Unemployment is stubbornly high, mountains of debt are burying the nation, and gas prices appear to be bringing the tepid economic recovery to a halt.
Yet MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Wednesday actually spent five minutes bashing Ann Romney for wearing a $990 shirt on television (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
After playing a clip of the Romneys on CBS This Morning Tuesday, O’Donnell fumed, “It turns out the craziest thing about that Romney TV appearance was the shirt Ann Romney chose to wear."
[Editor's Note/Related item: Lawrence O'Donnell reportedly shods his feet with $88/pair socks and $525/pair shoes. Since MSNBC doesn't have a foot-cam you can't see them on air, of course.]
"It was instantly recognized by the fashion cognizanti as the Reed Audubon silk shirt, part of the Reid Krakoff 2012 spring/summer collection, and the shirt is available to anyone for a mere $990."
"Yet another example of how out of touch the Romney family can be with how 99 percent of Americans live.”
Excuse me, but the Romneys are supposedly worth between $190 and $250 million.
As a percentage of either income or net worth, the 99 percenters are spending far greater sums on clothing than the Romneys including poor folk in the inner cities that will fork over hundreds of dollars on a pair of the most recent Nike basketball shoes.
Maybe more importantly, if the “fashion cognizanti” hadn’t identified what this shirt was or what it cost, nobody would have known. I wrote about this CBS segment and had no idea that t-shirt Mrs. Romney was wearing cost that much.
And frankly, I didn't care!
If folks like O’Donnell weren’t behaving as if they worked for Entertainment Tonight nobody else would have noticed.
Fortunately, guest Meghan McCain provided some sanity saying, “We have a first lady who wears $600 tennis shoes. She has custom designer clothes as well.”
Showing just how far he’s willing to shill for the Obamas, O’Donnell barked back, “I believe the tennis shoes were $450.”
Actually, they were $540 dollars making McCain’s estimate more accurate.
Why should one expect an anchor on MSNBC to be correct about anything?
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. As Gateway Pundit reported Wednesday regarding the juvenile firestorm over Mrs. Romney’s shirt:
Last month at the Kids’ Choice Awards, Michelle Obama wore an outfit designed by New York-based, uber-expensive designer, Wes Gordon. His clothing commands prices in the thousands of dollars and can only be found in the elite stores of the super wealthy. If you enjoy spending more than $4,000 on a pair of shorts…yes that is three zeroes after the comma…then you might like this little jacket from one of Michelle Obama’s favorite designers. It’s a steal for only $2,250.
The reality is that if the Obamas were Republicans selling the nation on the idea that they inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression, the first lady would be regularly lambasted by the press for the expensive clothing and vacations she spends money on.
But because they’re beloved Democrats, they can spend whatever they want ON whatever they want in the knowledge that nobody in the press will bat an eye other than to praise Michelle's good fashion sense.
Yet the stupidity on display wasn’t done for O’Donnell next showed how he’s willing to completely revise history to further his agenda.
“I trace the politics of price tags to 1992," he smugly stated. "I want to show you this piece from 1992 where Pat Buchanan running for president got in trouble because of his Mercedes.”
A clip of a 1992 ad created by President George H.W. Bush’s reelection campaign was played with an announcer saying, “Pat Buchanan – it’s ‘America First’ in his political speeches, but a foreign made care in his driveway.”
Are O’Donnell and his team ignorant, dishonest, or both?
The New York Times reported in March 1992, “Bush Ad Says Buchanan's Car Shows He's for America Last.”
This ad wasn’t about the cost of the car. It was about it being foreign:
"Michigan has too much at stake to trust Pat Buchanan," the ad says.
The commercial is a clear attempt to sway automobile workers in Michigan, which has a primary on Tuesday.
But the facts don’t matter to a shill like O’Donnell.
His goal is to get Barack Obama reelected, and with the support of the heads of his so-called “news network,” he’s willing to do whatever it takes including lying to his viewers.
And it’s only May.
(H/T Mediaite)
