregnant mothers, and their children."

David Brooks writes:

But if you look at who actually leads change over the course of American history, it's not the radicals. At a certain point, radicals give way to the more prudent and moderate wings of their coalitions.

In the 1770s, the rabble-rousing Samuel Adams gave way to the more moderate John Adams (not to mention George Washington, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton).

As the author of a biography of Samuel Adams, I can say this is so far from accurate historical truth as to be laughable. Both Samuel Adams and John Adams signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and served in the Continental Congress. While John Adams was off in Europe on a diplomatic mission, Samuel Adams did the hard work of patiently navigating the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 through revisions and ratification. Even in the 1780s, Samuel Adams served as president of the Massachusetts State Senate. In 1788, Samuel Adams played a key role in Massachusetts' ratification of the federal constitution. Samuel Adams served as lieutenant governor and as governor of Massachusetts into the 1790s. It's just not accurate to say that Samuel Adams "gave way" to the "more moderate" John Adams. Even the depiction of Samuel Adams as "radical" is not so clear cut; as I write in Samuel Adams: A Life, Adams "saw himself as a conserver of the New England Puritan tradition of his seventeenth-century forefathers and was motivated more by biblical stories of the liberation of slaves than by Enlightenment ideas of a new man."

The New York Times greets the selection of Kamala Harris as Joe Biden's running mate with three above-the-fold front-page articles, and all three offer an assessment of her ideology.

The lead Times news article describes her as "A pragmatic moderate who spent most of her career as a prosecutor."

A "news analysis" (as if the other articles are analysis-free) reports that Biden and Harris are "two moderates with relatively cautious political instincts."

And a profile of Harris describes her as "cautious on substantive issues more often than many liberals would like."

Contrast that with the Wall Street Journal editorial describing her as a "coastal progressive" or President Trump's description of her as "radical left."

I guess if your ideology is that of the New York Times newsroom or for that matter readership base, Kamala Harris looks like a cautious moderate. The point is that the Times' description of Harris, who was raised in Berkeley, California and who was best known as a presidential candidate for a clumsy attempt to depict Joe Biden as a racist for opposing federally imposed busing to desegregate schools, as a "moderate," tells a lot more about the Times' ideology than it does about the ideology of Kamala Harris.

A New York Times article about how Harvard is treating its students, particularly first generation and low income students, during the pandemic reports: "some scholars say a fundamental tension remains between the school's explicit mission in the first centuries of its existence — to reproduce the white gentry by educating its sons — and its stated role now, as a beacon of diversity and democracy where a prestigious education is available to any and all who merit acceptance."

The Times doesn't name any of these "scholars." Just for the record, though, it is not accurate that the school's "explicit mission in the first centuries of its existence" was "to reproduce the white gentry by educating its sons."

Here is the Harvard Charter of 1650: "Whereas through the good hand of God many well devoted persons have been and daily are moved and stirred up to give and bestow sundry gifts legacies lands and revenues for the advancement of all good literature arts and sciences in Harvard College in Cambridge in the County of Middlesex and to the maintenance of the President and Fellows and for all accommodations of buildings and all other necessary provisions that may conduce to the education of the English and Indian youth of this country in knowledge and godliness."

The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 said in part, "Whereas our wise and pious ancestors, so early as the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-six, laid the foundation of Harvard College, in which university many persons of great eminence have, by the blessing of God, been initiated in those arts and sciences, which qualified them for public employments, both in church and state: and whereas the encouragement of arts and sciences, and all good literature, tends to the honor of God, the advantage of the Christian religion, and the great benefit of this and the other United States of America."

Harvard's stated and functional purpose in its early years, similar to that of many other early American universities, was training Christian ministers and "civilizing" the Indians. There's nothing in there about "white gentry." The language seems like a clumsy attempt by the Times to superimpose a "Black Lives Matter" framework on the early history of higher education in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. That seems unanchored from the documentary evidence. It's true that it took until 1865 for Harvard to graduate any black students, and women didn't enroll until about the same era, but it's a long leap from that to the claim that the university's explicit mission was reproducing "white gentry."

A New York Times news article headlined, "Trump and Aides Try to Change the Narrative of the White House Protests" begins:

WASHINGTON — President Trump and his aides spent much of Wednesday trying to rewrite history, claiming that Mr. Trump was merely "inspecting" a bunker last week during riots over the death of George Floyd and insisting falsely that peaceful protesters near the White House were attacking the police when the authorities used chemical agents to make them move so that Mr. Trump could have his picture taken at a nearby church.

Eventually the Times gets down to explaining what the White House "rewrite" of the history of the "peaceful protesters" amounts to. The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, the Times reports, "cited the fact that St. John's, where Mr. Trump posed for the cameras, 'was burning' the night before."

The Times news article corrects McEnanay on that point: "In fact, there was a relatively small fire in the basement that was quickly extinguished."

Glad they cleared that one up!

