The biggest problem that Mitt Romney has is that the arguments in favor of his candidacy have been paper thin and largely circular.
He’s the “most electable” candidate because his supporters keep saying he’s the most electable. He’s “inevitable” because his supporters say he’s inevitable. “He’ll be conservative in office” despite governing as a moderate because his supporters say he’ll be conservative in office.
None of these arguments hold up under a bare minimum of scrutiny. Mitt has lost 2 of 3 major races he’s run so far (His record would have been 1-4 if he had run for governor again in 2006), he’s only won 1 out of 3 primaries up until this point despite having every advantage, he’s only pulling about 30% of the vote nationally, and there’s no reason at all to think that a guy who’s famous for shifting his positions would suddenly turn into Ronald Reagan once he gets into office.
Moreover, it’s hard not to notice the double standard that’s been going on during the primary. Every candidate in the field who pulls ahead of Mitt gets savaged by the mainstream media and his allies in the conservative press, while Mitt hasn’t even had a basic vetting. Furthermore, when Mitt bombed Newt into the ground with vicious negative ads in Iowa, despite the fact that Newt had been running a positive campaign, we were told, “Politics ain’t beanbag.” On the other hand, when the remaining candidates gave Mitt the same treatment he had dished out after New Hampshire, this was supposed to be some sort of unconscionable attack on capitalism that was hurting the guaranteed winner of the primaries. That’s horseflop.
Given that Ted Kennedy beat Mitt in 1994 with attacks on Bain Capital, how ridiculous is it that the most basic questions about his time there still hadn’t been brought up and perhaps worse yet, that Romney still doesn’t seem to have particularly good answers for some of those questions?
Given all the attention to the ethics matter, it’s worth asking what actually happened back in 1995, 1996, and 1997. The Gingrich case was extraordinarily complex, intensely partisan, and driven in no small way by a personal vendetta on the part of one of Gingrich’s former political opponents. It received saturation coverage in the press; a database search of major media outlets revealed more than 10,000 references to Gingrich’s ethics problems during the six months leading to his reprimand. It ended with a special counsel hired by the House Ethics Committee holding Gingrich to an astonishingly strict standard of behavior, after which Gingrich in essence pled guilty to two minor offenses. Afterwards, the case was referred to the Internal Revenue Service, which conducted an exhaustive investigation into the matter. And then, after it was all over and Gingrich was out of office, the IRS concluded that Gingrich did nothing wrong. After all the struggle, Gingrich was exonerated.
1) Numerous Mexican citizens and an American citizen have been killed with weapons knowingly provided to criminals by our own government during Operation Fast and Furious. If Eric Holder was aware that was going on, do you think he should step down as Attorney General? Were you aware that was going on and if so, shouldn’t you resign?
2) In 2010 you said Solyndra, which gave your campaign a lot of money, was “leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future.” Today, Solyndra is bankrupt and the taxpayers lost $500 million on loans that your administration was well aware might never be paid off when you made them. What do you say to people who say this is evidence of corruption in your administration?
4) Through dubious means, you and your allies in Congress managed to push through an incredibly unpopular health care bill that helped lead to the worst election night for the Democratic Party in 50 years. Since the bill has passed, many of your claims about the bill have proven to be untrue. For example, we now know the bill won’t lower costs and despite your assurances to the contrary, big companies like McDonald’s say they may drop health care because of the health care reform. Since the American people have rejected your health care reform and it doesn’t do what you said it would, shouldn’t you work with the Republicans to repeal it?
5) When you took office, gas was $1.79 per gallon. Since then, you’ve demonized the oil industry, dramatically slowed offshore drilling, blocked ANWR, and killed the Keystone Pipeline. Now, gas is $3.34 per gallon. How much higher do you anticipate driving gas prices?
6) Occupy Wall Street has been protesting against Wall Street and the richest 1 percent in America. You are in the top 1 percent of income earners in America and you have collected more cash from Wall Street than any other President in history. So, aren’t you exactly the sort of politician that Occupy Wall Street wants to get rid of?
7) How do you decide which foreign leaders to submissively bow towards and why do you think that’s appropriate for an American President?
8) If they could, don’t you think the Nobel Committee would take back the Nobel Peace Prize that you were awarded?
9) You made bipartisanship one of the central themes of your campaign in 2008. Yet, you’ve worked to push bills through Congress with almost no Republican support, spent much less time negotiating with Congress than George Bush, and you’ve said things like, “But, I don’t want the folks who created the mess to do a lot of talking. I want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. I don’t mind cleaning up after them, but don’t do a lot of talking.” Why did you decide to break your campaign promise to pursue bipartisanship?
10) America lost its AAA credit rating for the first time under your watch. What do you think you should have done differently to have prevented that historic failure?
11) You cut more than 500 billion dollars out of Medicare to fund your wildly unpopular health care reform bill. Given that Medicare is running in the red already, don’t you think it’s irresponsible to cut money out of one entitlement program, that millions of seniors depend on — to put it into a risky new entitlement program?
The WaPo and AP fail to mention the John Kerry connection.
(Politico) — A former CIA officer was charged Monday with disclosing the identity of a covert CIA officer and with telling journalists the name an agency officer involved with the interrogation of alleged Al Qaeda leader Abu Zubaydah.
The Justice Department charged that John Kiriakou, 47, who worked as a CIA officer from 1990 to 2004, revealed the information to journalists and that one reporter passed some of the secrets onto attorneys representing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Kiriakou’s case is the sixth leak-related criminal prosecution brought since President Barack Obama took office, a figure that exceeds the number of such cases in all previous administrations combined.
“Safeguarding classified information, including the identities of CIA officers involved in sensitive operations, is critical to keeping our intelligence officers safe and protecting our national security,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. “Today’s charges reinforce the Justice Department’s commitment to hold accountable anyone who would violate the solemn duty not to disclose such sensitive information.”
CIA Director David Petraeus said Monday that “CIA fully supported the investigation from the beginning and will continue to do so.”
Petraeus also reminded CIA personnel of their duty to keep secret matters secret.
Ultimately, “the investigative team concluded that no laws were broken by the defense team,” the complaint says. It adds that defense attorneys never told the terror suspects the names of those in the photos.
However, the investigation — assigned to U.S. Attorney in Chicago Patrick Fitzgerald to avoid conflicts with Justice Department lawyers working on prosecuting Guantanamo pirsoners — focused on government employees who might have leaked the identities of the officers.
Kiriakou worked for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) as a Senate Foreign Relations Committee investigator from March 2009 to April 2011, according to Senate records.
