Matt Vespa's blog

It’s the Republicans who are in a bind.  They’re beholden to the will of the evil genius Grover Norquist.  They’re scared to death of The Club for Growth. That's the trite liberal media narrative that CBSNews.com's  Brian Montopoli furthered earlier this morning in a piece in which he forecast that the Republicans, and only Republicans, are in for a bruising in the coming weeks should a "fiscal cliff" deal not be finalized. But in doing so, Montopoli conveniently forgets that Democrats have their pressure groups that hold their feet to the fire against any significant spending cuts and/or entitlement reform.

Perhaps Montopoli doesn't watch his own network's evening newscasts. On the Tuesday Evening News, correspondent Nancy Cordes noted that Democrats and President Obama are digging in their heels against any proposed deal which addresses entitlement spending.  In fact, forty-two Democratic members of the House have signed on to a bill that explicitly prohibits cuts to the welfare state.

On the November 25 broadcast of ABC's This Week, former Bush advisor Matthew Dowd continued his shift away from the Republican Party by bashing conservative anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, saying he’s a impediment to good government. For good measure he childishly drew the connection to the name of a Muppet character on Sesame Street.

"Grover Norquist is an impediment to good governing…and the only good thing about Grover Norquist is he’s named after a character from Sesame Street…and that’s the last I hope we hear of him,” according to Dowd.  It’s sad that some on the Right feel that fighting for the American taxpayer is “an impediment to good governing.”

Deck the halls! The Obamas were Christmas shopping on "Small Business Saturday," and spurring economic growth with their consumer spending.  Economic activity that may come to an abrupt end if we take the plunge off the fiscal cliff.

CBSNews.com reporter Lindsey Boerma wrote on November 24 about the outing detailing how, “accompanied by his daughters Sasha and Malia, the president journeyed across the river to One More Page Books, which the White House described as an "independent, neighborhood bookstore." After consulting his Blackberry for an apparent holiday wish list, he purchased 15 children's books before even browsing the store.” But is President Obama really pro-small business? 

During Friday’s broadcasts of the PBS's NewsHour and NPR’s All Things Considered, liberals continued with their narrative about the fiscal cliff, and how it’s not all that bad.  Previously, Mark Shields and E.J. Dionne agreed with New York Times-style Republican David Brooks that they would go off the cliff.   The Washington Post's E.J. Dionne equated it with the “will of the people.”

But now, the Post’s Ruth Marcus and E.J. Dionne insist that the cliff isn’t a cliff.  It’s actually a well-defined “slope." But in the words of Joe Biden, “this is a big f***ing deal.”

A congressional investigation into a failed venture capital firm run by a prominent former governor has faulted said governor for the debacle, which famously lost some billions in investor funds which, to this day, have not been accounted for.

No, it wasn’t Mitt Romney – it was former Democratic Governor of New Jersey Jon Corzine.  One mystery that plagues this investigation is Mr. Corzine’s David Copperfield act that wiped $1.6 billion from MF Global’s client fund, which occurred days before the whole firm crumbled.  Dina ElBoghdady of The Washington Post reported in the November 15 paper about this episode in financial malfeasance that cost people their jobs, and their savings – but it wasn’t too important for the paper's editors, who buried the item on page A18.

As the discussions about sex and sex scandals dominate the media due to the Petraeus affair, one affair the media are strangely silent about is that of New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, who was handily reelected last week despite shocking allegations that his idea of an Easter vacation was flying to the Dominican Republican to soliciting sex from prostitutes. Oh, and, like Secret Service agents in Colombia before him, the hookers are saying that he stiffed them on the tab.

The latest development in the Menendez saga, according to Scott Wong at Politico is that:

Oh, now they tell us. As Republicans lick their political wounds, Democrats bask in the glory of winning what was suppose to be a highly contested election, and Washington is abuzz about the looming fiscal cliff which will plunge millions of Americans into higher taxes, The New York Times’ Jonathan Weisman wrote today that liberals are now seeing some of Romney’s economic agenda as beneficial to the American middle class. You know, the people ‘Rich Mitt’ wanted to destroy. 

Now that the partisan posturing can be tamped down a bit in the wake of the election, some Democrats and their boosters in the media are starting to see Republican policies as plausible avenues to help the American people.

Last Friday, in his first post-election remarks on PBS and NPR, New York Times columnist David Brooks downplayed his usual bash- conservatives  narrative, and actually castigated liberals for wanting to go over the looming fiscal cliff.  He said that liberals are more organized, they’ve won the election, and will get most of what they yearn for if we do go over the waterfall: increased revenue, tax hikes, and cuts to defense spending.   

Strangely, his liberal colleagues, Mark Shields on PBS and E.J. Dionne on NPR, seemed to agree with this claim – undercutting the notion that this "cliff" is dangerous to both parties.

