Media Liberals Delude Themselves on the State of the Presidential Race

RUSH: Let's stick with the media. I got a piece here by Roger Simon in The Politico. And I know, folks, it gets tiresome talking about the bias of the media. But this goes beyond media bias now. We're into, I think, what is genuine media corruption now, with what these -- who was it? It might have been John O'Sullivan writing at National Review. I'm not certain. But he called these guys running around, asking Romney questions while he was at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Poland hecklers, not journalists. And whoever said that, whoever came up with that characterization is dead-on right.

The media has become a bunch of hecklers. They're not journalists seeking information. They're not asking questions that are on the minds of the American people. They're seeking to trip Romney up. And so this trip, the foreign trip, the word's out, the reporting on this is that it was a debacle, and it was a gaffe-prone mistake, and Romney should never have gone on that trip, never, ever left the country. He shouldn'ta gone to Great Britain. He shouldn'ta gone to Israel. He shouldn'ta gone to Poland. He stepped on himself every time he opened his mouth, one gaffe after another. That's the template, and that's what they're reporting, and it doesn't matter what happened. It goes beyond media bias.

Even for me it gets tiresome talking about this. And who knows, it may get tiresome for you to listen, too. But now and then an article comes along that is perfectly illustrative of the game and shows their mind-set, and that's what this is from Roger Simon today. Now, Roger Simon is called Politico's chief political columnist. And I suppose they call him that so as to allow him to write opinion as a news story. But I think everything in The Politico is an opinion piece anyway. But this piece here is not journalism. It's not even thoughtful punditry. It is the ravings of an adolescent and hysterical Obama fan who is beside himself.

They can't figure out why they haven't put Romney away yet. They also can't figure out why Obama isn't up 70 to 30, although I do have a sound bite coming up from F. Chuck Todd, who himself is surprised that Obama's still leading. He doesn't understand it. It was on Charlie Rose last night and Charlie Rose said, "There is this, the notion that the president has more empathy or the people who are polled, and cares more about them. I mean, that is something that -- from my own political observation -- goes to the heart of likability, which is always a factor." People out there, F. Chuck, they just like Obama. What about that?

TODD: Sometimes I look at this political landscape and the economic landscape and I say, how is the President ahead? And so I actually look at this, I always ask another question to try to figure out what's wrong here with Romney? Why isn't Mitt Romney already ahead? And the fact is, I keep coming back to a couple of things. One, he's not ahead because I think that he hasn't articulated who he is and he's losing this values argument to Obama. But the second thing which we haven't brought up yet but I want to get to, is I actually think the Republican brand is still a mess with the middle of the American public, the independents and the sort of center-right, center-left folks who might be persuadable, and that is serving as more of a drag on Romney than I think any of us talk about.

RUSH: You talk about convoluted. Losing the values argument to Obama? He says that the night of the Chick-fil-A event? Losing the values argument to Obama and the Republican brand is a mess with the middle, the independents. Has he seen the polling data on independents? Is he looking at polls outside his own corrupt poll with the Wall Street Journal? Romney probably is ahead. They've thrown everything at Romney. They have spent more than they've raised. Obama is nothing. He's not even president of the United States right now. He's not even celebrity of the US. He is the fundraiser-in-chief. That's all he's doing. And they can't put Romney away with the best stuff in their arsenal.

I'll tell you what this is all about, I'll tell you why people are confused, genuine open-minded people. I'll tell you why they're confused. There was another piece on this today by Victor Davis Hanson at National Review. We talk about cutting edge stuff here. We talked about this three weeks ago on this program, why the economy is not the dominant political factor that it traditionally always has been. If the economy were just as big a factor as it was in 1992, Obama would be toast. And so people are starting to ask themselves, wait a minute, now, this economy... In fact, Forbes magazine: "Worst Recovery Since the Depression." Forbes magazine, guy has a piece out that Obama wins the gold for worst economic recovery ever.

Now, in the midst of the worst economic recovery ever, how is Obama still in the game? And it's because of one of two things. Either the American people have just thrown in the towel and have accepted that this is the new norm, or else all the polling data on this is skewed. And it could be a combination of the two. But we do know the polling data is skewed. We do know that every poll out there, other than Rasmussen, is oversampling Democrats. Every one of them. We know that these people on the Democrat side are lying to themselves with their polls about how well Obama is doing.