[Editor’s Note – First of all the fact that I have to report this is repulsive. Being personally fond of the Gingrich family, this kind of crap is the last thing I want to have on Political Arena, but we must be real; this is about the presidency and is not a game. Newt’s ex-wife Marianne is clearly disturbed and her illness cannot be allowed to get in the way of the needs of the country. ]
ABC and Esquire Magazine didn’t tell you this…….
Via our friend Political Arena contributor Warren Roche:
According to FBI records, back in 1995 – 96, Marianne Gingrich had a secret meeting in Paris where she attempted to make $10 MILLION by selling her influence on her then husband to the highest bidder in order to help lift the Iraq arms embargo and for backing the Florida bullet train an behalf of interested parties willing to pay, specifically, HER!!!
Following are two excerpts from the FBI document linked below through the Washington Post:
(Mrs. Gingrich) “stated that her relationship with her husband was purely a relationship of convenience. She told the source that she needed her husband for economic reasons, and that he needed to keep her close because she knew of all his “skeletons.” Source stated that after requesting (Mrs.) Gingrich’s assistance in the above matter, she told him that her organization needed money. She also told source “It’s time for me to make money using my husband, and after we get started doing this, it will be easy.”
“Bennett stated that Gingrich wanted for herself up front, in addition to the $550,000.00 that Bennett mentioned earlier, bringing the total up front payment to 1 million 50 thousand dollars.”
Here are the documents – LINK. This distraction is now over.
More on “disturbing”… Bernard Goldberg has a must read column on Marianne – LINK.
Hey elite media….what happened to “it’s just sex” and “sex doesn’t matter”?
ABC is accusing Newt of having wanted an open marriage…. just like Bill and Hillary Clinton. Everyone knows they have an open marriage so where was the firestorm? Where was it when Hillary ran in 2008? They didn’t even live together for how many years?
Of course this is coming from an elite media who knew all about how John Edwards was cheating on his cancer stricken wife and said nothing until the National Enquirer caught Edwards red-handed.
How many years ago did Newt and Marianne get divorced? If memory serves it is over 12 years. So why is this big news and Bill and Hillary are held up as virtuous by the elite media?
Well besides the fact that what Marianne said is likely not true, my point is the hypocrisy. The elite media and the left will lie or do anything to trash us with one standard, and yet proclaim that the same standard is a virtue if the person has a D by their name.
Paula Jones got some media play because her case went to the Supreme Court and Gennifer Flowers got some play when she posed nude. The elite media tried to cover up Monica Lewinsky but Matt Drudge found out. The Lewinsky affair would have come out anyway as Paula Jones’ lawyers had found out about her through the discovery process.
[Editor’s Note – we would rather make no reference to Miss Lewinsky, but in this case we had to. Good editorial judgment is important and the facts indicate that Miss Lewinsky was the victim of a very lopsided power relationship. She should be allowed to live this down and enjoy her life in peace. We wish her well.]
There were also reported affairs with actresses Sharon Stone, Barbara Streisand, Gina Gershon. There are also numerous other affairs and sexual assaults, such as Kathleen Willey (who got one interview at CBS) and others that were just not mentioned such as Dolly Kyle Browning, Elizabeth Ward Gracen and the rape of Juanita Broaddrick (who got one interview with NBC’s Lisa Myers and that was it).
Where was the media frenzy and the planning to release the interview at a key electoral time? What happened to “it’s just sex” and “sex doesn’t matter” elite media??
Editor’s Note – Jackie is an acquaintance of mine. She has a heart of gold and a wonderful mind. Her family does not need what ABC is doing. ABC would never do this to a Democrat. This is very personal bottom of the barrel stuff.
Related:
FBI: Newt’s Ex Tried To Sell Influence at His Expense – LINK
CNN Makes Debate History. ABC News Refuses To Interview Witnesses Defending Newt Gingrich from Allegations – LINK
Elite Media Jumping At Newt’s Ex-Wife, Covered Up John Edwards and Juanita Broaddrick While Not Covering Obama’s “Failures” – LINK
The failure of a marriage is a terrible and emotional experience for everyone involved. Anyone who has had that experience understands it is a personal tragedy filled with regrets, and sometimes differing memories of events.
We will not say anything negative about our father’s ex-wife. He has said before, privately and publicly, that he regrets any pain he may have caused in the past to people he loves.
ABC News or other campaigns may want to talk about the past, just days before an important primary election. But Newt is going to talk to the people of South Carolina about the future– about job creation, lower taxes, and about who can defeat Barack Obama by providing the sharpest contrast to his damaging, extreme liberalism. We are confident this is the conversation the people of South Carolina are interested in having.
Our father is running for President because of his grandchildren – so they can inherit the America he loves. To do that, President Obama must be defeated. And as the only candidate in the race, including Obama, who has actually helped balance the national budget, create jobs, reform welfare, and cut taxes and spending, Newt felt compelled to run – to serve his country and safeguard his grandchildren’s future.
I just saw the Reuters poll showing Mitt Romney with a 21 point lead in South Carolina.
The poll is a joke for two reasons
1- Because half of the sample were Democrats. Why would you poll Democrats about a REPUBLICAN primary??? (Answer: to reflect the candidate the media wants to run against Obama.)
2- The sample was merely “registered voters” and not “likely voters” which skews the sample to the left. Since “Motor Voter” almost every non-voting Joe is registered to vote.
Paul Krugman is the neo-Marxist “economist (and I use the term loosely) from the New York Times. He has been documented wrong more than any columnist I am aware of. Unfortunately, like too many “economists” he is a totally partisan political hack.
Speaking like a true advocate of the Alinsky Model….
First, families have to pay back their debt. Governments don’t — all they need to do is ensure that debt grows more slowly than their tax base.
Unless abortion and pressure from eco-extremists about “population control” wither your tax base and work force – and then those making the loans figure out that you have no intention of stopping the accumulation of new debt or paying it back.
Quote:
The debt from World War II was never repaid; it just became increasingly irrelevant as the U.S. economy grew, and with it the income subject to taxation.
This is not an argument for increasing debt, this is an argument for economic growth. Growth that is stymied by the anti-wealth, anti-capital and anti-production policies that Paul Krugman advocates. Wealth is the opposite of poverty.
Also, the income subject to taxation is not very relevant. It is the amount of money put in a taxable position by people moving it in ways that are taxable and in ways that take risk to create wealth. It is about tax compliance. The higher the rates, the greater the noncompliance and “Going Galt”. It is also about increasing the growing number of tax payers which only happens when people are confident to produce and take risk here in the United States.
Our friend NeoNeocon has a great critique of this piece HERE. Go read it.
