Mitt Romney

On Thursday, New York Times campaign reporters Michael Barbaro and Ashley Parker filed a relatively positive story on the suddenly resurgent Romney campaign: "Romney Campaign Looks to Capitalize on Image Voters Saw in Debate."

Inside Mitt Romney’s campaign headquarters over the past few days, the data pouring in was unmistakable. Aides scouring the results of focus groups and national polls found that undecided voters watching the presidential debate in Denver seemed startled when the Republican candidate portrayed all year by Democrats -- the ultraconservative, unfeeling capitalist -- did not materialize.

In August, in response to an ad from the campaign of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney claiming that the Obama administration's Department of Health and Human Services had just weakened the work requirements of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (also known as TANF, or "traditional welfare"), Molly Moorhead at the so-called fact check site PolitiFact gave the ad a "Pants on Fire" rating, the one supposedly reserved for the most scurrilous lies propagated by politicians and others. Russell Sykes, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute has just doused PolitiFact's imaginary flames -- but don't hold your breath waiting for PoltiFact to recognize it.

Specifically, Moorhead objected to the Romney ad as follows (bolds are mine throughout this post):

You would think that as poorly as President Obama did in his first debate with Mitt Romney last week that his supporters would want to stop talking about the embarrassment. Instead, the very opposite is true. Denizens of the fevered swamps of the online left not only want to talk about it, they also want to embarrass themselves by concocting all sorts of crazy theories about how Romney somehow "cheated" to win.

The Obama campaign is having none of that, however, telling Fox News that it's had absolutely nothing to do with spreading the nonsense idea that Romney had managed to smuggle in a "cheat sheet" into the debate and read answers from it. When asked about whether it was trying to spread the theory, the campaign responded emphatically, "No — We’ve never casted our lot with the tinfoil hat crowd."

The Associated Press has apologized for its rude picture of Romney with a young girl gaping from behind. That happened the morning after Bill O'Reilly trashed AP on Tuesday night and predicted they would apologize.

"Here is the photo the Associated Press took at the meet and greet, a foolish shot that makes Romney the butt of stupid jokes. Pardon the pun. The picture was taken by photographer Evan Vucci and never should have been published. The Governor doesn't know there is a child behind him. And the child is looking at something else. This is a cheap shot, literally.... So the person who did that at the Associated Press who put that picture out on the wire should be fired, and the Associated Press should put out an apology, in which they will by the way after tonight." Alan Colmes tried to make excuses for AP:

What can be political about Halloween? Especially Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Orlando. Well, guess what? Universal Studios in Orlando this year actually turned a Halloween Horror Nights show into what is obviously a not very subtle Obama campaign rally in which the Romney type candidate declares he lied in the debate and that he shoves grannies off the cliff. Think I'm kidding? Then read the words of Marla Knowles, a blogger at BIZPAC REVIEW, who went to Universal Studios last weekend and reported her unpleasant experience of Universal Studios pushing Obama propaganda and Romney slamming on their customers:

I went to Halloween Horror Nights last weekend and was shocked that Universal was using its amusement park as a political platform to reach the masses in favor of Obama and to slam Republican contender Mitt Romney in a show called “Bill and Ted’s Adventure.”

Norah O'Donnell hounded Republican strategist Mike Murphy on Wednesday's CBS This Morning, repeatedly hinting that Mitt Romney flip-flopped on the issue of abortion during his Tuesday interview with The Des Moines Register. O'Donnell conspicuously failed to mention that during the same interview, Romney promised to "reinstate the Mexico City policy....that foreign aid dollars...would not be used to carry out abortion in other countries." [Update, 3:55 pm Eastern: audio clips available here; video below the jump]

By contrast, the anchor's former employer, NBC, pointed out on Wednesday's Today show that "Romney did say he would instead use an executive order to reinstate a ban on using American foreign aid to fund abortions."

Don't go there, Donny . . . Donny Deutsch has opened a can of worms—or shall we say, a carton of Clairol.

On Morning Joe today, Deutsch suggested that it looks like Mitt Romney colors his hair, and argued that Americans would lose trust in a candidate who does.  But could Deutsch possibly be unaware of the evidence that his guy Barack Obama has also grabbed the Grecian Formula on occasion?  Video and photo evidence after the jump.

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell last week was so shocked that John Sununu called President Obama "lazy," she actually asked him to take it back.

