Politico after ABC debate: GOP candidates ‘not worthy’ of ‘most talented journalists’
Sunday, January 8, 2012 at 3:11PM Speaker Gingrich spoke about media's bias towards religion and his remarks sparked the most defined applause of the evening. (Video from Newt Gingrich Campaign)
Journalists have never been known for humility, but Politico’s Roger Simon set a new standard for arrogance in an editorial penned after the GOP debate at St. Anselm College (N.H.).
Simon got carried away in the first paragraphs, starting with claiming the college was “packed with the most talented political journalists in America.”
Of course it was, and their approval rating with Main Street is lower than a debt collector’s.
Simon was wound up for sure. He wrote:
There are the old and wise heads, who have covered many of these presidential primary races and I shall not name out of deference to their tenuous hold on their careers.
Then he unleashed his inner leftist. Simon asked if the GOP field “is worthy of the press that covers them.”
Simon actually took the ABC debate seriously although much of the time was dedicated to the moderators’ interest in a court case about contraceptives. The case happened 47 years ago.
Contraceptives are not tanking the nation. Leftists are tanking the nation via their economic and social policies, insistence on keeping the southern US border open, growing the government to an unsustainable level and dividing the American people by using race and religion as weapons. Those are but a few of the manmade disasters Democrats have produced in running the country.
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney injected reality into the debate:
[O]ur taxes are too high. Government at all levels during the days of John F. Kennedy consumed 27 percent of our economy, about a quarter. Today it consumes 37 percent of our economy.
That 37 percent went right over Simon’s self-delusional worthy head I suppose. That 37 percent freaks a rational person out, by the way.
Simon also blew right by something Texas Governor Rick Perry said:
They want someone who has a record of executive governing experience, like I have in Texas. I’ve been the commander- in-chief of 20,000-plus troops that get deployed. I have been the governor of a state that has created a million net new jobs.
A governor who led a state to create a million net new jobs isn’t “worthy”?
For Texas Rep. Ron Paul, the moderators reserved the most popular card in liberals’ deck—the race card.
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich is a debate master and his words struck a chord, eliciting the most applause of any candidate that evening. Gingrich, responding to an extended discussion of gay issues, said:
[S]ince we’ve spent this much time on these issues -- I just want to raise a point about the news media bias. You don’t hear the opposite question asked. Should the Catholic Church be forced to close its adoption services in Massachusetts because it won’t accept gay couples, which is exactly what the state has done? Should the Catholic Church be driven out of providing charitable services in the District of Columbia because it won’t give in to secular bigotry? Should the Catholic Church find itself discriminated against by the Obama administration on key delivery of services because of the bias and the bigotry of the administration? …The bigotry question goes both ways. And there’s a lot more anti-Christian bigotry today than there is concerning the other side. And none of it gets covered by the news media.
Simon’s article, ‘They are not worthy’ (Jan. 8, 2012) levels an insult at every Republican candidate in a manner that would never be applied to a Democrat regardless of the level of ineptitude subjectively perceived.
Perhaps next debate we can have a US history contest and ask the GOP candidates how many states are in the USA. Betcha they’d get that one right every time. The president who got it wrong was never deemed “not worthy,” despite the fact the “57 states” error President Barack Obama made was not a slip of the tongue but genuine ignorance about the country he asked to lead.
It took The New York Times almost 4 years to report Obama’s mistake—most unworthy.
Does the GOP realize our nominee will not only have to run against Obama, but will also have to run against the media? We should plan accordingly.
[A transcript of the debate at St. Anselm is posted at The Washington Post.]
(Commentary by Kay B. Day/Jan. 8, 2012)