Before anyone decides Ron Paul is right and Newt Gingrich is wrong, read his newsletters that call for destruction of Israel, a race war, etc etc and just read them. His newsletter went on for well over a decade. Go read them.
Whenever I see or hear of government officials vacationing on the taxpayer’s dime, I get upset.
Obama and his 3 million dollar Christmas. Ugh!
Now Pelosi and her 10K per night hotel.
Nancy (I can do it but you’d better not) Pelosi – in five days spends what MANY MANY people make IN A YEAR. Just to lay her head on a pillow in that place.
Ten Thousand Dollars. Per Day.
Maybe it’s from her private millions…I don’t care, because thanks to hawaiireporter.com, I found out that: “Pelosi has been escorted by local police during her last two holiday visits to Hawaii Island at a cost of $34,000 to local taxpayers.”
Again, a year’s salary for some people.
I will use my life as a personal comparison:
I work part time to stay at home with my children.
My husband works full time, about 12 hours per day.
Pelosi spends in less than a week, just to be there, what my husband and I make together in a year.
This does not mean that I begrudge the well-to-do individual the opportunity to take their family on a fling for Christmas.
Please understand, no one has a problem with wealthy people taking vacations that they EARNED on their own dime. We all understand that they deserve to do what they will with their money. (All of us except for OWSers, that is…)
But some people in our Government don’t care that tax dollars are important to Americans. Every dollar (taken from us) counts, so when Michelle Obama takes a government plane out to Hawaii just a couple of days early … because she doesn’t want to wait for her husband… and it costs 100K to the American People, it is a little hard not to be upset at the “Let them eat cake!” attitude.
The prevalent mindset of “The government is here to serve me” is something that must be weeded out of our Congress.
Read this from Hawaiifreepress.com:
“Judicial Watch last March exposed Pelosi treating the US Air Force “like her personal airline”. FOX News March 10 pointed out: In one email (Pelosi) aide Kay King >>complained<< to the military that they had not made available any aircraft the House speaker wanted for Memorial Day recess: “It is my understanding there are NO G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable … The Speaker will want to know where the planes are,” King wrote.
*The one-way flight from San Francisco to the Big Isle is 2400 miles, within the range of both the C-20 (Gulfstream III) and the C-37A (Gulfstream V) but only the C-37A could safely make the 4500 mile one-way trip from Washington, DC >nonstop<. Akamai readers will of course remember how Pelosi’s Congress last fall >>berated<< Detroit auto executives for flying corporate jets from Detroit to Washington to appear before Congress requesting Federal bailouts.
The big three execs were forced to return to Washington a week later by car in order to get a hearing.
Not Pelosi or her ultra-rich “in-group”.” (emphasis is mine – and did you see that it was all about convenience?)
So this is what I want to know….When are you going to wake up, Americans? When are you going to stop watching American Idol and whatever else you are obsessed with … and do something to save your country – and your freedom, and vote these people out of office?
Who remembers…? You go to Washington to SERVE the American people.
Not take advantage of them!
Reprinted with permission of the author. Leah Palomita is a Christian Writer who appears in CDN and other publications
The politics of personal distraction. This is mostly what the opponents of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich are using to try and trash him personally to the voters. The facts are that when he was in office he was able to carry out most of his promises and the Contract With America in spite of Democrat and media opposition. After he left office the GOP lost their way and became Democrats lite in too many policy areas.
If Newt Gingrich were being nominated for sainthood, many of us would vote very differently from the way we would vote if he were being nominated for a political office.
What the media call Gingrich’s “baggage” concerns largely his personal life and the fact that he made a lot of money running a consulting firm after he left Congress. This kind of stuff makes lots of talking points that we will no doubt hear, again and again, over the next weeks and months.
But how much weight should we give to this stuff when we are talking about the future of a nation?
This is not just another election and Barack Obama is not just another president whose policies we may not like. With all of President Obama’s broken promises, glib demagoguery and cynical political moves, one promise he has kept all too well. That was his boast on the eve of the 2008 election:
“We are going to change the United States of America.”
Many Americans are already saying that they can hardly recognize the country they grew up in. We have already started down the path that has led Western European nations to the brink of financial disaster.
Internationally, it is worse. A president who has pulled the rug out from under our allies, whether in Eastern Europe or the Middle East, tried to cozy up to our enemies, and has bowed low from the waist to foreign leaders certainly has not represented either the values or the interests of America. If he continues to do nothing that is likely to stop terrorist-sponsoring Iran from getting nuclear weapons, the consequences can be beyond our worst imagining.
Against this background, how much does Gingrich’s personal life matter, whether we accept his claim that he has now matured or his critics’ claim that he has not? Nor should we sell the public short by saying that they are going to vote on the basis of tabloid stuff or media talking points, when the fate of this nation hangs in the balance.
Even back in the 19th century, when the scandal came out that Grover Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock — and he publicly admitted it — the voters nevertheless sent him to the White House, where he became one of the better presidents.
Do we wish we had another Ronald Reagan? We could certainly use one. But we have to play the hand we were dealt. And the Reagan card is not in the deck.
Our Republican Leadership is making some progress at controlling spending, but much less than we had expected.
[Editor’s Note: Emily Miller is a very solid journalist who I trust. Griff Jenkins from Fox News introduced us at CPAC 2010 and I have been a student of her good work ever since.]
Congressional Republican leaders are crowing that they cut discretionary spending in the ginormous omnibus spending bill. In fact, spending will go up in 2012 because of smoke-and-mirrors budget games that have become commonplace on Capitol Hill. A 1,200-page piece of legislation filed late the night before the vote continues to be the unfortunate way politicians operate.
On Friday, the House passed the $1 trillion omnibus spending bill to fund government for the current fiscal year, averting a midnight shutdown. The last-minute conference report, which then passed the Senate on Saturday, prevents any more of the budget dramas for the remaining nine-and-a-half months of the fiscal year.
The bill took advantage of every red cent in discretionary spending allowed under the Budget Control Act (BCA), which was part of the August deal to increase the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion. Final spending for 2012 came in exactly at the statutory limit of $7 billion less than fiscal year 2011, but that was quickly wiped out by gimmicks.
In what was an attempt to create a hit piece against Newt Gingrich, Freddie Mac execs have admitted that through the last decade it was “conservatives” who were pushing reforms to “dismantle” Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac before they could blow up the mortgage market and the banking system.
The next time Obama says that it was the Republicans who caused this, remind him of this article. This piece helps Republicans and makes a liar out of Obama far more than it hurts Newt.
So let us address what the anonymous Freddie Mac execs have to say about Newt.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac execs are almost all Democrat appointees. Newt has been blasting them in public since 2008 if not before, so under condition of anonymity what do you think they are going to tell a reporter?
Obama and the Democrats have protected Fannie/Freddie from serious reform, have been bailing them out for hundreds of billions and the Democrats, using language in the stimulus bill inserted by the Democrat leadership, made sure that Fannie/Freddie execs (as well as AIG execs) got their many millions of bonuses for running the mortgage industry into the ground.
So I ask you again what are they going to tell a reporter about the Republican front runner? If any Republican is elected their gravy train gets cut off.
Readers, does anyone honestly believe that people in the same position as Frank Raines, Jim Johnston, or Jaime Gorelick would ever say to a reporter, “Yup! Newt told us not to do what we were doing”?
Remember that Fannie/Freddie bought almost every lobbying and consulting firm in DC to prevent people from working against them. Fannie/Freddie also spent $20o million in partisan donations with the vast majority going to Democrats.
BUSTED: Newt Gingrich Lied About What He Did For Freddie Mac
In last week’s CNBC debate, newly-minted top-tier Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich claimed he was hired by Fannie Maeto be a “historian,” and claimed that pointed out flaws in their “insane” business model.
But an investigation by Bloomberg reveals that Gingrich was much more involved with the government-backed lender than he let on — and that he was hired to promote the company (and its business practices) to other conservatives.
“Former Freddie Mac officials familiar with the consulting work Gingrich was hired to perform for the company in 2006 tell a different story. They say the former House speaker was asked to build bridges to Capitol Hill Republicans and develop an argument on behalf of the company’s public-private structure that would resonate with conservatives seeking to dismantle it.”
In the debate, Gingrich claimed he warned the company that it was causing a housing “bubble,” but Freddie Mac executives told Bloomberg he was never critical of its business model.
“Former Freddie Mac officials familiar with his work in 2006 say Gingrich was asked to build bridges to Capitol Hill Republicans and develop an argument on behalf of the company’s public-private structure that would resonate with conservatives seeking to dismantle it.”
His close ties to Freddie Mac are likely to be a liability in the Republican primary — where voters are deeply skeptical of the government-backed lenders, and furious that the public had to bail them out for their bad business practices.
In statement on his campaign website, Gingrich admits to helping the company reach out to conservatives — more than he said he did in the debate — but does not disclose how much he made from his consulting work:
“Freddie Mac was interested in advice on how to reach out to more conservatives. The Gingrich Group stressed that Freddie Mac must be open to reform of their lending practices but that by stressing the historical success of public-private partnerships in achieving public goods at a minimum of taxpayer money and bureaucracy.”
After Gingrich left Freddie Mac’s payroll, Bloomberg notes that he quickly turned into one of its most vocal critics, writing in his 2011 book “To Save America” that the companies “are so thoroughly politicized and preside over such irresponsible lending policies that they need to be replaced with smaller, private companies operating without government guarantees, whose leaders focus on making a profit, not manipulating politicians.”
The Sean Hannity Interview with Donald Trump and it is worth viewing as they have a good policy discussion, especially in the second half of the interview:
One of my worthy academic friends sent me the following note:
Chuck, Trump is a complete buffoon.And his comments in this interview are garbage even compared to his usual bleats…why promote this? Cheers!
I can understand why someone might think this way. Trump is a showman, he knows all about television timing and hype and to some people the hype can certainly be viewed as buffoonery.
But as someone who is trained in communications, which includes journalism, classic rhetoric, manipulation, politics and propaganda, I have learned to separate hype and emotionalism from the substance of any message and I encourage all readers of Political Arena to learn to do the same.
So I respond:
Professor, the thing is, even though he is a showman who is over the top (I mean look at the HAIR), he is an over the top showman who has a policy point of view that connects with voters.
I, as a student of propaganda, tend to strip away the hype and examine the message, and right now Trump is the only one saying what he is saying, and that is why it is news.
Don’t prejudge, just listen. Laura Ingraham with Donald Trump on the derisive comments of pundits like Charles Krauthammer.
Learned Professor:
OK. I listened. Where’s the beef? I hear15 minutes of him dumping on Rove and Krauthammer. Rove is someone I would pay some attention to on strategies and tactics for winning elections, not political philosophy. Krauthammer usually has interesting things to say on politics and culture, but sometimes gets things wrong. I hear repeated boasting that he is a business success, saying that he understands economics…what is the audio supposed to convince me of?
Editor (me):
One of the points being that the pundit class thinks they can pick our nominee.
Think of it this way, yo do real research in physics as well as teach. If you put out crappy research being whoppingly wrong, it would affect you. You have a stake in what you do.
But what if you just taught high school physics and nothing else? You could be glaringly wrong and wrong often and there would be no consequences (just as we see with public school teachers and the textbooks they use).
These pundits who talk and talk (Krauthammer opposed Reagan) are wrong about plenty of things (George Will even once called the Second Amendment an embarrassment) and yet where are the consequences? Yet they act as though they are entitled to dictate to us who our nominee is and anyone else who “butts in” can “butt out” as far as they are concerned.
For someone like Donald Trump, when he is wrong it affects him very directly, the credibility he has for his TV show, not to mention his credibility as a deal maker and a business man.
When Donald Trump makes a mistake it tarnishes his entire brand, his children who are a part of that brand, each move he makes has the potential to cost many millions of dollars of his personal wealth and those who invest in him, and the many thousands of jobs that he provides.
All of this is on the line with every move Trump makes. When Karl Rove or Charles Krauthammer say something stupid does it endanger the entire Fox brand? Of course not, in fact people will likely forget it two weeks later.
So who is more qualified to offer on opinion? Who has more at stake in America and in Americans? The answer is obvious, and that is why if anyone has MORE of a place to speak out as a pundit as the chattering class, it is Donald Trump, and ever other business owner who risked everything to have a chance at success. And that is the point which Laura understands and demonstrates to some degree on her show.
Where is the plan to fix America from Charles Krauthammer? Trump just wrote a book on how to do it. In fact, Charles Krauthammer’s entire life’s work is not as influential or as substantive as Donald Trump’s iconic book “The Art of the Deal”.
This brings me back to my previous point about separating the hype and emotion from the raw substance. We are so used to hype without substance from the elite media, that we start to believe that when we see hype that it automatically means there is no substance.
P.S.
Did you see Mika Brzezinski tell Boon Pickens that he doesn’t pay enough in taxes? Boon is 83, he goes to work every day and he has paid $665 million in taxes since he turned age 70, and Mika went after him for not paying enough. Yet look at who holds up Mika as someone who actually matters.
Learned Professor:
Regardless of what you think about Rove or Krauthammer, the question is: “Is Trump a useful person for the Republican candidates to elevate by attending his debate?” I say ‘no’ (Not R. or K., *I* say this.). I say that Trump is not a serious man. He is a successful real-estate mogul. He is also a vain braggart with too many stupid and non-conservative ideas for me to want him to be a ‘blessed’ voice for American conservatism. I don’t think the roof will fall in if this happens, but I think that the candidates will muddy themselves by association.
Editor:
There is much truth to what you just said, but in fairness, Trump never claimed to be a a “‘blessed’ voice for American conservatism” like Rush Limbaugh or as implied by Krauthammer. Trump speaks as a businessman who sees a government that is stupid with money, corrupt in it’s regulations, killing jobs, and is foolish in managing our resources. Almost every business owner in the country can identify with Donald Trump at some level. Besides, how many reporters moderating a primary debate are anything but a mouthpiece for the extremist wing of the Democratic Party?
Trump will ask questions no one in the media would think to ask, he will address issues they will not bring up, and it will give us an opportunity to see how the candidates react in a very different environment.
[Editor’s Note – It is not that I do not respect Krauthammer, Will, or Rove, it is the entire idea of “butt out” that I really take exception to.]
Anyone who says that Glenn Beck is not a serious political force is made into a liar by this interview. This is the toughest and most substantive interview I have ever seen Newt faced with and it is worth examining.
There is no one in the elite media capable of offering an interview this substantive and informative.
Notice how “F” Chuck Todd tries to sneak in some rather bogus political narratives? This is one reason why MSNBC has such poor ratings. People are smart enough to see the semantic games and bogus narratives introduced as a matter of routine at MSNBC.
On a side note, at the beginning “F” Chuck Tries to posture Trump and is completely bowled over. While Trump is at times a tad over the top and thus “unpresidential”, the GOP field could use a little bit of Trump’s fire.
Note: If you missed the Donald Trump interview with Sean Hannity be sure you see it as it is a good policy discussion – LINK.
[Note, this story is stickied to the top of the page as it is our feature of the week. Please scroll down to see new posts and updates!]
by PoliticalArena.org Editor Chuck Norton
Sometimes beltway wisdom can reflect certain truths not apparent to many nice folks in “fly over country”, but often the beltway wisdom caters to government largess and the message can be sold to large donors and bundlers.
Inside the beltway, insiders from both parties treat small government conservatives as “extreme” because all of them make their money from government largess either directly or indirectly. There are also factors that swing the public that those inside the beltway never get exposed to. The greatest example of this was in 1976 and in 1980 when “insiders” believed that Ronald Reagan was a joke, a stupid B-movie actor whose eloquent speeches about the dangers of communism, socialism and collectivism should have went out with the 1950’s. Now those same pundits claim to be the very fathers of his success. While some of the names of the insiders and pundits have changed, the beltway mentality has not.
Please examine these comments from the insiders poll at National Journal and enjoy my comments which will appear in red.
The Gingrich Moment has yet to catch on with National Journal‘s Political Insiders. Despite former House Speaker Newt Gingrich‘s surge in the Republican presidential nomination contest, overwhelming majorities of both Democratic and Republican Insiders still say former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has the better shot at beating President Obama in 2012.
[This is what the left and the elite media say. They said the same thing about McCain and Dole. The elite media is essentially the Democrat media complex, so if Mitt Romney is so much of a threat why are they avoiding piling on and trashing Romney like they have the other candidates? In each case where the most “moderate” candidate was considered the most electable the Democrat campaigned to the right of the GOP nominee and won. When there is a bold difference between the two candidates the conservative Republican wins.
Some insiders know this and are simply rooting for the two candidates who are most likely to guarantee continued government largess. Other insiders start out with the best of intentions, but end up adopting the very mentality that they came to DC to change in the first place. Having been to DC events I can tell you that the temptation to meld in to that mentality is highly seductive. Make no mistake, the media and the White House want to run against Romney and several White House staffers have let that leak out. They believe that the same strategy the GOP used against John Kerry in 2004 can be used against Mitt Romney. They also believe that Obama can fool voters by campaigning to the right of Romney’s record. They will say that Romney talks like Reagan, but governed like Dukakis. Obama will also run against what he will describe as a namby-pamby do nothing Congress that talks about grandiose reforms but ends up with a schizophrenic big government record like Romney’s. ]
For some of the Insiders, Romney’s well-oiled campaign and potential for moderate appeal gave him the edge.
[The well oiled campaign with huge state machines is not as overwhelmingly effective as it used to be for two reasons.
The first reason is that with the power of the internet and multiple 24 hours news channels voters have more unfiltered access to information and the candidates. Herman Cain had almost no ground machine to speak of, and the truth is that if it weren’t for his repeated stumbling when it comes to basic foreign policy questions and messaging, he would still be the front-runner. The allegations of sexual harassment by women, all of whom have direct ties to David Axelrod and the Chicago Democrat machine were so transparent, that most people were not swayed by them. The fact that the Cain allegations didn’t stick in spite of a massive elite media campaign to try to make them otherwise is yet another indicator of just how powerful new media really is (note, remember when Cain was asked if he would take a lie detector test about the allegations and he said yes? Only local media shared the results). A wealthy massive machine is no longer necessary to get a message out.]
“He [Romney] almost beat a liberal icon in a blue state and went on to win the governor’s race,” said one Democratic Insider. “He is a very strong general-election candidate.”
[And Newt nationalized a mid-term election, brought in a GOP majority in the House for the first time in 40 years, cut taxes, balanced the federal budget, created a surplus, and passed welfare reform with a Democrat President, yet our Democratic insider knows that. Also, since when has Massachusetts ever been a political gauge for the rest of the country? ]
“Mitt Romney is better positioned to speak to independent voters,” said another Democrat, “including key voting blocs like swing unmarried women.” A Republican strategist agreed. “Romney is more acceptable to moderate voters, especially female voters.”
[Nonsense. And this brings us to the second reason why massive state machines on the ground are not as effective as they used to be. Those machines were needed to get the attention of ordinarily more apathetic independent voters (and conservatives could not be more motivated already). Independent voters have been anything but apathetic since 2009. Independents are engaged and informed in a way I thought I would never see again in my lifetime. They are also far from what beltway insiders would consider moderate.
In questionnaires about civics and current events independents score almost as high as Republican voters, before 2009 they scored below Democrat voters.
