At first, I thought the story was a prank on the media, and someone was going to jump out of a box in the newsroom at the Washington Post and yell, “Gotcha!”
Maybe John Quinones of ABC would pop out from behind a wall and say this was just a joke; they wanted to see how the media would react to a bogus non-story from 50 years ago about a Republican candidate.
Sadly, it’s no joke. The media is actually serious about this “bullying” story.
It’s the media who are really the mindless bullies in this scenario, foolishly attacking the Republican candidate for President because he dares to challenge their Dear Leader for the top spot in the White House.
Where are the adults in the media? They want to be taken seriously, but now they are the ones pulling high-stakes, dangerous “pranks” to protect Barack Obama.
I agree that calling this story, and others like it (see: “Dog” stories) a “prank” understates the value the media believes that it has, but they are going at it full speed, as if this is the biggest story of the day to the electorate. Forget the fact that they made most of it up and have numerous facts just totally wrong. This story fits the template they want to impose on the Evil, Rich, White, Mormon, Animal Hating, Bullying, Republican Candidate for President.
The media has virtually ignored Obama’s pot-smoking, cocaine-using, anti-white, anger-filled high school days--or that he also admits to shoving and bullying a girl name Coretta in elementary school because she was the only other black child. Yet they go after Romney for one incident which was misreported, overblown, and mischaracterized. Where are those in the media working to find Coretta and see how she’s doing? WaPo? Whaddya think? Maybe a story there?
Of course, there is no story in either case.
We all see what’s going on here. The media is acting like children. Perhaps they are still going through the Terrible Twos and should be put in Time Out or something. The race for President of The United States of America has now devolved into an argument about what one of the candidates (not the other candidate, just one of the candidates) did during high school? Did I wake up on Sesame Street this morning?
A “troubling scene” is what ABC called this silly story. Naw–I’ll tell you where the real trouble is right now, and it’s in your New York newsrooms.
Analyst Matthew Dowd on ABC thinks this story is even bigger: “I don’t think this puts an end to the story. It touches on something that touches every one of us, which is our high school experiences.” He said Romney needs to say something “bigger and bolder” about this. Matthew should’ve added “na, na, na, na, na, na!” after his quote. It would’ve made him sound smarter.
“Now it’s part of the national conversation,” continued Dowd. “It entered the national conversation when we were already talking about bullying in high school.” Gotcha; so that’s how this works. When the media wants to talk about contraceptives, or gay marriage, or what you call “bullying,” then the Republican candidates are forced to talk about it because it’s part of the “national conversation,” which you create. Gotcha.
For the next six months the media will make part of the “national conversation” anything they feel will be beneficial to Obama. When will the activist old media start talking about the destruction of America and its Constitution? I guess we have to wait until they think it’s time to have that adult discussion. Until then, it’s “criss cross, apple sauce, nobody takes my seat.”
I’m guessing Matt was serious. He wants us all to go back to the times when we were bullied in high school (as we all apparently were), pretend it was Mitt Romney pulling the prank, hate him for it, and refuse to vote for him because of it. Yep, that’s exactly what we should think of when we are deciding who the next leader of the Free World is. Romney is Brutus Ratman, the senior who put olives in my milk while I was a freshman (BTW, not his real name–I don’t want the WaPo to seek us out in case either of us ever decide to run for office).
The family of the boy who allegedly had his hair cut (that part is even contested) says his portrayal was not factually correct, and they are angry that he is being used to further a political agenda. John Lauber died in 2004, so the media can’t check with the person they have made the chief victim of Evil, Rich, White, Mormon, Animal Hating, and Maybe Bullies Maybe Gay Guys Romney.
Seriously, when they first considered this story in the newsroom of the Washington Post, where was the one sane person there to tell them how nuts this idea was? Not there.
Barack Obama has quadrupled the American deficit, is taking the debt to new heights, is destroying the economy–or at least doesn’t know how to fix it–and we’re supposed to be worried about what Mitt Romney might have done in high school? Was this whole thing a prank by the media? Just give us a noogie next time, WaPo.