The Fox Factor: Newt, Sarah, Mitt, Rick, Bias and ‘The Mother of All Spin-Jobs’

Posted on | April 12, 2012 | 61 Comments

During a meeting with 18 Delaware Tea Party leaders here on Wednesday, Newt Gingrich lambasted FOX News Channel, accusing the cable network of having been in the tank for Mitt Romney from the beginning of the Republican presidential fight. An employee himself of the news outlet as recently as last year, he also cited former colleagues for attacking him out of what he characterized as personal jealousy.
“I think FOX has been for Romney all the way through,” Gingrich said during the private meeting — to which RealClearPolitics was granted access — at Wesley College. “In our experience, Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than FOX this year. We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of FOX, and we’re more likely to get distortion out of FOX. That’s just a fact.” . . .
“I assume it’s because Murdoch at some point [who] said, ‘I want Romney,’ and so ‘fair and balanced’ became ‘Romney,’ ” Gingrich said. “And there’s no question that Fox had a lot to do with stopping my campaign because such a high percentage of our base watches FOX.”

Four quick points:

Newt can say this, now that his campaign is $4 million in debt and he’s got zero chance of winning the nomination.
Newt used to work for Fox. I suspect he’s been talking to CNN executives about a future gig.
It’s not Murdoch who makes the calls, but Roger Ailes and top executives and producers who are the shot-callers at Fox News.
Scott Conroy does something here that annoys my inner copy editor, namely writing FOX in all caps, as if it were an acronym, which it’s not. The name originated as 20th Century Fox, a company that was purchased by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. and re-branded, first as the Fox broadcast TV network and then in such cable spinoffs as Fox News Channel (FNC). But the word “Fox” is not an acronym, and people who want to write it “FOX” — evidently trying to match the acronyms by which other networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, etc.) are known — are simply wrong, and must be corrected, lest the erroneous example be imitated.

Scott Conroy has done excellent work in his career — scooped me on my own beat more than once — but that one little thing gets on my nerves so bad I could scream. However, I digress . . .

Having closely scrutinized coverage of this year’s campaign, I know what Newt’s talking about, and certain stipulations must be made: Sean Hannity and Greta Van Susteren were quite even-handed in their treatment of the GOP candidates. Sean and Greta both gave time to underdog candidates, including Rick Santorum and Herman Cain during the months when they seemed permanently stuck in the campaign purgatory of “second-tier” status.

Coverage of the campaign by the dayside programs on Fox News, however, seemed to be dictated by behind-the-scenes producers who exhibited a clear bias toward front-runners and even — as during the ludicrous Donald Trump faux-candidacy — toward certain Big Names that were merely the objects of ill-informed presidential speculation.

Let’s just say it, OK?

I love Sarah Palin, and would have loved to cover her campaign if she had run, but once Rick Perry jumped in (and remember, Palin had endorsed Perry in his 2010 primary against Kay Bailey Hutchison) it seemed blindingly obvious that Palin wasn’t running. The subsequent six-week will-she-or-won’t-she game struck me as a made-for-TV drama cleverly scripted by Roger Ailes for the specific purpose of boosting his own network’s ratings.

There: Now, I’ve said it.

In terms of political judgment, Bill O’Reilly is a nincompoop, his entire worldview shaped by his New York D’Amato/Giuliani Republican Party machine frame of reference. The commentators who appear most frequently on Fox’s D.C.-based programs — Chris Stirewalt, Stephen Hayes, etc. — all bring to the table their own prejudices. And the network’s reverential touch-the-hem-of-his-garment attitude toward Karl Rove makes me want to puke.

Whatever else you want to say about Fox News’ coverage of the 2012 GOP campaign (and Newt’s complaints must be taken with a grain of salt) there was a noticeable shift after “Super Tuesday.”