In the 2009 state and local elections voters swung towards GOP/TEA candidates by 18 points in the key swing states of Florida and Pennsylvania. The independent voters in those key swing states were not energized by a “moderate message”. They were energized by the bold TEA Party message of Rick Santelli and Sarah Palin. In New Jersey the firebrand fiscal hawk Chris Christie was elected governor.
In 2010 GOP/TEA Party candidates swept the elections in nine of the top ten swing states. For the first time since 1984 when Ronald Reagan won 49 states, traditionally independent and slightly left leaning voters such as women and Catholics voted Republican by big numbers. There is no way that anyone could say that they were energized by Mitt Romney or anyone like him. Florida, which Obama won, tossed out their own Republican Governor Charlie Crist who was a wishy-washy Mitt Romney like moderate, and replaced him with reaganesque Marco Rubio. Governor Crist tried to take the independent vote away from Rubio by running as an independent and guarantee the Democrats a win, but independent voters such as women and Catholics voted for Rubio by significant margins.]
Other Republican Insiders named Romney as the stronger candidate, but couldn’t muster much enthusiasm about the prospect.
“Romney’s shape-shifting might not be appealing for conservatives in the primary, but he’s far more disciplined than Gingrich and is the only candidate that can win in November,” said one Republican.
[Romney is more disciplined, but not as disciplined as one might think, already since the debates started Romney has changed his messaging and positions. What is the bold Romney vision for America other than “I’m not Barack Obama and don’t I look sweet on TV? Also Newt has come back from the early missteps in his campaign with a new discipline and has avoided his previous academics ways of getting himself off message with excessive nuance.]
“Mitt Romney will be hard to hate in the general for the same reason he is hard to love in a primary,” said another Republican. “There isn’t much ‘there’ there, so the spotlight will gravitate to Obama. Romney makes it a referendum on Obama; Gingrich makes it a choice.”
[Indeed, 1980 could have been a referendum about Carter, but Ronald Reagan went out of his way to make it a choice. Gingrich gives you something to vote for.]
Concerns about Romney’s charisma led a small number of Insiders on both sides of the spectrum made the case for Gingrich as the stronger Obama opponent. “Romney seems like he is the most formidable on paper and in debates,” said one Democrat, “but the American people will struggle to take to him, just as the Republicans are struggling to take to him.” “The president’s money will dwarf ours,” warned a Republican strategist. “So our candidate must frame his message more clearly and forcefully. That’s Newt’s strength and that’s Romney’s weakness.”
[Hey someone in DC is thinking! Obama and his team led by David Axelrod will try to mottle everything, change history, and make the facts into a soup until people don’t know what to think. Newt has the boldness and razor like clarity in his presentation that can cut through the nonsense.]
Ann Coulter and Laura Ingraham are for Mitt Romney. Why?
Ann & Laura are singularly focused on Romney’s ability to speak and have been quite up front about this when discussing it.
I understand their point of view, but I do not totally agree with it. During the Bush administration while I was getting my latest degree at IU, I had to constantly defend what the administration was doing right because the administration made almost no attempt to articulate it themselves (with the exception of hiring Tony Snow).
This became very tiresome and was a reason why the GOP got pasted in 2006 and 2008. Since communication is the life of Ann and Laura (and it is my life too) I see how their point of view can be so unbalanced.
When George W. Bush was debating John Kerry can anyone honestly say that Bush dominated Kerry in any of those debates? Yet Bush still won convincingly.
The want to have Romney for the reasons stated is defensive in nature. Just as the Democrats picking Dukakis was defensive, picking Mondale was defensive, and picking Kerry was defensive. They were all picked because the Democrats “settled” on who they thought was “electable”. The GOP did this with Dole and McCain and today many “insiders” want to follow that line of thinking for 2012. Don’t be fooled.
Ann and Laura had a conversation on The Laura Ingraham Show and agreed that Mitt Romney will never be as conservative after the primary as he is now, and he will not be as conservative in the White House as he would be in the General Election. They both laughed and said how it will work out great for them because they will have yet another [liberal] Republican that they can make fun of for four years.
The state of the country is so dire that we no longer can afford the luxury of having a president talk radio can make fun of.
This happens every year. Hiring picks up in the retail and service sector for the Christmas season. There is no way that this can be unexpected, but the implication is that “Obama’s policies are finally working”.
Next month the reports on consumer spending will show that they went up in December with the spin that it is all because Obama is great, but the truth is that consumer spending always goes up in December. In February and early March the elite media will say that “unemployment went up unexpectedly” and “consumer spending dropped unexpectedly”. Why? Holiday help will get laid off and the credit card bills will start coming in.
Another reason that unemployment has dropped unexpectedly is that a reported 315,000 people have given up looking for a job. That artificially lowers the government unemployment number.
Job gains in the U.S. picked up last month and the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to the lowest level since March 2009, a decline augmented by the departure of Americans from the labor force.
Payrolls climbed 120,000, after a revised 100,000 increase in October, with more than half the hiring coming from retailers and temporary help agencies, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey called for a 125,000 gain. The jobless rate declined to 8.6 percent from 9 percent.
“It’s good news, not great news,” said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Inc. in Lexington, Massachusetts, whose forecast matched the survey median. “The labor market is gradually healing.”
What nonsense, because way down deep in the article, they finally tell you the truth [Note – reporters know that most people never read beyond the 5th paragraph in most any article]:
Employment at service-providers increased 126,000 in November, including a 50,000 gain in retail trade as companies began hiring for the holiday shopping season. The number of temporary workers increased 22,300.
Macy’s, the second-biggest U.S. department-store chain, increased mostly part-time staff by 4 percent for the November-December shopping season. See’s Candies Inc., a chocolate maker owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said it would add 5,500 mostly temporary workers.
Still, factory payroll growth slowed and construction employment dropped. Government payrolls decreased by 20,000 in November, including a 16,000 decline on the state and local levels.
More on “Unexpected”
Enjoy this piece from my old college blog where I had some fun with the elite media economists where they declared every piece of bad news “unexpected” for two years while they were spinning positive for Obama:
In February or March we will be told that factory orders for consumer goods are up “unexpectedly” which is a positive sign that Obama is the best president ever. The truth is that it will be the result of totally expected inventory restocking after the holiday season.
Jobless claims are over 400,000 again this week. Last month “Hope” was alive because new claims had dropped below 400,000 to 397,000, which is statistically insignificant:
Fewer people applied for unemployment benefits last week, a hopeful sign that the job market might be picking up.
The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications dropped 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 397,000, the lowest level in five weeks. It’s only the third time since April that applications have fallen below 400,000.
Were saved! Most every week claims are above 400,000 it is unexpected and each time below it is because we have the hopeful if not smoking hot economy. Gimme a break.