As voters cast their ballots to decide the future direction of the country, President Obama encouraged people to go our and vote – and bring their ID’s along with them.  I guess the ship has sailed on Al Sharpton’s bridge he intended to sell to us.  We have the President of the United States and the leader of the Democratic Party telling voters to bring their IDs to the polls.  This is the seat of irony since the president's own attorney general equated Voter ID laws to a new poll tax and called them an affront to minority voters.

On Monday afternoon, Human Events writer John Hayward stumbled upon Fox News' Bret Baier's discovery of bias by omission from CBS News.  It seems out that a key portion -- regarding Benghazi -- of a 60 Minutes interview was cut out to protect the president and his re-election campaign.  

The original interview conducted by CBS’ Steve Kroft on September 12, 2012, left out an exchange where Kroft asked the president if this was a terrorist attack.  He refused to say – outright – that the Benghazi attack was the work of terrorists.  Now, with Election Day less than twenty-four hours away, CBS has graciously released the unexpurgated version of the interview.

“Bin Laden is Dead and GM is Alive!”  That slogan emanating from Vice President Biden, which has resonated in states, like Ohio, which could decide this upcoming election.  But Gov. Romney’s call from late 2008 to send Detroit into managed bankruptcy would have saved the auto industry as well, according to expert Edward Niedermeyer. 

Niedermeyer wrote today in The Wall Street Journal that:

Remember when liberals scoffed at the fact that Romney could win more than 60% of the white vote? Not only has Romney successfully tackled that hurdle, and liberals are apparently mad about it. Tom Scocca of Slate Magazine wrote on November 2 about the “tribal appeal” that Mitt Romney has with whites and why “white people think” he’ll be a better president. I’ll give you a hint: It’s R _ C I S M.

After proudly declaring his support for President Obama (and how Slate will traditionally list all its staffers' votes for the Democrats), Scocca insists they are not in a liberal bubble. He channels the insufferable and dismissive tone American liberalism has successfully monopolized over the past years.  He claims “White men are supporting Mitt Romney to the exclusion of logic or common sense, in defiance of normal Americans.”

There's nothing like a hurricane to put the wind in the sails! Barack Obama is having a great week.  At least, that’s what MSNBC host Alex Wagner said last night on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.  In fact, Wagner, who is a former "cultural correspondent" for the progressive Center for American Progress, said that Obama is having a “really good week.”  Never mind that, as The Washington Free Beacon aptly noted today, ninety-eight people have died and almost $30-50 billion dollars in damage has been inflicted on the country as a result of this storm.

Stop you if you heard this one: A slip-and-fall lawyer turned liberal Democrat politician running for Congress attends a fundraiser wherein numerous comedians crack jokes predicated on rape. You haven't heard it? Maybe that's because the broadcast networks have failed to pick up the story.

Yes, the same media outlets that made sure Richard Mourdock and Todd Akin were household names are conspicuously silent when it comes to reporting on the rape jokes made during a fundraiser for the bombastic ex-Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) this week. 

As the liberal media generally but MSNBC most intensely has attacked for an October 30 Ohio event in which Governor Romney spurred on rally attendees to help pack relief supplies for folks displaced by Hurricane Sandy, the Washington Post's Al Kamen (formerly a legal reporter at the paper) groused that Gov. Romney is trying hard not to look like he’s still in campaign mode, while praising President Obama for "trading his role as a candidate for that of commander in chief."

Kamen cracked that Romney is “finding that, unlike franks and beans, charity and politics can be a tricky mix.” As we at NewsBusters have noted, this is hardly the Post columnist's first foray into Obama puffery and gratuitous swipes at Gov. Romney.

In Tuesday afternoon’s broadcast of Andrea Mitchell Reports, Mitchell accused Romney of surreptitious campaigning, and asked what are the true intentions of Governor Romney collecting storm supplies after a hurricane.  Along with Chris Cillizza, who writes The Washington Post’s The Fix blog, Andrea Mitchell nonsensically noted how donations are the most effective forms of assistance in situations like this because there is no packaging involved.  

Mitchell revealed herself, yet again, as a liberal hack, and someone who is absent minded when it comes to common sense.  There are 7.5 million people without power, and how dare Mitt Romney try to help those in need.

As the obsession with "ultraconservatives" who oppose abortion in every circumstance continues, some in the media are baiting Republicans to fall into the whirlpool of abortion, contraception, and the like to make this election be about anything but Obama’s record.  For example, Yahoo! News has a piece from Rachael Rettner of LiveScience discussing if Romney could overturn Roe v. Wade, which is odd since this is a column about the courts – not science.

LiveScience already has seen some controversy when it published a study indicating that low IQ and conservative political beliefs are linked to prejudice.  However, concerning abortion rights, Rettner cited I. Glenn Cohen, Harvard Law School assistant professor and co-director of the school's Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics, who said that "with the justices sitting on the court now, it's very unlikely an abortion case would garner the five votes needed to reverse the ruling." 

The president’s rally in Cleveland, Ohio yesterday had a few interesting lines during his speech.  From saying how Romney is mentally defective with "Romnesia" to showing how “trust” is a key issue in this race, one must ask – has the president forgotten about Benghazi?  A foreign policy disaster that ended with the assassination of a U.S. Ambassador, the first time in thirty-three years, which some in the media has been reluctant to talk about.

