Mitt Romney

Not National News: Mass. Obamacare Exchange Requires Everyone to Re-enroll, Again May Not Work in Time
By Tom Blumer | August 18, 2014 | 5:59 PM EDT

Recent news about Obamacare hasn't exactly been good, but the press has been pretty effective in keeping it quiet. To name just a few items, Enrollment is shrinking, because perhaps as many as 20 percent of enrollees aren't keeping up with their premiums. Rising costs have moved insurers to beg for bailouts, which appear to be forthcoming. 

Then there's this: Just last week in Massachusetts, where the state-run health insurance got its start under Republican Governor Mitt Romney eight years ago, the state's exchange announced that everyone currently enrolled in 2014 or who should have enrolled and didn't is going to have to apply for 2015 coverage this fall. Oh, and the system it plans to employ may not even be working by mid-November.

Andrea Mitchell Does About-Face on Russia: 'Who Says Cold War Isn't Back?'
By Randy Hall | July 29, 2014 | 8:15 PM EDT

During the 2012 presidential campaign, GOP candidate Mitt Romney called Russia “without question our No. 1 geopolitical foe,” a comment that was mocked by many Democrats and members of the press. One of those belittling the Republican's remark was MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, who admitted that the foreign country is “hardly an ally, but certainly not an adversary.”

Two years later, the host of Andrea Mitchell Reports tweeted: “Obama sends Putin a letter today accusing Russia of violating 1987 Reagan/Gorbachev missile treaty. Who says the Cold War isn't back?” The vast majority of posters responded: “You did!”                                    

Hillary Clinton Tells Gwen Ifill Comparing Her Comments to Romney is ‘False Equivalency'
By Jackie Seal | June 26, 2014 | 11:48 AM EDT

Appearing on Wednesday evening’s PBS NewsHour to discuss her book with Gwen Ifill, Hillary Clinton was forced to again explain her comments regarding wealth. Ifill told Clinton that those kind of comments tend to “stick. Ask Romney.” The former Secretary of State shot back, “Well, that’s a false equivalency.”

Gwen Ifill mentioned to Clinton that her husband “was forced to defend you at his own conference.” Hillary thought it was “sweet” of her husband, but said she doesn’t “need anybody to defend my record.”

MSNBC's Matthews on Hillary: 'Let Her Be a Little Elitist!'; Sang Different Tune on Romney
By Ken Shepherd | June 23, 2014 | 8:57 PM EDT

"If she's a little elitist, let her be a little elitist!" MSNBC's Chris Matthews insisted of former  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in a June 23 Hardball segment on a Washington Post front-pager on how Hillary "Clinton's rarefied life could be a liability in [her 2016 presidential] campaign."

"Why do people want to be fooled?!" Matthews groused moments earlier to his guests Nia-Malika Henderson of the Washington Post and Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post. "Why do the people want to be victims of fraud?" he added, seemingly hurt that Mrs. Clinton is facing scrutiny -- particularly within her party -- over her wealth and connections. "Why don't we accept them as they are, and stop making them like us?" Yes, this is the same Matthews who gleefully skewered Mitt Romney in 2012 after the leak of a video from an exclusive private fundraiser where Romney made the now-infamous 47 percent remark. As my colleague Scott Whitlock noted on September 18, 2012, Matthews gleefully opened his program that day trashing Romney's elitism (emphasis mine; listen to MP3 audio; videos follow page break):

CNN's Bolduan Rips Conservative Super PAC's 'Sexist' Jab at Hillary's 'Shopping Sprees'
By Matthew Balan | June 23, 2014 | 2:45 PM EDT

On Monday's New Day, CNN's Kate Bolduan blasted conservative super PAC America Rising for a supposedly bigoted attack on Hillary Clinton. The group recently attacked the former secretary of state as being out of touch: "If Hillary is going to run for president, she might be advised to take a lengthy sabbatical from her $200,000 per pop speaking tour and private shopping sprees at Bergdorfs to try and reconnect with what's happening back here on Earth."

Bolduan asserted that America Rising's statement was a "stupid, sexist remark on a shopping spree that has nothing to do with...or shouldn't have anything to do with" the recent criticism of Clinton for her "dead broke" claim. [MP3 audio available here; video below the jump]

David Gregory Grills Mitt Romney As If He's Just Become President
By Tom Blumer | June 16, 2014 | 5:45 PM EDT

The people at NBC who are agonizing over David Gregory's ongoing audience freefall at his Meet the Press perch need only look at the first half of his interview with 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to see why it's happening.

