As much due diligence as possible has been done to ensure I’m not missing any kind of fact check covering the information released by the RNC today that shows Obama’s failed stimulus included billions of dollars that went to create jobs overseas. I checked all the usual fact-checking suspects and even checked with the RNC to see if they knew of anything.
As far as I can tell, there has been no fact-checking of the RNC’s data on Obama’s outsourcing.
And yet, during a CNN segment this afternoon (see the video’s below), Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser said this of both Obama’s claims about Romney’s outsourcing and today’s RNC claims about Obama’s stimulus using tax dollars to create jobs overseas:
Fact checkers have said there are holes in both of these arguments…
Not only can I not find this supposed fact check, even if there was one, how could so much data be crunched so quickly?
Moreover, the White House isn’t even denying the RNC’s claim. Their response has not been, “No we didn’t!” This is the only response I’m aware of:
The Obama campaign quickly fired back, charging that Romney’s actual plans endorse outsourcing while President Obama wants to discourage the practice. It also noted that Romney personally profited from the Bain investments, while Obama didn’t with the 2009 stimulus.
Yeah, right. Obama didn’t personally profit from that big fat near-trillion dollar taxpayer giveaway to unions and failed companies like Solyndra that were backed by Obama bundlers. No way.
But I digress.
So what is CNN up to here?
Well, for starters, and much to the media’s displeasure, the coordinated Obama/Washington Post attack of lies portraying Romney as an outsourcer has completely fallen apart. The attack failed on the facts and did nothing to help Barack Obama in the polls.
Today’s pushback from the RNC, though, could do a lot of damage to Obama. It not only reveals Obama as a raging hypocrite on the outsourcing issue, it also once again highlights his squandering of nearly a trillion taxpayer dollars on a stimulus that failed completely.
So what’s the best way for CNN to kill the Republican pushback?
Well, instead of holding Obama accountable for lying about Romney’s record as an outsourcer and then digging into Obama’s own record as an outsourcer WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS, it looks as though the media strategy to protect the White House will be … a pox on both houses.
Earlier today, Politico sent out the signal that this is how the media should handle it:
The counterattack is coming late and on ground that Democrats have chosen to fight on, and it seems like a message designed mostly to neutralize or balance out the Democrats’ outsourcing hits.
The strategy of a pox on both houses allows the media to protect Obama in two ways.
1. There’s now no need to litigate the Obama campaign lying about Romney’s record as an outsourcer.
2. There’s no need to dig into the RNC’s claims that Obama’s failed stimulus created jobs in countries not named America.
When the media could manufacture a huge anti-Romney narrative out of outsourcing, we were bombarded with news cycle after news cycle exploring how important this issue was, especially in swing states like Ohio. But now that Obama’s been caught lying AND outsourcing, MSM political analysts like CNN’s Steinhauser are ready to shrug the whole issue off — even if it means citing fact checks that simply don’t exist.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC