Would you want to cite someone who has been thoroughly discredited in the very field he is supposed to be an expert in? Well, that is exactly what several news organizations did yesterday including Charlie Rose on PBS, the New York Times, and Bloomberg when they cited Gary Sick as an expert on Iran in stories about the nuke "deal" which was actually more of an agreement on the framework to discuss the...well, you get it. It really wasn't an actual deal but Gary Sick was chirping away like it was some sort of positive development.. Of course none of the news organizations gave a hint that Sick is the author of completely discredited 1992 October Surprise book which claimed that the 1980 Ronald Reagan campaign conspired with the Iranian government to delay the release of the American hostages captured in 1979.
Bloomberg
The government's report on consumer spending released this morning was another disappointment. Seasonally adjusted spending increased by just 0.1 percent, falling short of modest expectations of a 0.2 percent jump, following 0.2 percent declines in both December and January.
The opening paragraphs of coverage at Bloomberg News and the Associated Press contrasted sharply. Longtime readers can probably guess which wire tried to portray the news more positively. Predictably, both outlets broke out the bad weather excuse.
Mark Halperin just compared the way Hillary has been foisted on Dem voters to the empty "choices" that Cubans have when it comes to their leaders.
On this evening's With All Due Respect, when Dem strategist Steve McMahon claimed that Dems are happy with "the" choice they have in the person of Hillary, Halperin retorted "like the way Cuban voters are happy with their choices."
Appearing on Monday's NBC Today, Bloomberg Politics managing editor Mark Halperin saw problems for Hillary Clinton running unopposed for the 2016 Democratic nomination: "...the Republicans are running in a field of thirteen or fourteen, she's running against herself and right now she's kind of losing."
Bloomberg’s Jonathan Allen sounds a little desperate to make a controversy for Scott Walker with Second Amendment voters. His headline was “Scott Walker Once Backpedaled After Supporting Wisconsin Gun-Control Bill: His flirtation with the issue could create an opportunity for competitors.”
Briefly, Walker backed a bill that “could have jailed gun dealers who sold weapons without trigger locks—and the people who bought them.” But he dumped out of it shortly after gun-rights groups protested, and the bill died. So what’s the big rift?
Imagine the secret scene inside the White House if Bibi Netanyahu had lost tonight: President Obama popping the bubbly as Samantha Power and John Kerry danced an Irish jig? There's no denying that the Obama admin ardently davened [prayed] for Bibi's defeat. Top Obama campaign aides had been dispatched to Israel for that very purpose. Indeed, there are even allegations that the Obama admin had underwritten the effort to defeat Netanyahu.
But in a classic MSM bit of hypocritical hand-wringing, on this evening's With All Due Respect, John Heilemann lamented that he was "saddened" to hear that an adviser to Netanyahu said that his victory would be "a defeat for Barack Obama."
The only surprise should be that anyone is surprised.
Those who are used to how frequently the word "unexpectedly" appears in reports about disappointing economic data certainly won't be at all shocked at a Friday Bloomberg News report by Steve Matthews and A. Catarina Saraiva telling readers that "U.S. economic data have been falling short of prognosticators' expectations by the most in six years." The report has three problems. First, it treats the latest U.S. jobs news as an upside surprise, when it's really the result of difficult-to-justify seasonal adjustments. Second, it acts as if the appearance of lots of downside surprises in key areas is a recent phenomenon. Finally, it fails to explain a likely underlying cause, namely that Keynesian-trained economists and analysts can't imagine that their models might be misleading them.
The business press's ability to keep up the appearances of "recovery is just around the corner" for over 5-1/2 years has been simultaneously amazing and disgusting. One of their strategies has been to define a "new normal" which is only presented that way because everyone knows deep-down that as long as the left controls economic policy, the nation's economy won't ever really get any better than it currently is. Another involves lowering the bar. An example of that would be the ridiculous new definition of full employment as representing an unemployment rate of 5.5 percent.
A third tactic, demonstrated in a Thursday Bloomberg report, is to feign ignorance.
Less than five hours after its release, the government's news that retail sales fell by 0.6 percent in February — compared to a 0.3 percent increase expected by economists and analysts — is buried way down (about 6-8 screens, depending on your computer) on the home page of Bloomberg News, where the focus is supposed to be on developments in business and the economy.
Instead, the web site's main top-of-page story on its home page at 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time was about how "you" are getting richer. No, really:
Which was the bigger insult to Hillary: that she might have committed hanky-panky with the handling of her email, or that she's a huge Barry Manilow fan?
On today's With All Due Respect, Mark Halperin mocked Hillary's decision to delete thousands of supposedly personal emails: "was she running out of server space because she was, like, downloading every Barry Manilow song?" John Heilemann was equally unimpressed, quoting someone who tweeted: "Nixon didn't burn the tapes but Hillary destroyed the emails." Ouch.
Discussing the growing email controversy swirling around Hillary Clinton with Bloomberg Politics managing editor Mark Halperin on Thursday’s NBC Today, co-host Savannah Guthrie suggested it could resurrect another scandal for the would-be 2016 contender: “What about Republicans? This certainly hands them a lot of ammunition and breathes new life, perhaps, into the whole investigation into Benghazi.”
On the Bloomberg TV show he co-hosts, John Heilemann—asked today to quantify on a scale of "1-to-Godzilla" how "dumb" politically it was of Hillary Clinton to use personal email—answered "Godzilla with Mothra riding on his back dumb." Heilemann also revealed having reached out to former Hillary aides and that "to a person" they responded that the situation is a political "disaster."
Mark Halperin claimed that, substantively, Hillary might have "a leg to stand on" but that politically her decision to use personal email was "moronic."