Poynter.org reported moments ago that Mitchell's boss, NBC News President Steve Capus, called both presidential candidates "lazy" on Monday (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters reported, MSNBC's Chris Matthews had an on air meltdown following Barack Obama's terrible performance in last Wednesday's debate with Mitt Romney.

On Tuesday, CBS Late Show host David Letterman ended his monologue by showing a video of Matthews' head exploding (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary).

Just how frantic are the Obama-loving media getting in the wake of their hero's horrible performance in last week's presidential debate?

Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi on Tuesday actually wrote, "[I]t should be illegal to publish poll numbers" (serious vulgarity warning).

As NewsBusters reported Monday, African-American actress Stacey Dash was thoroughly lambasted on Twitter for expressing her support for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

During an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan Tuesday, a defiant Dash marvelously said, "I chose him not by the color of his skin but the content of his character" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Behold -- Rachel Maddow, sans snark, smarm, irony or spin. Enjoy while this lasts, you might never see it again.

For fleeting moments on her MSNBC show last night, Maddow described the presidential race in a way that liberals and conservatives watching together might nod in agreement and refrain from sneering at one another. (video after page break)

Citing time constraints, Mitt Romney has respectfully declined to participate in Nickelodeon's upcoming "Kids Pick the President" special that is scheduled to air on Oct. 15. In her latest column, the Washington Post's Lisa de Moraes attacked the decision, considering it a snub and quoting the reaction from the Obama campaign at length.

"First Big Bird, now Nickelodeon," she began. "What’s up with Mitt Romney and kids?" By contrast, President Obama -- who is known to skip daily intelligence briefings often -- couldn't be praised enough for taking time out of his own busy schedule to take part in the cable TV show.

Readers are advised to have smelling salts handy and to take all necessary medical precautions before proceeding further as this headline recently featured at the Washington Post could result in unexpected health complications.

One of the lamest excuses liberals offered for Barack Obama's poor performance at last week's debate was that Mitt Romney somehow cheated.

On NBC's Tonight Show Monday, Jay Leno said, "I don't know who he cheated off of. I think you can rule out President Obama, okay? He didn't have any answers worth stealing" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary).

Charlie Rose badgered former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday's CBS This Morning over the "few specifics" of Mitt Romney's foreign policy speech on Monday. During the interview, Norah O'Donnell boosted former Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's "full of platitude and free of substance" blast at Romney's speech.

Rose changed subjects midway through the segment and also hounded the former U.S. attorney on whether the Romney campaign has "decided to be more moderate" in the last days of the presidential race.

Appearing on Tuesday's MSNBC Morning Joe, NBC political director and chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd discounted a new satirical ad from the Obama campaign mocking Mitt Romney for mentioning Big Bird in the debate: "...this is clearly a, as I was told, 'national cable,' which seems like code for, 'We put it out there hoping a lot of people will play it over and over because we think it's a good snarky conversation.'"

However, only moments earlier, the full ad played on the MSNBC morning show, as well as during the 6 a.m. ET hour. In fact, the ad ran in full on every MSNBC show between the 5 a.m. and 2 p.m. ET hours on Tuesday, for a total of ten times. That included on Todd's own 9 a.m. ET show, The Daily Rundown.

Political writer Matt Bai wrote "Is There Life After Mitt?" for the upcoming issue of the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Besides cheap cracks at Michele Bachman and (again) calling conservatives anti-modern "extremists," there's a definite "Death of Conservatism" vibe to Bai's analysis. Times editor Sam Tanenhaus's 2009 book of that name was forcefully rebutted by the Tea Party movement that same year. How will Bai's analysis fare come the November elections?

A July campaign story by CNN's Jim Acosta was so biased that the Obama campaign trumpeted the headline in its new attack ad. That came after MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell cried foul over the campaign using footage of her in its ads, perhaps telling evidence of the role the liberal media is playing in this campaign by providing fodder for Obama.

Back in July, Acosta hyped that Mitt Romney's overseas trip to Europe began in "shambles" even though CNN hosts Piers Morgan and Fareed Zakaria threw water on that sentiment. Team Obama now has featured Acosta's story to cast aspersions on Romney's foreign policy credentials. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

As NewsBusters reported, Barack Obama did a lavish fundraiser at the Nokia Theater in Hollywood on Sunday.

According to comedian Jimmy Kimmel, the President was in Los Angeles "with his agent taking meetings in case it doesn't work out next month" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary).

