By Tom Blumer | October 22, 2012 | 12:26 PM EDT

You don't know whether to laugh or cry upon reading the Sunday night shots campaign Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen at Politico took at Mitt Romney and his campaign.

Maybe these guys really believe that the Romney campaign is the one which still desperately needs a "last chance to move the needle in any significant way in the swing states that will decide the election," and that "Obama is slightly better positioned in the states that will dictate the outcome." If they do, my take is that the Romney campaign is playing possum, and the Politico pair, infused with Beltway naiveté and skewed polling data, are gullibly buying it. Several paragraphs from their effort follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post):

By Tom Blumer | September 30, 2012 | 11:35 PM EDT

Let's see. Who has the bigger problem with Libya and the Middle East? Is it the guy who's in charge with a foreign policy in disarray who has described the first murder of a U.S. ambassador in 33 years a "bump in the road"? Or his presidential campaign challenger Mitt Romney?

If we're to believe Mike Allen, Jim Vandehei, and Politico, it's Romney, where "Romney advisers at odds over Libya" was the only thing visible on my computer screen when I went to the web site's home page at 10 p.m. ET. You have to go almost all the way to the bottom of the home page to see stories about how "at odds" Obama administration advisers have been and still are about the U.S. positions on Libya, terrorism, Israel, and the Middle East during the past several weeks. Several paragraphs from the Romney story, wherein one learns that there really isn't much in the way of conflict, accompanied by yet another round of "the polls say Romney's doomed," follow the jump (bolds are mine):

By Tim Graham | May 31, 2012 | 5:49 PM EDT

The gang at Politico is under fire from liberal friends for a piece by Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei alleging major newspapers have a pro-Obama, anti-Romney bias. For example, Devin Gordon, a former Newsweek writer who's now a "senior editor" at GQ, lamented "The house position of Politico, as evidenced by this piece, is that they are fair and their chief competition is not. It's a thinly disguised, fundamentally craven argument for Politico's superiority in the world of political coverage."

Unsurprisingly, the newspapers claimed they were fair and balanced in the Dylan Byers followup:

By Mark Finkelstein | May 25, 2012 | 8:30 AM EDT

If between now and Election Day unemployment numbers improve, particularly if they dip below the 8% barrier, you know President Obama, with an MSM assist, will be out there pounding his chest about the number of jobs "he created."

But when the unemployment numbers remain weak?  Well, that's not Obama's fault.  Just ask Mike Allen of Politico.  On today's Morning Joe, trying to explain Obama's early campaign stumbles, Allen declared that certain factors, including the bleak job numbers, were "beyond the control" of Obama.  View the video after the jump.

By Mark Finkelstein | December 30, 2011 | 7:57 AM EST

With not one Republican primary vote cast yet, we're getting way ahead of ourselves by speculating about whom Mitt Romney might pick as his vice-presidential running mate.  But Willie Geist did invite Politico's Mike Allen to make his "bold predictions" for 2012.  And Allen delivered, prognosticating that Romney would pick Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman as his ticket-mate.

Mark Halperin strongly seconded Allen's assertion.  View the video after the jump.

By Mark Finkelstein | November 15, 2011 | 7:21 AM EST

"Memories, light the corners of my mind. Misty watercolor memories of the way we were." -- Barbra Streisand, The Way We Were

Sober political analysis, or merely an MSMer pining for the good old days of Speaker Pelosi? On Morning Joe today, touting a Politico Pelosi puff piece about her "golden touch," Mike Allen claimed it was "very possible" that Democrats would retake the House majority in 2012. Video after the jump.

By Mark Finkelstein | November 1, 2011 | 8:30 AM EDT

"This is the biggest single Twitter controversy of the campaign.  48,000 mentions!"

That was Mike Allen doing his best "look--a squirrel!" dodge on today's Morning Joe.  Pressed by Joe Scarborough as to whether Politico had any more details beyond its story's vague allegation that Herman Cain had made gestures "that were not overtly sexual but that made women uncomfortable," Allen's telling first instinct was to point to the story's popularity on a social networking site. Video after the jump.

By Mark Finkelstein | October 12, 2011 | 7:45 AM EDT

Mike Allen of Politico has provided a text-book illustration of how the liberal media can spin a positive into a negative for a Republican.  Instead of focusing on the political pluses of Chris Christie's endorsement of Mitt Romney, Allen has twisted the event into a negative that reveals the "very ruthless" efficiency of the Romney campaign.  Moreover, if there's a politician around today who thinks for himself, it's Christie.  Yet Allen alleges that rather than making a reasoned decision, Christie was "roped" into endorsing Romney.

Allen made his sour-grape remarks on today's Morning Joe.  Video after the jump.
 

By Mark Finkelstein | July 24, 2011 | 8:13 AM EDT

One more data point demonstrating the leftward tilt of the purportedly non-partisan Politico:

In his Playbook of today, Politico's chief White House correspondent Mike Allen depicts a "grand bargain" on the credit ceiling, which inevitably would include huge tax increases, as an "historic achievement" for which President Obama and House speaker John Boehner would "rightly get credit."

In contrast, Allen suggests that Republican leaders Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy are refusing a grand bargain out of petty political ambition.

Read more after the jump.

By Matt Hadro | April 19, 2011 | 1:45 PM EDT

Former Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez is expected to be a Democratic contender in the Texas 2012 Senate race. However, when Politico's Mike Allen brought news of his probable candidacy to MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Monday,  he omitted the fact that Sanchez commanded the U.S. ground forces in Iraq while the infamous abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison took place.

Sanchez, when he retired from the Army in November of 2006,  told a local paper that the Abu Ghraib scandal was "the sole reason" he was forced to retire. The scandal occurred in the summer and fall of 2003, and involved humiliations, beatings, and sexual abuse of prisoners at the hands of U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. Sanchez was the commander of coalition forces in Iraq during that time.
 

By Rusty Weiss | November 7, 2010 | 12:55 PM EST

Are they not properly vetting their liberals over at MSNBC?

As NewsBuster Lachlan Markay reported on Friday:

MSNBC suspended Keith Olbermann indefinitely … after news broke that he had given the maximum allowable contribution to three Democrats without disclosing it to his employers.

With Olbermann out, MSNBC needed a fill-in, so in steps Chris Hayes, editor of the liberal magazine, The Nation.  MSNBC pegged Hayes to fill in for the suspended Countdown host on Friday.  His gig was short-lived however.

Several hours after the announcement, Hayes had been dropped.  (h/t Weasel Zippers)

Why?

For a series of donations to Democratic campaigns in recent years.

By Noel Sheppard | November 7, 2010 | 12:06 PM EST

Did MSNBC suspend Keith Olbermann because he refused to apologize for his campaign finance activities on camera?

That's what Politico's Mike Allen is reporting Sunday (h/t Mediaite):