Gregory basically refused to acknowledge the existence of Romney's core argument, which is essentially that he wouldn't have done what President Obama did in withdrawing from Iraq so hastily and leaving things to run on auto-pilot. Instead, he insisted on sticking with a "Well, what would do now?" line of questioning, even though, as Romney indicated, he doesn't have access to intelligence briefings necessary to assert an informed opinion. When that didn't work, he tried to hold Romney to a stale 2007 quote from when conditions were obviously very different. The fact is that wouldn't be facing the present quandary if Obama hadn't acted directly against the (often privately expressed) desires of Iraqi leaders and U.S. intelligence officials to maintain at least a significant advisory presence there. Video and a transcript of the Iraq-related portion of the interview follow the jump (bolds and numbered tags are mine):

On CNN, Politico's Haberman Finds Clinton 'Houses' Not 'Consequential' Unlike Romney 'Gaffes'
By Brad Wilmouth | June 10, 2014 | 8:01 AM EDT

Appearing as a guest on Tuesday's New Day on CNN, Politico senior political writer Maggie Haberman laid down the groundwork for the media to show a double standard in not taking issue with Hillary Clinton's wealth as opposed to Republican Mitt Romney who was repeatedly hounded in 2012 as the dominant media grasped at straws to identify "gaffes" to paint him as "out of touch." The Politico writer also bolstered Clinton's attempt to preempt campaign questions about Benghazi by seeming to predict the strategy would have some effectiveness.

Haberman argued that Clinton's claim that she and husband former President Clinton were "broke" after they left the White House as they were purchasing multiple "houses" would not be a "consequential" gaffe because it does not fit "an existing narrative" of the former First Lady, unlike in the case of Romney. Haberman began:

CNN's New Political Director in 2012: Romneys Would Be 'Happy to Have a Party with Black People Drowning'
By Geoffrey Dickens | June 6, 2014 | 5:19 PM EDT

On Friday, CNN announced that David Chalian would be named as their new political director. Chalian is most famous for making an obnoxious remark about Mitt and Ann Romney during the 2012 Republican National Convention.

On August 29, 2012, in live video inadvertently distributed by ABCNews.com, the-then Yahoo! News Washington bureau chief claimed the Romneys didn’t care about New Orleans residents being hit by Hurricane Isaac as he blurted: “They aren’t concerned at all. They are happy to have a party with black people drowning.” (Video of the remark after the jump)

Seth Rogen and the Liberal Media's Night of the Long Knives (Correction Appended)
By Jeffrey Lord | May 31, 2014 | 7:16 AM EDT

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Correction appended. Seth Rogen did not send the tweet mentioned below.)

Lights, action - cue the Leftists! Or, what comes around, goes around.

Seth Rogen, a Hollywood favorite as star or a supporting player in such gems as Knocked Up, The Green Hornet,The 40 Year Old Virgin and more, is having  what one might call a Martin Niemoller moment. Niemoller was the German Lutheran pastor who had the nerve to publicly oppose Hitler, being rewarded with seven years in a concentration camp. Niemoller famously wrote of the experience:

MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry: NBA Is About 'Profit From the Sale of Black Bodies'
By Tom Blumer | May 28, 2014 | 1:35 AM EDT

Melissa Harris-Perry seems to have a problem with some African-Americans making a lot of money in professional sports, apparently because some other people also make money in the process. Specifically, she seems to believe that the relationship between players in the National Basketball Association and their teams' owners is a form of slavery.

It's hard to conclude otherwise based on statements made by the MSNBC host this past Saturday. Perry introduced her segment about the Mark Cuban "controversy," wherein the owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks expressed self-preservation-related desires — which he inexplicably attributed to being personally "prejudiced" and "bigoted" — to move to the other side of the street upon seeing a "black kid in a hoodie" or "a white guy with a shaved head and lot of tattoos," by saying: "You can’t really talk about (slavery) reparations and ignore the modern day wealthy Americans who own teams made up predominantly of black men and profit from their bodies and labor." In case viewers missed her take the first time, she went there again, as seen in the video which follows the jump (HT TruthRevolt via BizPac Review):

Viewers of MSNBC's Ed Schultz Troll On-Screen, Reply to Stupid Poll Questions
By Randy Hall | May 19, 2014 | 11:01 AM EDT

The people who watch The Ed Show, a weekday afternoon program on MSNBC, are regularly invited by bombastic host Ed Schultz to participate by tweeting comments regarding the topic under discussion and take part in polls that are so slanted, they're bound to overwhelmingly mirror the host's wildly liberal views.

While being interactive with your audience is a laudable goal, the process also provides viewers with the opportunity “for some good ol’ fashioned trolling” that leads to getting comical and nonsensical tweets on-screen during airtime.

Lefty Blogger: GOP, Romney Should Have Had 'The Taste Slapped Out of Their Mouths' on Benghazi In 2012
By Tom Johnson | May 11, 2014 | 4:57 PM EDT

The right has directed most of its anger over the handling of the Benghazi terrorist attack at President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Susan Rice, but when lefty blogger Martin Longman reflects on reactions to Benghazi, he thinks of a different villain: Mitt Romney.

In a Saturday post for the Washington Monthly web site, Longman recalls that a few days after the attack, he was "seething about Romney’s behavior" re Benghazi, and that within three weeks, he "was in disbelief that the Romney campaign was chortling with glee at the death of four Americans."