Emily Friedman of ABC News reported Monday that “Mitt Romney ordered his motorcade to make an abrupt U-turn in rural Virginia today, after zipping by a group of elementary school students waving in the front yard of the school, so he could go back and meet them.” ABC's video shows thrilled grade-schoolers in Fairfield, Virginia. But no nice move goes unpunished by the press.

Check out the AP picture distributed across the country. It's unbelievable. It honestly looks like a little girl is gaping at Romney from behind. This accompanied a snippy AP story by Lynn Elber on how Romney couldn't find time to take questions from kids for a Nickelodeon special. It's not just on Yahoo! (It's also here and here.....) Elber began by lecturing:

It's becoming incredibly clear since Barack Obama's horrible performance in last week's debate that his fans in the media are more and more desperate.

On Sunday, HBO's Bill Maher said to his followers on Twitter, "John Sununu is a racist fat f--k" (serious vulgarity warning):

In his speech to the Republican National Convention earlier this year, actor Clint Eastwood told the assembled crowd that there are more conservatives and moderates in Hollywood than they might think. Such people “play closer to the vest. They do not go around hot dogging it,” Eastwood said.

Unfortunately, actress Stacey Dash is finding out the hard way what happens to those celebrities who are willing to think for themselves: they get attacked by the very people who claim to preach “tolerance” and “peace.” (Note: This blog post is “not safe for work” and certainly not for children.)

The 2007 video of then-Senator Barack Obama hinting at racism in the federal government's response to Hurricane Katrina isn't the only news story that NBC's Today show stuck up its nose at during the first days of October. The morning newscast has conspicuously ignored covering the latest developments in the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya. It hasn't devoted a full segment or even a news brief to the issue since September 29.

As Today devoted air time to how Mitt Romney's debate performance was supposedly "completely overshadowed" by "hunting" Big Bird, ABC's Good Morning America and CBS This Morning devoted full reports on Monday to a former security official's charge that the State Department ignored repeated requests for extra security at the diplomatic facility in Libya.

The Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan clearly hasn't gotten over last week's horrible debate performance by the President of the United States.

In an article entitled "Behind The Obama Implosion," Sullivan wrote Sunday evening, "If Obama was rattled by Drudge, Carlson and Hannity yelling 'Remember he's a n---er!' the days before, then the Romney campaign has gotten into Obama's usually impermeable head."

Soledad O'Brien is bungling facts, again! The CNN anchor omitted a key portion of Mitt Romney's remarks back in May as she tried to convict him of hypocrisy with his own words on Monday. Conservative blog The Right Scoop reported earlier on this.

Just hours before Romney's key address on foreign policy, O'Brien reported, "So here's what we know he is going to say in his speech this – later today. He's going to say 'Finally I will recommit America to the goal of the democratic, prosperous Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with the Jewish state of Israel.' And as you well know, this is very contradictory to what we know he was saying in that tape that was leaked," she hammered his adviser Tara Wall.

During the Week in Buzz segment on Sunday's NBC Today, Ericka Souter, editor of the celebrity gossip blog The Stir, trashed Mitt Romney for announcing plans to cut federal funding of PBS, including Sesame Street, ranting: "Everything else Romney said was completely overshadowed by the fact that Big Bird felt attacked or people felt Big Bird was attacked, and he's like an icon to millions of moms and kids." [Listen to the audio or watch the video after the jump]

As Souter denounced Romney for supposedly attacking Big Bird, the headline on screen read: "Romney Goes 'Bird' Hunting." A picture appeared that showed a protestor dressed in a Big Bird costume holding a sign that read: "Unemployed in a Romney economy."   

Bad news, Mitt: You've lost the Big Bird fans in France and Brazil, according to a Friday afternoon post by Robert Mackey, who summarizes big news stories for the New York Times's Lede blog. Mackey, who has written for Al Franken's radio show and been a producer for the left-wing Pacifica public radio network, usually plays it fairly straight in his NYT posts.

But he was unusually passionate while flashing his disdain for the Romney campaign and those Americans who (horrors) think PBS is a drain on the federal government. The Times' knee-jerk reaction to such a puny cut in federal spending was revealing.

Given the shellacking Barack Obama took at last week's presidential debate with Mitt Romney, one would have thought NBC's Saturday Night Live would have had no difficulty finding material to spoof the event.

Not so according to New York magazine which published a piece Monday entitled "Unlike the Rest of the World, SNL Had a Hard Time Joking About the Debate":