On the morning of Wednesday, March 7, I was in a hotel in Washington, Pa., having just covered Santorum’s primary-night event in nearby Steubenville, Ohio. That morning in Boston, reporters who were covering Mitt Romney’s campaign got a brilliant spin-job about delegate math calculations. This was what became known as the “Act of God” briefing:

“The nomination is an impossibility for Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich,” a Romney campaign strategist told reporters who gathered at the campaign’s headquarters in Boston on Wednesday. . . .
“We’ve won 53 percent of them so far. For Rick Santorum to get to the nomination he’d have to win 65 percent of the remaining delegates and he’s only won 22 percent of them so far. Newt Gingrich to win the nomination would have to get 70 percent of the remaining delegates and he’s only won 13 percent so far.” . . .
“As you can tell all we have to do is keep doing what we’re doing and we can get to the nomination,” the Romney official said, “For those guys it’s going to take some sort of act of God to get to where they need to be on the nomination front.”
And in a memo circulated by the campaign on Wednesday, members of Romney’s team declared their opponents’ bids dead.
The memo titled, “Our Opponents’ Last Stand: A Postmortem,” noted that the former Massachusetts governor has won “more than 50% of all delegates awarded and now holds nearly 40% of the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination.”

This was, as I say, a spin-job, but as I also say, it was brilliant.

Let me explain something you may not understand: If a news organization has the resources to cover multiple candidates in a presidential primary, the senior correspondents — the “A Team,” as it were — always follow the front-runner, or whichever candidate is considered “hot” at the moment. You could see this throughout the 2012 campaign: The top guy on the Fox team, Carl Cameron, was always where the action was, while the other candidates got the “B Team.”

The senior correspondents are “senior” for a reason, and wield enormous influence in how a news organization covers the campaign. This is just a fact of journalistic life, not a matter of ideology. If Carl Cameron is going to have friendly access to Team Mitt — if he doesn’t want to get scooped by ABC or CNN — he damned well better be giving Romney the kind of coverage Romney wants.

So there was no way in hell Carl Cameron was going to be covering Mitt and going on Fox News that Wednesday to say stuff like this:

Top strategists for so-called “front-runner” Mitt Romney, the worthless RINO flip-flopper who is trying to buy the Republican nomination, today gave reporters in Boston what I can only describe as The Mother of All Spin Jobs. Presenting the gullible national press corps with a transparent flim-flam about the delegate count, a top Romney adviser laid down such a thick layer of putrid dishonest bullshit I nearly vomited. . .

See what I mean? I love Carl Cameron like a brother, but the very nature of his job covering the Romney campaign requires him to regurgitate Team Mitt’s spin as if it were written on Golden Tablets.

And of course, as was true from the very outset of this long campaign — back in the misty dawn days of early 2011 — every tangible advantage favored Romney. With few exceptions, the Flavor of the Month surges of various Not-Mitt candidates never really challenged that narrative, which meant that the one thing no “senior correspondent” could ever afford to do was to piss off the campaign which, when all was said and done, was always the odds-on favorite to be the Big Dog at Tampa, then go on into the fall campaign against Obama.

No more exclusive interviews.

No more “deep background” tips from the campaign advisers.

Once the votes were counted in the Michigan primary on Feb. 28 — which I said at the time looked like a turning point of the campaign — Carl Cameron and the other folks at Fox News had to start making some calculations of their own: Santorum and Gingrich weren’t on the ballot in Virginia and Santorum hadn’t filed full delegate slates in Ohio. Unless Santorum could score a momentum-building comeback win in Ohio on “Super Tuesday,” it would be time to begin ringing down the curtain on the primary campaign carnival.

Yes, there was the hope-against-hope factor, and a clear chance that Romney could be kept below the “magic number” of 1,144 delegates but — and here, you could say partisanship became a factor among GOP-leaning folks who call the shots at Fox — did they really want to have a knock-down, drag-out fight all the way to Tampa?

No, they did not.

Once Mitt squeaked by in Ohio (winning by a margin of 0.7%), after March 6 it therefore seemingly became incumbent on Serious Responsible Adults to say that Santorum and Newt were equally doomed, and that the continuation of their campaigns was harmful to the Republican Party and well-nigh unpatriotic.

Unfortunately, lumping Santorum and Gingrich into the same category — Doomed Spoiler — was never anything but a flat-out lie.

