People can debate whether or not Romney made a diplomatic “gaffe” all they want, but what’s not debatable is that, even outside of the world of horserace politics, our collapsing economy is a very serious matter which makes it, you know, newsworthy. The media, however, is showing little to no interest in the fact that, over the last few economic quarters, our GDP has collapsed from 4.1% to 1.5%.
Even as the news broke early this morning, all CNN did was spin the numbers in a quick roundtable as “better than expected” before jumping into a lengthy segment about a professional wrestler. And while I don’t normally concern myself with MSNBC, Joe Scarborough likes to preen around as The Guardian Of What Being A Republican Really Means and, as the most important economic number of the last three months was announced, the “Morning Joe” panel spent ten minutes sucking up to Will Ferrell.
Right now at the corrupt Politico’s homepage, the biggest economic story of the last three months is not only not the feature story, it sits below YESTERDAY’S news about Romney and the Olympics.
The media talking-point about the Romney campaign right now is that his campaign is failing because, when you look at the state of the economy, the challenger should be ahead.
Well, according to the most reliable pollster in the country, he is ahead, but if he wasn’t or isn’t, this is nothing more than a self-fulfilling prophecy on behalf of a media that adamantly refuses to do anything more than dutifully report on an economy that is now in free fall.
GDP collapsing from 4.1% growth to 1.5% is free fall.
Three months of job growth under 100k when you need more than twice that number just to keep up with population growth is free fall. Home sales plummeting 8.4% is free fall. Consumer confidence dipping, business inventories increasing, manufacturing contracting, and more people getting disability than jobs is free fall.
The only way this failed and failing and flailing president can win reelection is to toxify his opponent into someone the public will see as NOT an acceptable alternative to Obama — and this is exactly what the corrupt media is making sure happens by ignoring over 20 million people struggling in their under-employed or unemployed status while keeping its focus on all-things Mitt 24/7.
Even as the economy collapses ands real suffering increases, all the media can do is hysterically amplify every real and perceived mistake Romney makes, and when not doing that, focus intently on the very areas Obama wants the focus on: Romney’s wealth and the fact that he’s not releasing more of his taxes than John McCain did.
And it’s only July.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC