Ann Romney

With each passing day, the Obama-loving media stoop to new lows in attacking the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and his family.

On MSNBC's The Last Word Monday, host Lawrence O'Donnell mocked Ann Romney for having the nerve to combat her multiple sclerosis by riding horses (video follows with transcript and commentary):

New York Times campaign reporter Trip Gabriel followed up on his vital hard-news front-page expose of Ann Romney's horseback riding with an update on Sunday that also conveniently illuminated the stereotype of the Romneys as rich and out of touch, this time with the help of that quintessential man of the people, comedian Stephen Colbert: "Romney Horse Wins Spot on Olympic Dressage Team."

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Wednesday mocked Ann Romney for having a horse that might be heading to London to represent America in the Olympics.

I guess aside from his obvious lack of national pride, the Hardball host didn't know that the wife of the Republican presidential candidate credits horseback riding with helping to reduce her multiple sclerosis symptoms (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Sometimes it's the little things that reveal the persistent liberal Democratic bias in the elite media. Writing in the American Spectator, Jeffrey Lord notes that the recent media kerfuffle over the fact that Mitt Romney's wife, Ann, enjoys riding horses is actually demonstrative of how journalists seemingly cannot help themselves.

You see, the media were not always so averse to presidential spouses enjoying equestrian activities. Back when John F. Kennedy's wife, Jackie, enjoyed them, they were regarded in a much different light by the left-dominated media:

The Sunday New York Times devoted a 2,300-word front-page story by Trip Gabriel helpfully reminding everyone that the Romneys are really really rich. The ostensible subject of the pointless piece, "In Rarefied Sport, a View of the Romneys’ World," was Ann Romney's participation in "dressage," "in which horses costing up to seven figures execute pirouettes and other dancelike moves for riders wearing tails and top hats."

The Times, being a good liberal paper, of course consistently discourages ostentatious displays of wealth by never glorifying the lifestyles of rich and famous Manhattanites, and would certainly never try to make a buck off same.

Yet another Obamaoid has joined the Ann Romney-bashing brigade.  Hilary Rosen, with her "never worked a day in her life" line, was infamously first.  As documented at NewsBusters, the president of NOW subsequently derided Ann Romney as lacking in "life experience" and "imagination".  Then, feminist author Michelle Goldberg attacked Ann as "insufferable," her writing as "creepy," and even compared her to Hitler and Stalin.

Latest to join the all-women lineup of Ann bashers: Betsey Stevenson.  A former top economist in the Obama administration, appearing on Chris Hayes's MSNBC this morning, Stevenson accused Ann, along with Mitt, of "really having no empathy for people."  View the video after the jump.

Is absolutely nothing sacred to liberal media members anymore?

On NBC's Tonight Show Tuesday, comedienne Wanda Sykes said Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is such a pandering politician that if he were speaking to the National Organization for Women, he would say, "I like women. You know, my wife has a vagina. I like that" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

NewsBusters reported Sunday that Michelle Goldberg, a senior writer for Newsweek/Daily Beast, compared Ann Romney to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin during an appearance on MSNBC earlier that day.

Moments ago, Goldberg posted a response to all the criticism she's received as a result of her comments, and rather than apologize to Mrs. Romney continued her attack (emphasis added):

As NewsBusters reported Sunday, Newsweek/Daily Beast senior contributor Michelle Goldberg called Ann Romney "insufferable" on MSNBC this morning.

Seconds later, she also compared the wife of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee to Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary).

Snark on, Michelle!  On the MSNBC show "Up With Chris Hayes" this morning, feminist author Michelle Goldberg attacked Ann Romney as "insufferable" and derided a phrase in Ann's op-ed on the subject of motherhood as "creepy."

Goldberg's "insufferable" shot drew approving laughter from the all-feminist panel.  And surely the attacks on the Romneys for their traditional family values will play well with a certain segment of the electorate. The problem for President Obama: that segment is one that is already almost entirely in his camp.  But these sort of mean-spirited attacks are likely to alienate the very voters in the middle that PBO needs to persuade.  Video after the jump.

As NewsBusters reported, Ann Romney got mercilessly attacked last week for having the unmitigated audacity to wear a $990 shirt on television.

On CNN's Reliable Sources Sunday, Thomson Reuters' Chrystia Freeland said this was "fair" and "fine" because "Michelle Obama gets bashed if she wears expensive clothes" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Liberal radio hosts obviously feel Ann Romney is a big fat target of mockery. When it was revealed a shirt she wore on CBS This Morning retails for $990, they pounced. Bill Press even insisted Mrs. Romney should be more like Michelle Obama – which doesn’t match the fashion facts from Hawaii last Christmas.

On the Stephanie Miller show, one regular guest, gay activist Karl Frisch, brought out the anti-Mormon wisecracks: “If a T-shirt is a thousand dollars where Ann Romney shops, how much is the magic underwear?” Miller laughed, and her sidekick Chris Lavoie added, “There you go!”  Randi Rhodes just exploded:

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):

As NewsBusters reported, Jimmy Kimmel at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner made totally disgraceful jokes about how large President Obama’s penis is.

Three days later on his own program, Kimmel took a different tack with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney saying, “He looks like every guy in every erectile dysfunction commercial” (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Via Real Clear Politics: It's clear that MSNBC host Martin Bashir enjoys making fun of Republican candidates who have sick family members. First, he jabbed Rick Santorum for caring for his daughter, complaining about Santorum's small amount of donations to charity. Last week, he took a jab at Ann Romney, claiming that Mitt Romney is exploiting her health issues to gain votes. [Audio here. Video below the jump.]