Ever since the publication of the Feb. 20 FEC reports, showing that Newt’s burn rate got out of control in January so that he finished the Florida campaign nearly broke, while Santorum’s campaign had somehow managed to hang onto enough cash to mount a comeback on Feb. 7, only Santorum had any hope at all. Once the votes were counted on “Super Tuesday,” showing that Santorum had beaten Newt in Tennessee and Oklahoma (Southern states that had once been seen as linchpins in the Gingrich campaign’s strategy), Newt was clearly doomed. Santorum was still a long shot, but he didn’t deserve to be lumped into the Doomed Spoiler category with Newt.

Anyway, some graduate student of political communication could get a doctoral dissertation for a thorough analysis of Fox News coverage of the 2012 campaign. And if that young scholar should decide to entitle his analysis “A Thick Layer of Putrid Dishonest Bullshit,” I’d appreciate a little credit in the footnotes.

Also, please hit the freaking tip jar.

Category: Election 2012, Fox News, Media Bias, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Republicans, Rick Santorum, Sarah Palin

Comments

61 Responses to “The Fox Factor: Newt, Sarah, Mitt, Rick, Bias and ‘The Mother of All Spin-Jobs’”

Harmony Lane
April 12th, 2012 @ 1:49 pm

Oh please.

Freakin’ Rupert Murdoch sent a tweet the night before the Iowa Caucus endorsing Rick Santorum.

The OWNER of FOX NEWS PUBLICLY ENDORSED RICK SANTORUM!
smitty
April 12th, 2012 @ 1:58 pm

And that tweet proves the existence of the tweet.
In modern discourse, the default connection between anyone’s words and action is a dotted line, at best, until proven otherwise.
Which is not to say that there aren’t some with a shred of integrity remaining.
willpeir
April 12th, 2012 @ 2:01 pm

It just occurred to me today: since Obama literally has no platform except for his successful expansion of government, this is going to be the most “Tear the country apart” election in a long time. Ironically, it won’t be that important since Romney is just Obama with a little more common sense, but it will be brutal. Romney sure ain’t getting my money, but he’s getting my prayers.

And it’s “Hem of the garment” Stacy.
section9
April 12th, 2012 @ 2:13 pm

Your theory about Ailes scripting Palin is, however, all wrong. Had Ailes scripted Palin’s “will she or won’t she” thing over the summer, Palin would have announced her withdrawal from consideration on FNC. She didn’t. She announced on Mark Levin. That pissed off Ailes considerably.

Palin trusted Perry to stay out. He didn’t, because Mrs. Perry thought that her husband could be President. Palin made the mistake that a lot of rookie national campaigners do; she thought she could reinvent the wheel and stay out until Perry cratered. What she did was wrongheaded and gave Romney the time he needed to move Florida up. She got moked by the Romney people, who are a lot more experienced at this game than she is.

Hopefully she learns from this.
robertstacymccain
April 12th, 2012 @ 2:16 pm

Thanks for catching the typo, Will. Fixed it. I try to proofread this stuff before I hit the “publish’ button, and typos drive me nuts. It’s very hard for a writer to catch his own typos. When I have enough time (which isn’t often) on my American Spectator columns, I try to print out a hard copy and proof it carefully. But there have been times when I’ve been reading over a column I published weeks or months earlier and spot some typo — or an awkward phrasing — that escaped my keen eye.
willpeir
April 12th, 2012 @ 2:22 pm

Nah, I hear ya, man. I write for a living too. I wouldn’t point it out, but I figured people that don’t know the phrase very well might get confused.
willpeir
April 12th, 2012 @ 2:24 pm

That’s a good theory, Section9.

Whatever the truth is, I think most can agree that Palin played a game that was a little too clever for her own good. But Media is so weird these days, I can’t really blame her for it.
section9
April 12th, 2012 @ 2:43 pm

I kept having knock down drag out fights with people over at C4P (good people, great conservatives) who couldn’t see the harm that staying out was doing to her prospects. Romney was fundraising like a Stakhanovite over the 2011 Summer fundraising cycle and Palin was sitting on her ass waiting for Perry to implode.

Conroy, to whom everyone gives props, wrote that they had a campaign planning meeting in August. The fact is, by that time Romney had had Rubio’s people (as Stacy reported here, btw) move Florida forward, thus forclosing the option of Palin running in IA, NH, FL, and South CArolina.