This video from The Onion shows you just how elite media over-hype works and how they get you to care about news that really isn’t news at all. You will see the techniques that are designed to generate an emotional response and suggest the editorial point of view into your mind with very little facts at all. This is perhaps the most important video The Onion has ever done.
The elite media would have you believe that the TEA Party is a mob of violent racists in spite of the fact that not a single TEA Party activist has ever been arrested at an event.
Yet look at the pro anarchist/Marxists occupy protesters and ask yourself why the elite media doesn’t show you this. Also notice that these groups are very small, usually composing of a few dozen people to about two thousand (many of whom are paid by unions to be there – LINK). At a single Glenn Beck TEA Party event about 1.5 million people showed up and nothing was trashed, there was no mess, and no one was arrested.
“DVD sales are easy money and so are internet sales. While the first three episodes of The Playboy Club are on Hulu, the other seven episodes will not be made available on any internet service or DVD. The networks are not in the business of turning away easy money…”
Cast of ‘The Playboy Club’ on NBC
One might wonder why we would ask such a question, but by the end of this article you will not be so uncertain.
Sometimes television can reflect history, but sometimes it can be recreated too perfectly as is the case with NBC’s The Playboy Club.
The new TV show The Playboy Club takes place in early 1960s Chicago. And if you’re going to do a series about Chicago, you have to include a political angle, right? As the saying goes, Chicago is to politics as Paris is to romance. The Playboy Club, of course, wants to be about both.
So one of the main characters is a young lawyer named Nick Dalton, who wants to leave his past as an Outfit mouthpiece behind and become Cook County State’s Attorney. The Outfit, though, doesn’t want to leave Dalton behind. Dalton constantly hounded by the son of crime boss Bruno Bianchi, who reminds him that the mob can help him get ahead in politics.
In 1964 Chicago, only one man could help you get elected state’s attorney: Mayor Richard J. Daley, chairman of the Cook County Democratic Party Central Committee.
Among local offices, state’s attorney was second only in importance to the mayor. It was important to have a Regular in there, who wouldn’t prosecute the Machine. In 1960, Daley handpicked Daniel Ward, who looked clean because he was the dean of the DePaul University Law School, to run against Republican incumbent Benjamin Adamowski. Adamowski had to go because he was investigating city workers for taking bribes to allow a trucking company to short-weight construction supplies. Legend has it that Daley stole the 1960 election for John F. Kennedy. But he stole just as many votes for Ward, who won by 25,000.
Given Daley’s concern with looking proper, it’s impossible to imagine him slating an ex-Mob lawyer. Daley wasn’t mentioned on The Playboy Club, but he’s an interesting part of the story, and not just because of his power to elect a state’s attorney.
The New York Times wrote about the political impact of the show:
Crime, Sex, Politics and Regular Folks
In the world of prime-time television, Chicago is home to rough-and-tumble politics, street-smart cops and robbers, and the sexiest nightclub of its time, as well as to plenty of down-to-earth folks who make you wonder how that nightclub arose in their midst.
That may not be the way Chicagoans see themselves, but it describes the city’s image as viewed through the lens of modern-day television. Most Americans get their idea of the nation’s cities from what they see on TV.
And that, Political Arena readers, is why ‘The Playboy Club’ had to go.
Indeed in one episode Hugh Hefner’s lawyer pays off the Daley machine with a “donation” of a Jaguar.
This administration has been rife with “pay to play: Chicago style corruption scandals such as Solyndra, BrightSource, and BP; the Goldman Sachs and lobbyist revolving door in the administration, the picking of winners and losers, the illegal offshore drilling ban, the shutdown “green energy competition” such as the Keystone Canadian Oil Pipeline, the yanking of perfectly valid coal mining permits, EPA regulatory shutdown of American power plants, the steering of stimulus funds to Democrat donors and political districts, the favors handed out to White House allies in ObamaCare, the huge political payoffs to get the votes of a few resistant Democrats for key votes, the closing of GM dealerships owned by Republican political donors, the list can go on to fill the page.
A little Chicago style persuasion is nothing new for this administration.
Remember the Ford commercial with the average Joe who said that one of the reasons he bought a Ford was because it didn’t take bail-out funds? It struck a chord with many people and received a great deal of attention.
On Tuesday, Detroit News reporter Daniel Howes reported that White House officials leaned on Ford Motor Company to yank a popular TV and Internet ad critical of competitors who took federal bailout money. According to Howes, “Ford pulled the ad after individuals inside the White House” questioned the firm’s CEO Alan Mulally (who had earlier supported the bailout despite his company’s refusal to participate). Howes concluded: “You’re not allowed, in Obama’s America, to disparage the auto bailout, or — indirectly — Obama. Especially during the election cycle.”
Both Ford and the White House officially deny any political pressure received or applied. But White House press flack Dan Pfeiffer refused to answer when I asked him whether anyone at the White House had ever contacted anyone at Ford to complain about the bailout ad.
So the Washington Post comes to the administration’s defense:
A left-wing Washington Post writer immediately scoffed at concerns about the administration’s heavy hand because the Ford fiasco “is being denied by the parties on both sides.” Must be nice to mainline White House talking points for a living. For the rest of us, reality intrudes.
The Washington Post this morning ran an excellent piece about how President Obama has come up way short on his promises to help the housing market.
And so . . .
Today, Obama will travel to Las Vegas where he will outline new steps to help borrowers refinance. The White House leaked the story to the Post’s chief competitors on the national newspaper scene, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, as well as Reuters.
CBS has been caving and is making Atkisson “unavailable”. She will be lucky to have a job after this is over:
Today, I called CBS News in an attempt to interview Attkisson. I was told by CBS News senior vice president of communications Sonya McNair that Attkisson would be unavailable for interviews all week. When I asked why Attkisson would be unavailable, McNair would not say.
I’ve also heard from a producer at another media outlet that has previously booked Attkisson that they tried to book her since she made news with the Laura Ingraham interview yesterday. They were also told that she would be unavailable.
Recall what Attkisson told Ingraham yesterday: [The White House and Justice Department] will tell you that I’m the only reporter–as they told me–that is not reasonable. They say the Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, the New York Times is reasonable, I’m the only one who thinks this is a story, and they think I’m unfair and biased by pursuing it.
The White House banned a reporter from the press pool because she covered some citizens who were protesting President Obama. When called on this as the obvious intimidation that it was, the White House denied yanking her passes, yet every reporter in the pool knows darn well that the reporter was banned. SF Gate:
In a pants-on-fire moment, the White House press office today denied anyone there had issued threats to remove Carla Marinucci and possibly other Hearst reporters from the press pool covering the President in the Bay Area.