Now, I think this Roger Simon piece, again, is illustrative of the panic. Remember the template, Romney gaffe after gaffe after gaffe. Title of this piece: "Mitt Romney Needs Running Mate to Replace Flop -- Mitt Romney needs to announce his choice for vice president quickly. Very quickly. Like within the hour. It doesn’t matter whom he chooses. Anybody will do. Even Sarah Palin. Hell, even Todd Palin. Why? Because Romney needs to change the narrative, the conversation, the buzz, the impression left by his recent foreign trip that he can’t chew gum and chew gum at the same time. A few days ago, I called Romney’s trip a disaster. I would like to apologize. It was a disaster wrapped in a debacle inside a calamity."

This is front page Politico stuff here. You notice how this guy, Simon, is harping on the Palin family. This is no accident. It's Freudian. He and the rest of the news media are trying to do to Romney what they did to Sarah Palin. But this piece is instructive in two-ways. It shows the agenda at work behind the media's invention of Romney's overseas gaffes and it shows the mind-set at work at The Politico. He says here, "The press is now being attacked for making too much of Romney’s 'gaffes.' But why should we ignore what actually comes out of a candidate’s mouth when he’s forced to think? Should we instead cover only the speeches meticulously crafted by his staff? Or the TV ads in which every frame is painstakingly edited and often focus-grouped in advance?"

He goes on to talk about how this was the most embarrassing trip, Romney should not even be showing his face. That's how bad the trip was. One gaffe after another. And it's so bad, Romney better pick a VP right now and take all the focus off himself. The worst thing he can do is keep the focus on him. If he doesn't get the focus off himself, it's over. Now, folks, I know that you in this audience are above average informed, above average IQ, above average aware. Does any of this ring a bell? Do any of you, before I read this, any of you think that Romney's trip was a disaster? A disaster of epic proportions? So bad that even naming Todd Palin as his VP is something that would be helpful? Once again, ladies and gentlemen, they're telling us who they are, telling us more about them and their level of panic than they are about Romney or about us.

Now, a companion piece, Washington Times, by Dr. Milton Wolf. Does that name ring a bell, Dr. Milton Wolf? He's a Washington Times columnist. He's a radiologist and President Obama's cousin. And the title of his piece is: "I’ll say it: President Mitt Romney -- Conservatives’ growing enthusiasm is palpable and deserved." Let me read you just a couple things from this.

"During the frenzied, slugfest days of the Republican primary season, even conservatives who were skeptical of Mr. Romney have found reason for optimism. As desperation set in for his opponents, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, their attacks on the former Bain Capital entrepreneur made them sound more like liberal class warriors than conservative Republicans. ... Until now, conservatives’ support for Mitt Romney was based largely on this: He’s not Barack Obama. But that was then and this is now. Conservatives are finding reasons to not just vote for Mr. Romney but to get excited about voting for him. ... At long last, conservatives have found in Mr. Romney a presidential candidate who understands and can explain the free-enterprise system that made America the most prosperous nation in the history of humankind."

The guy goes on to praise Romney. He's making great strides. He's connecting with the conservative base, in this guy's opinion. Obama's cousin, he's connecting with elements of the conservative base that really weren't jazzed or charged up during the primaries. Now, Snerdley's in there frowning at that. Look, follow my instincts. I have a sense that this guy's on to something. I think he's more right than he is wrong. But I still think, despite the best efforts of F. Chuck Todd and Roger Simon at Politico, this is all gonna come down to Barack Obama. But, folks, look, it really is dangerous to start speculating now. There are any number of things here, what are we, 96 days or 97 days out now?

You've got Mahmoud Ahmadinejad once again suggesting that the world needs there to be no Israel. He is now advocating that Israel be wiped off the map. He did it again in as blunt, straightforward language as he's ever used. So just using that as an example -- and we talk about the economy and what impact it might have -- what if Israel attacks Iran? What if Iran messes around obviously in Syria? What happens if there is an Al-Qaeda terrorist attack? What happens if Iran is attacked successfully by Israel? Does that help Obama or not? None of this is known. There are all kinds of things. There are foreign dictators who, without question, would much prefer Obama in office, they're saying so, and when they talk about this country, it doesn't differ much from the way Democrats talk.