What Palin did over that summer was to think that she could rearrange the card deck becasue of her name rec. She couldn’t. She didn’t even get out of the gate. Hopefully she isn’t this dumb next time out.
Pathfinder's wife
April 12th, 2012 @ 2:49 pm

You know, my takeaway from this post is: that means that none of the top journalists, none of the news stations are really reporting “the news” (if you take the news to be an honest reporting of the facts or an investigation into truth).
They’re just regurgitating what campaign bosses allow them to “scoop” — otherwise no access to the canidate.

If you actually did do honest reporting, your career would be over (I have some knowledge of this because in one of my many incarnations I worked at a newspaper — they let me cover a town hall meeting adn write an opinion piece about a TIF district proposal, once; after that the only time I got to go outside was to take a picture of some ducks and photo-cover the annual pioneer days, and I think they were kinda nervous of letting me do that).

So what’s the point of even doing it at all? (I know the answer, but let’s just pretend it’s an ideal world where people truly are concerned with integrity, truth, justice, and noodle salad).
More importantly: what kind of awful thing are you doing to your viewers if you’re essentially not going for the truth, just regurgitating spin? (I know, I know but…noodle salad).
Pathfinder's wife
April 12th, 2012 @ 2:59 pm

In the meantime: I hope the right/GOP doesn’t fall into the trap that the DNC/Obama appears to be setting up with this Rosen thing.
Meh, they probably will.
daialanye
April 12th, 2012 @ 3:18 pm

Let’s acknowledge another scenario. That Palin, a woman of excellent political judgment, was too smart to get in during this cycle.

If a Republican wins, Palin can be reasonably sure of getting a prestigious appointment, thereby polishing her Federal and executive credentials, and giving doofus voters four more years to forget Tina Fey and Katie Couric.

Should Obama be re-elected, Palin avoids being a part of the debacle, and still gets four years to improve her image.
daialanye
April 12th, 2012 @ 3:20 pm

Proves nothing, and had no effect.
surfcitysocal
April 12th, 2012 @ 3:27 pm

I’m betting that Newt’s little meeting with Romney on the day of the Louisiana primary involved a conversation that went something like this:
Mitt: Hey, Newt, vow to stay in the race so you’ll continue to draw supporters from Santorum, and I’ll reward you with an appointment like, say, Secretary of State.
Newt: Even though there’s not a chance in hell you’ll beat Obama, okey dokey…sounds good to me and my ego.
Asian_chic
April 12th, 2012 @ 3:33 pm

You are not telling the whole story. Murdoch’s wife tweeted right after saying he was only joking.
robertstacymccain
April 12th, 2012 @ 3:43 pm

I had forgotten about Palin giving that exclusive to Levin. Thanks for reminding me.

Your point about Mrs. Perry’s influence is something I haven’t considered. Can you (or someone else) link a source for that angle? Because it certainly is intriguing.
Adobe_Walls
April 12th, 2012 @ 3:44 pm

On paper she had a very steep hill to climb.
ThePaganTemple
April 12th, 2012 @ 3:50 pm

Seems to me like it would have been a whole lot more sensible if Romney had asked him to withdraw and endorse him in return for such a plumb appointment. You know, seeing as how the Newt vote was in most states split about evenly between Mitt and Santorum and stuff.
robertstacymccain
April 12th, 2012 @ 3:51 pm

What Palin did over that summer was to think that she could rearrange the card deck becasue of her name rec.

This is, in some ways, like Newt’s naive belief that New Media could somehow counterbalance the Mitt Blitz of attack ads. But that’s apples and oranges: Attacks must be met with responses in the same medium: If your opponent’s hitting you with radio ads, you must reply with radio ads. If he’s hitting you with mailers, you must return fire with mailers. And TV ads must be met with TV ads.

While it is not always the case that the candidate with the biggest ad buy wins, Gingrich’s idea that he could afford to be massively outspent on ads, and counterbalance that with appearances on cable TV, talk radio, etc., was hopelessly naive, as he has since subsequently admitted.
robertstacymccain
April 12th, 2012 @ 4:03 pm

All political reporters have built-in biases that have nothing to do with ideology. The kind of Drudge-headline “exclusive” story depends on having access to sources, and there has to be some calculation as to whether you can burn a campaign with a negative story and expect favorable coverage going forward.