Chronicle editor Ward Bushee called the press office on its fib:
Sadly, we expected the White House to respond in this manner based on our experiences yesterday. It is not a truthful response. It follows a day of off-the-record exchanges with key people in the White House communications office who told us they would remove our reporter, then threatened retaliation to Chronicle and Hearst reporters if we reported on the ban, and then recanted to say our reporter might not be removed after all.
The Chronicle’s report is accurate.
If the White House has indeed decided not to ban our reporter, we
would like an on-the-record notice that she will remain the San Francisco print pool reporter.
The White House has threatened to use regulatory action to punish insurance companies, health care providers etc to keep them from telling their customers about how ObamaCare and other Democrat legislation is going to raise proces and interfere with care:
Michael Barone: Gangster government stifles criticism of ObamaCare – LINK
There are some, and I suspect many, Democrat operatives in the elite media who are all for this kind of behavior, so long as they are not the victim of it. CNN political analyst Roland Martin advocated that Obama Go “Chigaco-Style Al Capone Gangsta” on political opponents:
Obama’s critics keep blasting him for Chicago-style politics. So, fine. Channel your inner Al Capone and go gangsta against your foes. Let ‘em know that if they aren’t with you, they are against you, and will pay the price.
Of course how can we forget what the Democrats did to ABC. I wrote this piece for my college blog in 2006:
Democrats Threaten Broadcast License of ABC Over Path to 9/11 Film
Democrats have issued a thinly veiled threat against ABC’s broadcast license over their 9/11 miniseries, The Path to 9/11, set to air last Saturday night, in a press release issued by the Office of the Senate Democratic Leader last Thursday. Bill Clinton contacted ABC CEO Robert Iger in an effort to yank the film. Cyrus Nowrasteh, the writer and producer of the film, said in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity that political pressure from Democrats is causing edits to the film.
So partisan Democrats I have a question for you. Where is all the squawking about oppressing free speech now? Allow me to refresh your memory. When The Department of Defense issued a press release saying that they were hiring a public relations team to help counter enemy propaganda it was called an “assault on free speech.”
When the Justice Department investigated a series of classified leaks from the CIA to the New York Times it was called a “witch hunt” and a violation of the free speech rights of the Times. The leaker, Mary O’Neil, was appointed to Clinton’s National Security Council by former NSC Chief Sandy Berger, who later went to work for the Inspector General’s office in the CIA. Her job was to find leakers. Democrat talking heads in the media said that it would violate O’Neil’s free speech rights if she were prosecuted for leaking classified information….. no kidding. Let us not forget that Sandy Berger pleaded guilty to stealing and altering secret documents from the National Security Archive in preparation for the 9/11 Commission’s investigation.
The film was made in consultation with 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean, “which praised the film’s ‘commitment to accuracy’ and ‘sincere respect for the subject’ ‘I worked closely with the filmmakers and the network to ensure the mini-series accurately reflects both the facts and the spirit of the Commission’s findings,’ wrote Kean” (http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060908-045948-7634r).
Clinton attorney Bruce R. Lindsey, who runs Clinton’s foundation, “wrote Kean last night that he was ‘shocked’ by the former New Jersey governor’s role, saying: ‘Your defense of the outright lies in this film is destroying the bipartisan aura of the 9/11 Commission and tarnishing the hard work of your fellow commissioners.’”
So it boils down to this, who are we to believe: Bill Clinton, whose propensity to tell lies has not only been proven, but is renown in the American political lexicon; Sandy Berger, who stands convicted of stealing and altering documents from the National Security Archive to “prepare” for the 9/11 Commission investigation; or Thomas Kean, the Chairman of the 9/11 Commission? Even an NEA lobbyist knows the answer to this.
Be sure to read the rest of the piece HERE. ABC cowed to political pressure from the Democrats and edited out parts of the film that were confirmed as accurate. Not only were members of the 9/11 Commission on hand during production to insure accuracy, Dr. Michael Sheuer, the former head of the CIA’s “Bin Laden Unit” was also consulting. Dr. Sheuer wrote a book bashing President Bush so one cannot say that it was a “right-wing hit job” with any credibility.
The naked will to censor the film by the Democratic leadership inspired the production of a new documentary film called Blocking the Path to 9/11. Ironically those who produced The Path to 9/11 said that they expected to be on the receiving end of political heat from Republicans. Some things you just have to see for yourself:
NBC’s cable news channel also jumped on the anti-Path to 9/11 bandwagon.
ABC, in spite of high demand, refuses to release The Path to 9/11 on DVD. DVD sales are easy money and so are internet sales such as Netflix and Hulu. While the first three episodes of The Playboy Club are on Hulu, the other seven episodes will not be made available on any internet service or DVD. The networks are not in the business of turning away easy money.
Like NBC, ABC sure has learned its lesson about airing anything that Democrats might not approve of:
ABC does an infomercial for ObamaCare yet refuses health care ads from Republicans – LINK (2)
ABC saying that “Limbaugh has a history of making racially offensive comments” – but offered no proof – LINK
ABC: If you oppose Obama on policy, your racist – LINK
ABC cut out key substantive portions of the Palin interview (the parts that showed how knowledgeable she was) – LINK (More on that interview HERE and HERE)
Another ABC interview of Sarah Palin where substantive parts of her answers are edited out – LINK
ABC questions asked to Republicans vs Democrats – LINK
ABC’s Sawyer: ‘Protesters Roaming’ DC, ‘Increasingly Emotional, Yelling Slurs and Epithets’ – again no proof in the video – LINK
ABC Gushes Over Patrick Kennedy and Ted’s Fight for Health Care: ‘Dad’s Final Wish’ Came True – LINK
ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Argues With McCain on Health Care: ‘What Would You Say’ to Ted Kennedy? – LINK
ABC’s Cokie Roberts: Glenn Beck ‘Corrupting’ Democracy, a ‘Traitor’ to American Values – LINK
Glenn Beck blasts ABC for doctoring clips in smear piece – LINK
ABC Casts Democrats as Profiles in Courage, Republicans as Grief-Exploiting Meanies – LINK
ABC News engages in blatant misrepresentation in anti- TEA Party hit piece – LINK
ABC News Managing Editor: I didn’t even know about the ACORN story – LINK
‘Liberal’ ABC Radio Boss Firing Profitable Conservative Hosts, Hannity Leaves ABC Syndicator – LINK
Howard Kurtz Blasts ABC for Dumping Andrew Breitbart from Election Coverage Because of “Newsroom Uprising” – LINK
“If you are not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X
Political Arena 