And yet, CNN ran the soundbite several times of Obama saying "trust matters" -- at the same time it's become clear that the administration abused the public trust by insisting there was "no evidence" of a pre-planned attack. 

During the October 24 broadcast of the PBS Newshour, Gwen Ifill explored the state of current U.S. Senate races with Rothenberg Political Report’s Nathan Gonzales and Roll Call’s Shira Toeplitz.

The first on the list was Indiana race between Richard Mourdock and Rep. Joe Donnelly.  Here, liberal media creep leeched into Toeplitz’s analysis as she found Mourdock’s comments about life and conception frivolously similar to what she called Todd Akin's “horrific gaffe” on the matter several weeks ago.

PolitiFact has received a fair share of criticism from conservatives for their spin-heavy fact-checks. The liberal media, for the most part, has accordingly been dismissive of such conservative complaints. But now even The Daily Beast/Newsweek is joining in on the criticism, with contributor Megan McArdle joining conservatives in noting the fact-checker repeated repetition of a falsehood regarding the Lilly Ledbetter Supreme Court case.

During his special post-debate Hardball,  Chris Matthews's panelists -- with the exception of Republican Michael Steele -- praised moderator Bob Schieffer’s ability to get Romney “to be quiet.”  Apparently it’s the job of the moderator to keep the Republican docile during debates in the minds of liberals. 

Matthews also liked the format of Monday's debate because it denied Romney from being exhibiting "flagrant disrespect" towards President Obama.

In the post debate commentary of the third – and last – presidential debate on foreign policy, on Monday, Chris Matthews just could not help himself spewing another diatribe about the racial hatred that he insists is ingrained into the soul of America’s conservatives. 

In fact, clucked Matthews, they’re so hateful of Obama that they want him out of the White House more than they want al-Qaeda’s complete destruction.  Below is the transcript and video of this hyperbolic and unruly episode. (video after the jump)

On the October 20 broadcast of the Melissa Harris-Perry show, her ‘Dear, Mr. President’ segment touched upon an issue that is glorified amongst liberals: gun control.  In her segment, Harris-Perry is alluded to the question about assault weapons that was included in last week’s town hall style presidential debate.  Here, the Tulane professor insinuated that the mentally disabled are unjustly criticized, like her transgendered constituency, and tried to say that the problem with gun violence is access – not the mentally ill.

When George McGovern died at 90 over the weekend, liberals were guaranteed to remember him as if 1972 were yesterday. Slate’s Ron Rosenbaum wrote an article titled "George McGovern was a winner:  His 1972 campaign was the most lopsided loss in presidential history. But this man was no loser.”  

Rosenbaum wants to run through the potentialities that could have led to a glorious McGovern victory in ’72.  Rosenbaum  says McGovern talked of "the role of the media, which basically took over presidential politics that year with the advent of the self-regarding 'Boys on the Bus' campaigning mode." Rosenbaum was on that press bus: 

In another hit piece on Mitt Romney, ABC News’ Matthew Mosk penned a 1,667-word column on how Romney’s in-laws could be a “problem.”  According to Mosk, "Ann Romney's brother Roderick Davies, who filed for bankruptcy in 2010, and nephew Ryan Davies, who oversaw a now-bankrupt green energy venture, have both been out on the campaign trail to offer support for Romney. But back in Utah, the two men have left a trail of unhappy business partners, a number of whom spoke with ABC News to express concern about how the two might try and capitalize on a Romney presidency.”   So, in Mosk’s mind, the allegedly unscrupulous activities of two grown men are all Mitt Romney’s fault.

In the age where the 800+ word column is dead, The Washington Post seemed to make an exception Thursday for political writer Jason Horowitz to explore a sterile saga about Mitt Romney’s ’94 Massachusetts senate run against Ted Kennedy.  

The question is why did The Washington Post decide it was pertinent to publish this 3,800-word piece at this point in time?  Is it because Mitt Romney gained another point in the Gallup poll?  Regardless of the political angle, Horowitz's piece was filled with innuendo about Romney’s faith, as if the ’94 race was part of some grand Mormon conspiracy. 

A little over a half-hour before the debate, Matthews went on a tirade against the pro-life movement. His fury mostly centered on Rep. Paul Ryan, whose pro-life views, according to Matthews are akin to Sharia law that is practiced and advocated by radical Islamists.  He also sounded the alarms that the Republican ticket may want to “operate [the United States] under a religious theory.”  After exposing the theocratic conspiracy of the Republicans and the Sharia enemies within – Matthews came off as utterly unhinged.

At the conclusion of the second presidential debate on October 16, Chris Matthews could hardly control himself when he confidently declared that President Obama "clearly" won the debate.  In fact, he proclaimed that President Obama had "punched Romney hard"during their ninety-minutes showdown.  It sure sounds like the rhetoric of a man who stated that "all that came before" in American history –"led to" Obama.