Ann Romney

Imagine the firestorm of outrage that would be ignited in the liberal media were a conservative paper like the Wall Street Journal to hire a Republican pundit who insulted First Lady Michelle Obama during last year's campaign, even if said pundit subsequently apologized. Now compare that to the silence that most certainly will greet the Washington Post hiring Hilary Rosen as an opinion contributor.

Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner notes that Rosen -- who infamously snarled that Ann Romney "didn't work a day in her life" -- will co-author" the paper's 'Insider's' column with Republican strategist Ed Rogers" (emphasis mine):

Despite President Obama’s reelection nearly a month ago, MSNBC has continued to attack Mitt Romney and his family every chance it gets, with the latest being a vicious critique of Ann Romney on the December 3 The Last Word w/ Lawrence O’Donnell.  Mr. O’Donnell brought on Washington Post writers Jonathan Capehart and Philip Rucker to comment on recent articles they penned on the Romneys. 

Mr. O’Donnell started the segment by gleefully claiming that, “They [friends of Ann Romney] said she has been crying in private and trying to get back to riding her horses."  "[G]iven the way you saw the character of Ann Romney unfold during the course of the campaign, what’s your reaction to that?” O'Donnell asked Capehart, a liberal columnist.   [See video below page break.  MP3 audio here.]

Mitt Romney has dropped out of his scheduled appearance on ABC’s The View, although his wife Ann will appear as scheduled on Thursday. The Huffington Post suggests that Romney said yes to the appearance after disparaging this show in the secret Mother Jones video in which he made “devastating comments” about the “47 percent.”

Why not? Liberals would say, as David Shuster put it on Current TV, “Because he’s a chicken, that’s why!” He added: "If you've got any integrity and you say yes, I'll go on your show, then you follow through.”

In an interview last Thursday with Reno, Nevada, station KTVN, Ann Romney said her chief concern with her husband winning the presidency would be his "mental well-being," adding, "I have all the confidence in the world in his ability, in his decisiveness and his leadership skills, in his understanding of the economy, in his understanding of what's missing right now in the economy - you know, pieces that are missing to get this jumpstarted. So for me I think it would just be the emotional part of it."

Obviously, in context, she was not suggesting her husband couldn't handle stress well, just that she knows the presidency is a stressful job and would be emotionally taxing on the man she loves. But to MSNBC's Martin Bashir, it was an opportunity to run a segment on his October 1 program where he strongly suggested that Romney may not be mentally fit for duty as president. [MP3 audio here; video embedded at bottom of post]

CBS Late Show host David Letterman on Thursday begged Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney - who he referred to as "delusional" - to come on his show.

This came as a result of a recently released videotape of Romney saying at a Boca Raton fundraiser that Letterman hates him because he goes on the Tonight Show more often (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In an obvious contrast between the two presidential campaigns, CNN's Jim Acosta highlighted both Mitt Romney's frivolous talk show interview and his campaign's "sharpened rhetoric" on Friday and pitted them against President Obama giving a solemn tribute to the slain diplomats from Libya.

Acosta did note Romney's moment of silence for the diplomats at his campaign rally, but cast that as a "brief pause in his campaign's sharpened rhetoric." The Obama camp's Twitter account was active both shortly before and after the ceremony for the diplomats, but CNN focused instead on Romney's "day of mixed messages." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

The fashionistas in the “objective” press displayed their favoritism by boosting Michelle Obama’s convention speech dress and quoted flagrant Michelle-boosters like Kate Betts, who insisted whatever stylishness the Republican women had they owed to the pioneering Mrs. Obama.

On Wednesday, the Associated Press posted a story headlined, “Michelle Obama gets raves for Tracy Reese dress,” and out came the bare-arms worship: 

Last week in Tampa, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley and NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, both hit Ann Romney with a pointed political contention from the left, but tonight (Thursday) in Charlotte, neither challenged Michelle Obama with any political argument forwarded by conservatives.

Williams posed a long-winded question about the Obama daughters and cued up the First Lady to assess a New York Times reporter’s take that President Obama is “‘a proud yet humbled President, a confident yet scarred President, a dreamer mugged by reality.’ Does that resemble the man you know?”

NBC anchor Brian Williams reprimanded Ann Romney for saying “I believe in my heart that Mitt is going to save America,” suggesting it would have been incendiary if Michelle Obama had made such a promise.

As the two sat in the NBC News booth at the Republican convention, Williams told Mrs. Romney the phrasing “jumped off the screen to me” and maintained, without identifying the supposed source, that “someone who knows you conceded that if Mrs. Obama used words like that...there’d be all kinds of hubbub.”

The keynote speaker at the Republican National Convention spoke of the importance of respect early on in his speech last night, especially when it’s compared to the fleeting nature of popularity for anyone in a leadership role.

But alas some in the liberal media were far too busy thinking of jokes they could make at the New Jersey governor’s expense rather than actually listen to what he had to say.

During live coverage of the Republican National Convention here in Tampa, Yahoo News Washington bureau chief David Chalian provided the perfect example of the pervasive anti-Republican bias Mitt Romney faces in his bid to unseat President Barack Obama.

In video broadcast Monday night by ABC and Yahoo over the Internet, Chalian can be heard claiming that GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife Ann are unconcerned about the fate of residents of the New Orleans area who are currently being hit by Hurricane Isaac.

Just like his counterparts at MSNBC on Tuesday night, Fox News Channel political analyst Juan Williams thought it fit to continue forwarding the left's main attack on Ann Romney - that she just can't relate the average American woman. Minutes after Mrs. Romney's RNC speech, Williams bluntly remarked that she "looked to me like a corporate wife...[T]he stories she told about struggles – ah, it's hard for me to believe. I mean, she's a very rich woman. And I know that, and America knows that." [audio available here; video below the jump]

When anchor Megyn Kelly asked the former NPR personality what he meant by this loaded term, Williams claimed that Mrs. Romney wasn't "speaking, I think, for the tremendous number of single women in this country or married women...she did not convince me that, you know what? I understand the struggles of American women in general."

MSNBC 's immediate reaction to Ann Romney's Tuesday night speech at the Republican National Convention was to stick by the left-wing talking point that she can't relate to ordinary Americans, especially women. Lawrence O'Donnell seconded Rachel Maddow's claim that Mrs. Romney "has not had most women's economic experiences," and went further: "She began her speech...by talking about women's struggles in this economy and in life that she, actually, in her life, doesn't know anything about."

O'Donnell then blasted the Republican presidential candidate's wife for supposedly disregarding women who have taken government assistance in their lives: "The one population that was specifically excluded from her discussion of women's struggles in this society was any woman who needed, at any point in her life, to rely on any form of government assistance - be it food stamps; be it temporary welfare assistance; be it any form of support whatsoever that any government has ever provided for a struggling woman at any time in her life. That population was completely ignored in this speech." [audio available here; video below the jump]

“A lot of women look at the Republican platform on abortion, contraception, a number of issues,” CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley told Ann Romney, “and ask the question whether Republicans have women’s best interests at heart?”

Pelley’s loaded question came just after he held up his smart phone so Mrs. Romney could see how the Obama campaign “is starting a tour called the ‘Romney-Ryan: Wrong for Women’ tour, and that’s the logo.”

After expanding their nightly coverage of the major political party conventions in 2008, the nation’s broadcast networks have decided to cut back this year. As a result, Ann Romney, wife of Republican candidate Mitt Romney, will be completely ignored when she speaks at the GOP convention next Monday in Tampa, Florida.

Between them, the broadcast nets still attract a significant plurality of American television viewers. While online news consumption has grown drastically, the vast majority of video, 94 percent, consumed by Americans is via their television sets, meaning that Romney will have a harder time introducing himself to non-political voters than President Barack Obama did four years ago.

When it comes to family members of Republican presidential candidates, looks like the MSM has decided they're fair game for attacks.  Yesterday we noted how ABC's Bianna Golodryga claimed that Paul Ryan's mother was campaigning in a "very calculated" manner.  

Today we offer Joan Walsh into evidence.  Appearing on the weekend edition of MSNBC's "Hardball," the Salon editor accused Ann Romney of throwing a "tantrum" over her husband's decision to release no more than two years of tax returns.  View the video after the jump.

It's become clear that Bill Maher's devotion to Barack Obama is so all encompassing that he's lost any capacity to reason or view things with even an iota of impartiality.

On HBO's Real Time Friday, the host actually accused presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney of having - wait for it! - "a messiah complex" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In what was billed as a profile of Ann Romney set to air on Thursday's NBC Rock Center, a portion of the interview played on Thursday's Today featured news anchor Natalie Morales grilling the Republican candidate's spouse on taxes: "...she fiercely defended the Romneys' decision not to release tax returns from before 2010. A lot of people still are asking why not be transparent and release more than the 2010 and the estimates for 2011." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

Romney responded forcefully: "Have you seen how we're attacked? Have you seen what's happened?" Morales continued to press the issue: "It's been in the press quite a bit. Now are you angry that it's been in the press? I mean, should you not be questioned about your finances?" Romney pushed back: "We have been very transparent to what's legally required of us. But, the more we release, the more we get attacked. The more we get questioned, the more we get pushed."

Katey Sagal is the actress best known for her role as Al Bundy's wife Peggy in the highly-successful Fox sitcom Married With Children.

On Comedy Central's Roseanne Barr Roast Sunday, Sagal mocked Ann Romney as a mom that doesn't cook, clean, or "make any money" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Good Morning America co-host Robin Roberts, who has conducted a number of fawning interviews with Barack and Michelle Obama, pushed Ann Romney in an exclusive interview on Thursday to release more tax documents. She needled, "Your husband has been adamant about only the two years that will be released. Why will he not follow the example of others on both sides of the aisle?"

After Mrs. Romney reiterated that her husband wouldn't release more than two years and that they had nothing to hide, Roberts hectored, "Why not show that then? Why not release the- because then it's a moot point and people move on." [See video below. MP3 audio here.]

On MSNBC, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee can't even get fair treatment when he takes a vacation.

Far from it, host Martin Bashir on the program hysterically bearing his name Monday absolutely trashed the Fourth of July holiday plans of Mitt Romney while practically swooning over what President Obama and his family will be doing (video follows with transcript and commentary):

You would think after all the negative press MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell got for trashing Ann Romney's multiple sclerosis therapy of riding horses, media members would have wised up.

Apparently not, for on CNN's State of the Union Sunday, USA Today Washington bureau chief Susan Page referred to Mrs. Romney's remedy as a "very expensive horse riding dressage habit" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters previously reported, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Monday shamefully mocked Ann Romney for riding horses to combat her multiple sclerosis.

On Wednesday, Fox News's Neil Cavuto, an MS sufferer himself, took on all the insensitive anchors and commentators at MSNBC that have participated in this attack on Mrs. Romney rightly calling them "horses' asses" (videos follow with transcripts and commentary):

As NewsBusters previously reported, MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell on Monday mocked Ann Romney for riding horses to combat her multiple sclerosis.

Hours earlier, NBC's Today show, in a segment about the recent MS diagnosis of rock star Ozzy Osbourne's son Jack, addressed the benefits of horseback riding for reducing the symptoms of the disease (video follows with transcript and commentary):