The Romney campaign played a very cagey game in terms of using their frontrunner status as a lever to shape media perceptions of their various rivals.
ThePaganTemple
April 12th, 2012 @ 4:04 pm

Spot on about O’Reilly, who believes in Global Warming and that anyone who doesn’t is a loon, and also believes in gun control. Him and that idiot little producer of his should take an extended leave of absence.
Zeus
April 12th, 2012 @ 4:06 pm

The only thing more whiney than Santorum are delusional Santorum supporters.

To claim bias against you from FoxNews when Rupert Murdoch publicly endorses you is the pinnacle of stupidity.

Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingraham, Kristol, Ed Morrisey, etc were all on board the anti-Romney train.

And for a blog like this to whine about unfair bias? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.

Santorum got smoked because he’s Busch League, that’s also why he lost his late Senate election by 20 points. If you need every media outlet to be in the tank for you in order to win, you don’t deserve to win.

Suck it up or go home, but stop the whining.
Make a choice, Romney or Obama.
gloogle gloogle
April 12th, 2012 @ 4:14 pm

Stacy, you’ve been at this political stuff a lot longer than I have (at least in terms of breaking down what’s “really” going on), but I don’t see the “bullshit” factor that you see regarding the Romney campaign’s “Act of God” statements.

Are you saying their math was wrong? Or are you saying their conclusion that their opponents’ campaigns were dead was wrong? If it’s the latter, their statement doesn’t seem that egregious (in political terms at least).

Or is it that Fox (please note no all caps!!) reported Team Romney’s statements with a too-uncritical eye? I just don’t see where the “transparent flim-flam about the delegate count” is. (Mitt is certainly not my ideal candidate, but Zombie Reagan is not on the ballot unfortunately…)
Asian_chic
April 12th, 2012 @ 4:17 pm

I’m just talking about Fox News right now, they played a huge role in choosing Romney for the GOP nominee. They hid Romney’s gaffes and his flip-flops while emphasizing and even exaggerating non-Romney candidates’ supposed missteps. Newt shouldn’t be complaining about Fox News as they were cheering him on to stay in the race. Split the Conservative votes= Romney nomination.
The only GOP rival who had the greatest chance of going toe to toe with Romney was Santorum.

I have many reasons why I supported Santorum. Integrity and honesty was/is part of that reason. He came right out and said this was the first time his campaign was in debt and felt he could not go on and stop Romney from reaching 1144. What did Newt do? He hid his debt for months while still claiming to be able to stop Romney. Even to this day, he is asking Santorum’s supporters to get behind him after he screwed Conservatives of a chance to be in the White House. Hell no! I’m not paying off his debt! He owes me! He owes Conservatives an apology for not getting out of the race sooner and coalesce around one candidate. Now I have to hold my nose and get behind a guy I have no idea where he stands on any issue. God help us.

Rupert Murdoch’s endorsement was NOT an endorsement! His wife tweeted RIGHT AFTER that he was only joking.
Tennwriter
April 12th, 2012 @ 4:25 pm

Okay, o mighty king of the gods; Obama. Because if I’m going to have a statist, backstabbing creep, I might as well have the Original Brand, and not the Cheap Knock-off.

Go jump in a nice, cold lake while I contemplate how to maximize the amount of angst among the Ruling Class with what little levers I have.

If the GOP wants my vote; Romney must Resign.

Otherwise, Third Party, baby!
Zeus
April 12th, 2012 @ 4:30 pm

Okay, vote 3rd Party.
Why not go ahead and write your own name in? That’ll show ’em.
Tennwriter
April 12th, 2012 @ 4:39 pm

Because ten or ten thousand or ten million conservatives each writing their own name in makes less of a splash than ten or ten thousand or ten million conservatives writing in Palin, or Santorum, or Demint.

Sadly, no one’s going to care if I write in Tennwriter, but it might get a tiny bit of care if I write Palin.