This is the sort of thing that makes people think the Times news columns are ridiculously biased. If some Trump supporter or Republican Senator had, uninvited, set a fire in the basement of New York Times headquarters or the offices of the NAACP or the Democratic National Committee, you think the Times would be characterizing it as a "peaceful" protest or emphasizing, dismissively, how "relatively small" the fire was (relative to what?) and how it was "quickly extinguished"? The Times displays a remarkable lack of curiosity about how the fire got there. Was it an attempt at arson? A Molotov cocktail? Were the "peaceful" protesters just seeking a cozy hearth to gather round, like members of the Ochs-Sulzberger family on a winter evening at one of their country estates back in the era before concerns about global warming made wood-burning fireplaces not politically correct?

The Episcopal News Service (not exactly a Trump administration mouthpiece) reports that the fire "completely destroyed" the nursery room of the church, according to the church's rector, and that there were smoke and water damage to surrounding areas. The New York Times doesn't tell its readers that. The Washington Post reported D.C. Police said the fire "was deliberately set in the basement," and the Post said the fire "was started through a window, by some sort of fire igniter." The New York Times article doesn't report that the fire had been set deliberately. The Post also points out that the fire was extinguished not by the "peaceful" protesters but by the D.C. Fire Department escorted by D.C. Police—another piece of information the New York Times leaves out.

Back in 1996, when there was a wave of arsons against African-American churches, the Times wrote an editorial about it, asserting, "It took far too long for this problem to capture Washington's conscience. It should remain high on the public agenda until it is solved."

I'm all for the Times applying skepticism to statements from government spokespeople, but this is a case where the "fact-checking" looks like a clumsy effort by the Times news columns to minimize the seriousness of firebombing of a church.

I can see why ideological sympathy with protests against police brutality or racism might cause the Times journalists to want to emphasize the peaceful elements of the protests rather than the arson-related aspects. And I suppose it's at least theoretically possible, since the crime is unsolved, that the arson was done by some pro-racist-police provocateur who wanted to make the protesters look bad. But the Times wording on this was just clumsy to the point of cringe-inducing.

A front-page Times news article reports about comments by President Trump about U.S. Supreme Court justices:

Weighing in on a domestic matter as he began a day of ceremony, meetings and a joint appearance with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, Mr. Trump seized on a dissenting opinion last week by Justice Sonia Sotomayor and a years-old comment by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to demand that the two Democratic-appointed jurists recuse themselves from any cases involving him.

The "years-old" part of that made me chuckle, particularly as Vice President Biden has made assailing Trump's years-old comments about a Charlottesville, Va., racist march a key part of his presidential campaign. The Times regularly trots out "years-old" comments as a way to criticize men targeted in the me too movement, without so heavy-handedly dismissing them as such. It seemed like the Times was saying there's some sort of especially short statute of limitations that applies to comments made by Justice Ginsburg.

The New York Times — currently published by A.G. Sulzberger, the sixth member of the Ochs-Sulzberger family to control the paper since Adolph Ochs acquired it in 1896 — has an editorial headlined "Good for Meghan and Harry," asserting that "The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are right to blaze their own trail." The editorial praises them for "renouncing some level of privilege to seek their fortune in the real world," noting their plan "to become financially independent." It described them as having been "trapped in a gilded cage."

It'd be interesting to see the Sulzberger family members who are now laboring in the family business follow Meghan and Harry's example of renouncing privilege to seek their fortune in the real world. The parallel move would be for A.G. and his cousins to quit the New York Times and go work at, or start, another news organization or media company. "Blaze their own trail," indeed.

I don't fault the Sulzbergers for wanting to run the newspaper company their family built and they inherited. But it's hard to escape seeing at least a bit of ironic humor in a Sulzberger-published paper issuing an editorial praising Prince Harry for leaving the family business.

The print New York Times greets "Black Friday" with a printed gift guide claiming inaccurately that the price of a Le Creuset Dutch oven is $77.

It's almost enough to make a reader think that the gift guide is being edited by someone who hasn't shopped for a Dutch oven. I thought maybe this was a typo and someone had just left off a digit—maybe the price is $377, or $277. But the lecreuset.com website that the Times cites has the prices all ending in round numbers — $325, $200, etc.

I get asked sometimes why I bother with what seem like tiny mistakes. In my view the Times carelessness about accuracy runs through the paper, from the gift guide to coverage of Israeli settlements and international law. It's a strange combination of arrogance and incompetence. The Times is constantly bragging about the size of its newsroom, including, earlier this month, in a letter to home delivery subscribers announcing a price increase: "Last year that meant we put 1,600 journalists on the ground in 160 countries, bearing witness to conflict and disasters, investigating brutal regimes and shining a light on human suffering that would otherwise go unnoticed." With all those journalists, you'd think they'd have enough people to accurately report the price of a Dutch oven, or the history of American policy and the international law of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.