"There is no slur against conservatives that's off the table" for the so-called journalists at MSNBC, NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Sean Hannity last night. The Media Research Center president made that remark after viewing a clip of Hardball host Chris Matthews calling the GOP the "Grand Wizard crowd," a not-so-thinly veiled suggestion that conservatives are violent racists.

What's more, "Chris Matthews is lying," Bozell argued, pointing back to a January 13 quote about Romney wherein Matthews called Romney a "moderate." "Even Chris Matthews doesn't believe that lie that he told." Also addressed on the April 26 "Media Mash" segment was how Matthews's colleague Martin Bashir callously suggested that Mitt Romney was "intentionally using" his multiple sclerosis-suffering wife to close a "gender gap." [watch the full Media Mash segment video below page break]

Come November, there's no way Mika Brzezinski will be pulling the lever for Mitt Romney.  But the MSNBC co-host had some sincere praise for the Republican standard-bearer this morning.

Expressing frustration with Rudy Giuliani--the latest in a string of Republicans to have offered only a  tepid endorsement of Romney--Brzezinski said that when she meets with Mitt and Ann, she comes away "excited," because they're "good people" and a "good family."  "What's wrong with these people? It's just ridiculous," a palpably peeved Mika said of Giuliani and others who have emitted only muted praise of Mitt.  Video after the jump.

For the second week in a row, HBO's Bill Maher went after Ann Romney, the wife of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

On Friday's Real Time, the host said, "I'm not attacking Ann Romney. She's brought up five very shiny and remarkably lifelike boys" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's quite clear that on MSNBC, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's family is not going to be considered off-limits to commentator attacks during this campaign season.

On Tuesday's Martin Bashir show, in a closing segment about rock star Ted Nugent's endorsement of the former Massachusetts governor, the host attacked Ann Romney as being "fake" and "two-faced" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Monday's NBC Nightly News, correspondent Peter Alexander played up comments Mitt Romney made at a fund-raiser in Florida about cutting government programs as if the GOP presidential candidate's proposals were politically damaging, with the NBC correspondent asserting that Romney's remarks "out of the view of cameras have caused a stir." Alexander also suggested that the Romneys had been deceptive in their handling of Democratic strategist Hilary's Rosen's recent attack on Ann Romney as never having "worked a day in her life." (Video below)

Alexander began his report:

Comedienne Roseanne Barr took to the Daily Beast Monday to offer her vulgar opinion on the Ann Romney-Hilary Rosen dustup.

Not surprisingly, she wasn't taking the side of the Republican wife (vulgarity warning):

Can NBC's Chuck Todd be any more obvious about being a White House shill?

On Sunday's Meet the Press, he actually said of the Ann Romney-offending Hilary Rosen, "This is not an Obama surrogate. This is a paid CNN commentator" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Politico's Roger Simon on Friday criticized the White House's handling of the Hilary Rosen-Ann Romney dustup whilst also taking a poke at Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Appearing on PBS's Inside Washington, Simon said, "The degree to which the Obama campaign was fearful of Hilary Rosen's comments: they really tied her to the top of the family car" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell has been a key player in pushing the network's "war on women" meme, such as when she viciously tag-teamed with liberal senators to attack Susan G. Komen founder Nancy Brinker to her misleading, biased coverage of the defunding of Planned Parenthood in Texas.

So it's no surprise that Mitchell joined forces with liberal Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus at the top of her program today to spin for Democratic activist and PR flak Hilary Rosen, who stepped in it earlier this week with her ill-advised attack on Ann Romney.

On Friday's CBS This Morning, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman did his best to brush aside the controversy over liberal diehard Hilary Rosen's attack on Ann Romney, claiming that the issue was "our latest example of false indignation." Friedman also defended the class warfare argument of the frequent visitor of the Obama White House: "I think everyone knows the point Hilary Rosen was trying to make."

The left-leaning columnist also claimed that the defense of Mrs. Romney was a cynical ploy for the votes of women: "When you have a close race like this, that is so close, you need every vote, particularly if you're in Romney's case – nineteen points behind on women – you're going to seize on anything...this was a chance to jump on it- you know, use it as a wedge issue, get some more votes." [audio clips available here; video below the jump]

Friday's New York Times portrayed Obama supporter Hilary Rosen's gaffe on CNN Wednesday night, when she accused Mitt Romney's wife Ann of having "never worked a day in her life," as less of a Democratic fumble and more of a pox-on-both-their-houses moment for both presidential campaigns.

The story came at an awkward moment for the paper, which prominently played up Mitt Romney's alleged woes with women voters on Thursday's front page: "Romney Taking Steps to Narrow His Gender Gap." And the paper has constantly insisted that the issues of birth control access and abortion will kill the GOP in 2012.

After CNN contributor John Fugelsang agreed with the "substance" of Hilary Rosen's remarks on Ann Romney, conservative columnist Will Cain laid into him for "Balkanizing" the country into classes and sects. The exchange happened during the 7 a.m. hour of Starting Point.

Rosen, a Democratic activist, had sparked an outcry for saying Ann Romney had never worked a day in her life, but CNN host Soledad O'Brien stepped in and claimed people were missing the "whole point of what she was saying." Fugelsang, a liberal comedian and CNN regular, agreed. [Video below the break. Audio here.]