Also, people have a rough idea of what you’re saying if you vote Palin, or Ron Paul. Whereas voting Tennwriter would have them scratching their heads in perplexity.
Bob Belvedere
April 12th, 2012 @ 4:56 pm

Well put.
Zeus
April 12th, 2012 @ 5:03 pm

Whatever name you want to pick, I’d be willing to bet a whole lotta dough it won’t even garner .001% of the vote.

Good luck with your mission though, I’m sure next time the Establishment will know not to mess with Tennwriter ever again!
Bob Belvedere
April 12th, 2012 @ 5:07 pm

Another insightful essay, Stacy.

One Quibble…

You wrote In terms of political judgment, Bill O’Reilly is a nincompoop, his entire worldview shaped by his New York D’Amato/Giuliani Republican Party machine frame of reference.

O’Reilly’s worldview is shaped by Levittown. He has the attitude you see in blue collar types who work as mechanics, truckers, machinists, etc. They hate high taxes and when the government bothers them, but don’t you dare take away their Social Security ’cause they paid into it all their lives. The politicians are all bums, but not when they know them or when they bring home the bacon for their districts. The oil companies are bastards, their executives thiefs who are out to screw the working man. These types are always right, especially after they’ve had a few beers. However, someone like The Raygun can win them over.

O’Reilly is worse, because married to this is a raging Narcissism that whispers to him ‘Only you, Bill, are lookin’ out for the folks…only YOU’.
The Jihad Is Over | Daily Pundit
April 12th, 2012 @ 5:12 pm

[…] Jihad Is Over Posted on April 12, 2012 2:12 pm by Bill Quick The Fox Factor: Newt, Sarah, Mitt, Rick, Bias and ‘The Mother of All Spin-Jobs’ : The Ot… Newt can say this, now that his campaign is $4 million in debt and he’s got zero chance of […]
Pathfinder's wife
April 12th, 2012 @ 5:19 pm

Yeah, it just seems like bias has really morphed into spin for some “professional” reporters; hell, indoctrination attempts.

I have professional/ethical issues with that sort of thing: having also been a composition instructor (notice I’m not doing that anymore either…).
t-dahlgren
April 12th, 2012 @ 5:48 pm

The only thing that we can say O’Reilly believes – with any degree of certainty – is that the world needs more Bill O’Reilly.

All else is subservient to that end.
t-dahlgren
April 12th, 2012 @ 5:53 pm

In the absence of a credible write in campaign for the likes of Santorum, Palin, or Demint Tennwriter just might get two votes for POTUS.

Assuming your nom de pen is geographically accurate…
Adobe_Walls
April 12th, 2012 @ 6:12 pm

I think Gingrich’s biggest misconception was that Romney wouldn’t escalate to advertising armageddon right out of the gate.
Adobe_Walls
April 12th, 2012 @ 6:26 pm

What ever O’Reilly’s ideology is (it certainly isn’t conservative) it is strictly situational. His stuff on rising gas prices was embarrassing, I thought “that 70s show was” only in syndicated reruns.
ThePaganTemple
April 12th, 2012 @ 6:56 pm

Oh yeah, he’s really looking out for the folks, like the time he told us all the #Occupy “Movement” was a grass roots organization like the Tea Party that just unfortunately got “hijacked” by thugs and radicals. Unfortunately he’s not the only person on Fox was said that crap, and seems to honestly believe it. I think they’ve fallen back into the same old failed business model of thinking they have to be “objective” in order to draw as many viewers as possible. As much as I despise MSNBC and everything they stand for, I can at least respect their, well I won’t say honesty, but they are upfront in who and what they believe in and support.
richard mcenroe
April 12th, 2012 @ 7:38 pm

I think Palin was smarter than Newt, or at least less arrogant.

The New Media has not covered itself with glory in this election cycle, pat ourselves on the back hard as we may. Between Ace embracing his inner Joan Crawford with hours-long online tantrums because Palin’s supporters annoyed him, or Daily Caller with its pointless, vulgar and misogynistic Tyson interview (and subsequent Gotcha! attempts on other candidates), Red State’s disingenuous water carrying and the regrettable conduct of numerous other bloggers, I think Palin decided New Media was too sandy a foundation to build a campaign on.
richard mcenroe
April 12th, 2012 @ 7:40 pm

Newt must be sweating about now. With Santorum out, Romney doesn’t need to honor any deals with the little weeble….
Tennwriter
April 12th, 2012 @ 7:41 pm

I live in that really empty spot on the map to the southwest of Nashville. We have more possums than people, and more pine (and other) trees than possums.