If some foreign head honcho decides he wants to try to do something to help Obama's election in September or October, who knows. Any number of things can happen out there. And Ahmadinejad, don't forget, that's the guy Obama said we needed to negotiate with without any preconditions. We have the Muslim Brotherhood rising up in this Arab Spring taking over the Middle East, militant Islam, Sharia. And if any of these people decide they want to play a role in this election. So it really is dangerous to start speculating on only what's known, under the assumption that pretty much nothing else is gonna happen between now and then, 'cause we know that's not true.

RUSH: Here's Terry in Philadelphia. Great to have you. I'm glad you waited. Welcome.

CALLER: Hi, Rush. You are truly a brilliant man. I have to tell you. Every day I listen to your show. You know, I was sitting here in the car, and I'm thinking as you're going through this article about all these criticisms of Mitt Romney, and he better hurry up and name his vice president. I was thinking of it in terms of, okay, let's put Obama in there instead of Romney and see how this plays out. I guess Joe Biden doesn't have to pick a new vice president. But nobody ever talks about Obama in the ways that they talk about Romney. And I was listening to that litany of trash that you were referring to of how the news coverage is for Romney, and it's really scary.

RUSH: It's just the orders have gone out throughout all of the mainstream media, and it is Romney, gaffe after gaffe after gaffe on his foreign trip, no matter what happened, no matter he said, we're reporting it as gaffes. The reason that they heckled him with the questions was so that they could report that he had no answers and that he appeared flummoxed and stymied and out of place and didn't know what he was doing. But you're right, you have never seen a story like that about Obama in the Politico.

RUSH: No, no. You can easily put George W. Bush's name in there. You can put any Republican's name in there, but you will never see a story of that tone with that purpose written about any Democrat.

CALLER: That's shameful. That's absolutely shameful. And thank you so much for doing what you do.

The purpose of the fraudulent polls is to give them the cover they need for their "the election was stolen" riots on November 7th.

Lock. And. Load.

I actually believe it is to stimulate interest in a race that is a foregone conclusion; who would watch if they just admitted Obama is going to get crushed?

As for naming a VP, Romney should take his time; no reason to let that person get “Palined” for months leading up to the election. I don’t blame Palin for McCain’s loss (he did that to himself), but I am shocked at how stupid and gullible Americans were to believe so much that was spouted on COMEDY CENTRAL about her (and used it to decide their vote in 2008). One silver lining to this horrible economy and job market is that many people realize they were had in 2008, by Obama, his media, and Comedy Central; Obama now sounds like the bitter black homeless guy ranting at your car as you roll up your car window instead of giving him a $100 bill...

I actually think it’s to keep people from slipping out of Obama’s grasp... people want to vote for a winner... if they realize he’s losing, they’ll abandon him that much quicker.

Agreed.

Fact is, Obama's behind and the perception is growing that he's not going to do any better than he is right now.

They're panicking because if he does slip further behind more and more of their base won't bother to vote.

So for them what's the simple answer? Just lie.

Obama now sounds like the bitter black homeless guy ranting at your car as you roll up your car window instead of giving him a $100 bill...

All he needs is a dirty rag to smear your windshield.

They still do that by you? In Newark they just ask for money; no window cleaning. At one intersection there were three guys; one selling flowers, one selling cold bottled water, and another just asking for money for nothing. I’m guessing #3 didn’t get much that day, and #1 and #2 made sure he didn’t hassle their customers (they themselves aren’t aggressive at all; they just wait to be waved over by interested motorists).

The mainstream media is shrinking. Staffers are fighting for their jobs. They think that if they can be the person who causes a big gaffe, then they will win the favor of the media bosses and keep a job...even advance.

Woodward & Bernstein shifted the profession from news reporters to news makers.

Someone needs to take the raw data and plug them into a realistic model. The revised information would be far more accurate and quantify the distortion.
These distortions are consistent with the unemployment data that artificially reduces the size of the workforce and the GDP which underestimates the inflation rate resulting in a higher adjusted number.

Unfortunately, as of right now, Obama is in lead even in
state-wide Ras polls ...

The Blog - Rasmussen: Obama 284, Romney 235
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/rasmussen-obama-284-romney-235_649241.html

It is absolutely absurd that Obama is even close when he has done so terribly on the economy, but we have to face the fact that it is quite possible that Obama will indeed win.

No patriot should allow this to happen.

Sununu’s exchange with Andrea Mitchell was very telling (and very public); she was such an incompetent hack, so obviously in the tank for Obama - he was literally laughing at her.

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