If media excuses Obama’s “pandering” to blacks, then Romney’s 47% comments deserve the same pass
When Jake Tapper and Mary Bruce approached Team Obama over the Daily Caller’s new, never before revealed Obama speech segments, Obama responded with more of its Mitt’s 47% nonsense, which the media has been all too happy to push for him. Contrasting the media’s handling of those Romney comments with the newly unearthed ones by Obama to blacks is the shortest path to demonstrating the media’s intellectual dishonesty when reporting on the two candidates, while also pointing out their obvious bias.
In response, the Obama campaign said the release of the clips are a “transparent attempt” by “Mitt Romney’s allies” to change the subject from the GOP nominee’s secretly recorded comments that 47 percent of voters are dependent and believe “they are victims.”
For some unknown reason, or perhaps simply as he’s a natural at it, RedState’s Erick Erickson opted to be the media’s useful idiot.
RT @ewerickson: I don’t have a problem with Obama’s dialect in that video. Most politicians change their accent to pander to the crowd.
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) October 3, 2012
In any event, for the most part, we should dismiss that. As I pointed out to Jake Tapper, no one would ever accuse Erickson of getting subtlety, or nuance. Still, at least for this purpose, Erickson raises a point worth invoking in support of one clear, if disingenuous, line of argument. So, let’s go with, Obama was simply pandering and is not the same old racially divisive progressive Democrat we see everyday. Nah, he was simply pandering and actually is post-racial, as the media has portrayed him.
@jaketapper @ewerickson No ones ever accused you of picking up on nuance.
— DanRiehl (@DanRiehl) October 3, 2012
Alright, fine – but only for this one line of reasoning. If you give Obama a pass for his racist and racially divisive speechifying because he was only pandering, then to be intellectually honest and consistent, you have to give Mitt Romney the exact same pass on his 47% comments. See, he didn’t really mean it, in that view. It was nothing. He was simply pandering to the stuffed shirt crowd, telling them what they believe, or want to hear, or what have you.
What’s good enough for the goose must also be good for the gander.
If one wants to be truly objective and intellectually honest, you can’t hang Mitt for his 47% comments, yet give Obama a complete pass for his racially divisive ones. Yet, we know that’s precisely what the media did and seems intent on continuing to do. In this instance, it’s that disparate treatment of the two candidates that most clearly reveals their intellectual dishonesty and subsequent bias for Barack Obama and against Mitt Romney.
Otherwise, there is no reasonable, rational explanation for their disparate behavior in reporting on the two incidents. Romney’s 47% comments made headlines for weeks, thanks to Obama’s messaging and a receptive media, while Obama’s racial, if not racist, and racially divisive rhetoric was and apparently will be promptly swept under the rug – just as they were in 2008, when the media passed on genuinely vetting Obama in the first place.
Hot Air is pushing the narrative that the tape was leaked by the Obama campaign itself to deflect attention from the Libya scandal. The DC article doesn’t say where they got it from, but Obama has another reason to want the tape to get widespread attention. They need to gin up the black vote and that tape is a great way to get blacks to the polls on election day. The more exposure that tape gets the more votes Obama gets.
That was a joke at HotAir
Uh huh. Read what Allah says after he calls it a joke. Believe what you want. I have no use for Hot Air so I admit I have a bias.
I think you’re making a serious mistake here, Dan.
These two things are not remotely alike, and you should not allow any equivalence to even be suggested.
Romney was talking about campaign strategy, not governance. He was talking about where to put his resources for an election.
Obama WAS talking about governance, and revealing a lot of his real self (to the extent there is a real self in there). What he revealed is, as many of us have known all along, a product of his radical life…steeped in racial identity politics and Collectivism.
As a side note, if you want to understand Obama and Israel, look up the “great leader” Wright’s comments on Israel.
All true.
Now tell me how you overcome the media’s double standard on all things Obama and on all things racial?
A united Right on this video and its implications simply won’t do it.