Tennwriter 2012! I promise to gut the federal gov’t by firing 70% of the ‘crats, pay down the debt, hang abortion doctors, encourage Israel to send Ah-mah-dinnerjacket to meet with his God in the underworld, close the border with robotic machine guns, respect the Constitution, imprison most of Hollyweird as traitors, and restore the code duello for offenses against honor by newspaper scum with a special David Letterman addendum for so-called ‘comedians’.
richard mcenroe
April 12th, 2012 @ 7:43 pm

One thing that might have been worth pointing out was how many of those delegates Romney was piling up were from territories (that don’t vote in the general) or states that were unlikely to vote GOP (thus translating into zero electoral votes).
ltw
April 12th, 2012 @ 8:27 pm

Karl Rove makes me want to puke…and his little PAC too.
Asian_chic
April 12th, 2012 @ 8:32 pm

Bottom line, O”Reilly is a kiss ass. He never called our Dear Leader for what he is, a socialistic pig. After the election, it was all praises until recently. That got him an invitation to the White House Christmas party. You are right in calling him a narcissist and correct in your analysis of him.
Mike Rogers
April 12th, 2012 @ 8:50 pm

Ask some of the ladies who attended Anita Perry events. They came away with exactly that impression, that Rick was happy to play Texas Tenther, but Anita was after bigger game and believed he could do it.
Who knows? Maybe better advice and no back pain/oxycontin problems would have led to a different outcome, but to me it was sad watching him backpedal on a couple of critical state sovereignty issues to avoid spoiling his chances for prez.
ThePaganTemple
April 12th, 2012 @ 8:57 pm

You mean like Nevada, Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, and Arizona?
JOHN STRONG
April 12th, 2012 @ 9:52 pm

sssshh Frodo lives.. so does Newt.
Ford Prefect
April 12th, 2012 @ 10:15 pm

No, he doesn’t mean that. But thanks for playing.
ThePaganTemple
April 12th, 2012 @ 10:47 pm

Zeus, is that really you pally? Well put. You’ve got a great big old heifer coming your way the next festival. Remember now, you’re supposed to EAT this one.
ThePaganTemple
April 12th, 2012 @ 11:06 pm

Well, Romney did win those states, and its certainly possible they could go Republican this year, so what else could he have been talking about?

Oh, I get it, maybe he meant like Iowa, where Romney tied Rick’s delegate total? Or maybe Wisconsin and Michigan, which typically vote Democrat but could easily vote Republican this year and are always considered swing states under the right scenario.

I won’t include Virginia, that wouldn’t be fair, seeing as how neither Rick nor Newt were able to get their names on the ballot there, unlike Romney and Ron Paul.

We won’t even discuss those old deep blue states Romney won. Like Alaska.
smokedaddy
April 13th, 2012 @ 2:29 am

Great piece Stacy! I agree on all points. How’s this for a scenario? AlGore & friends, looking at being pulled from WarnerCable & elsewhere, not to mention a baseless, yet embarassing & possibly expensive lawsuit from Big Keith, sell Current TV to say, the Breitbart team, PJTV, Daily Caller, Newsmax, ClearChannel or some other modestly well funded rightwing newmedia outlet. Said entity starts eating into Fox’ share with a lively stable of irreverent, smart, anti-establishment conservatives. Pull an MSNBC (only fairer, better, and, of course not based in NYC) to Fox’ CNN. Of course, AlGore would get covered in AlGae by his lefty friends, but… can we dream?
smokedaddy
April 13th, 2012 @ 2:39 am

Also, Stacy, I take your point that the Fox execs & producers were looking to guard their sources with Romney, but really, who needed who more? Could Romney really have afforded to piss off the one network followed & even beloved by conservatives? Methink Carl & his cohorts were guilty of a failure of ethics, intellectual laziness in failing to examine TeamRomney’s numbers & prospects in upcoming states, and a failure to recognize their own position of strength vis a vis Romney. Shameful.