Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife Ann sat down with Fox News' Chris Wallace for their first interview since the 2012 election. The couple candidly discussed the campaign they ran and the disappointment they felt when they lost the election. When Wallace asked Ann why she thought her husband lost, she partially blamed the media. She also expressed her frustration that voters "didn't really get to know Mitt for who he was."


"I want to pick up on that," Wallace said. "There were reports that you and your oldest son Tagg were frustrated with the Romney campaign that they didn't 'let Mitt be Mitt.' That they didn't let him show his more open, compassionate side. True?"








http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/03/ann-romney-fox-news-sunday-blame-the-media-mitt-loss_n_2801280.html

HYPOCRITTER BUSHITE!







Bob Woodward's "I'm doing it for the kids" rationale for his interpretation of Gene Sperling's email as an attempt to chill his reporting is an about face from his previous posture when a White House engaged in real retaliation against any person who bucked the White House line. Specifically, in 2005 Woodward defended the Bush White House in extraordinary terms when they outed a covert CIA agent, Valerie Plame. See Why Is Bob Woodward Intent On Destroying His Reputation? and Woodward's Descent.

One of the interesting reactions to Woodward's defense of retaliation by the White House against Joe Wilson came from his Watergate reporting partner Carl Bernstein, as reported by Arianna Huffington:







It could be that Bob Woodward only cares now because he was the one getting pushback from the Obama White House (after all, why would the Bush Administration push back against Woodward? He was fawning in his coverage of the Bush Administration on Iraq prior to 2005—see, e.g., Bush at War ("[Woodward] is not analytical or critical, a skeptic of any sort or a questioner of any depth, and context is a concept as foreign to him as foreign policy. He only conveys an image the 'principals' on the inside, as Woodward loves to call them, want to reveal."


Or it could be that he defended the Bush Administration on PlameGate because he was part of the scandal:




cont'







http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/03/1190771/-Plamegate-When-Woodward-was-not-worried-about-threats-from-the-White-House

Oh, goody. Just when we were all about to forget how unbelievably unlikable Mitt and Ann Romney are, they're back!
In an interview with Chris Wallace, airing this weekend on Fox News Sunday, Mitt explains what a downer it is to come off the "roller coaster" thrill of humiliating himself repeatedly during the 2012 election, and as for Ann? Well, you remember how she helped her husband lose by explaining to you people—you Latino people, you lady people, you poor people—how stupid you are if you don't vote for her husband. Who can forget what a convincing selling point that was?






Waaaaaaah! It is just so, so hard to be nobody, to be irrelevant, to be completely unimportant. Will the trials and tribulations of being Ann Romney never end? First, she and Mitt had to struggle as a young couple to get by on nothing but his daddy's money, and then she had a horse everyone made fun of, and now this? Now they've been forced to return to their little lives of irrelevance? Oh, it is so terribly hard to be them.


Thank American Jesus that the Romneys' oh-so-humble service—hey, did you know the Romneys have humbly served in their church and also given tons and tons of money, but humbly?—prepared them for being nobodies.




http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/01/1190746/-America-s-most-unlikable-1-percent-couple-to-explain-again-how-hard-it-is-to-be-them

Hannity asked Woodward about the threat, “People have said this was a threat, or I was saying this was a threat. I haven’t used that language, but it’s not the way to operate in a White House. As you know, when somebody says you’re going to regret something, particularly somebody in a position of power like Gene Sperling. He’s not just a guy in the White House. He is the economic czar for the president. He did the same thing for Bill Clinton, had the same job. So when you say you’re going to regret challenging us, I just think that’s a mistake.” Woodward continued to reiterate his inaccurate claim that the idea originated with the White House, and called it an, “irresponsible idea.” Woodward tried to back up his inaccuracies by claiming that he spent two months reporting on how they came to the sequester, but his defense of his book should come as insult to everyone who has spent two years covering this story on a regular basis.



Woodward claimed that he was standing up to Obama for all the young journalists out there. Woodward called Fox News a cornerstone of today’s media partisanship, and claimed that MSNBC supports Obama by believing that the president can do no wrong. Woodward then praised Hannity and his show. He said, “You let me say what I want. You dig into things. There is no bleep out button, and I believe in the First Amendment. So we have got to, my view, I suspect it’s not yours or Roger Ailes, we gotta bring this back to the center as much as possible.” Hannity responded by trudging out the old, he is an opinion show excuse, “I would say this though in defense. I am like, The Washington Post has an opinion page. I’m the opinion page, and there is opinion programming, and there is objective news reporting. I’ll be honest. I’m very proud to work with some great reporters here at Fox that do dig in to issues like Fast and Furious. Our reporting on Benghazi, and I would even argue the fact that the president was never asked a lot about the $6 trillion in debt he accumulated prior to this election. In his first election, he wasn’t asked about his association with Bill Ayers.”



Bob Woodward praised Hannity for digging into things, and the things Sean Hannity listed as Fox’s serious journalism were right wing conspiracies. Apparently, Sean Hannity is Bob Woodward’s idea of what journalism should look like in the 21st Century. Sean Hannity is regarded even among Republicans in power as a joke. Hannity isn’t a journalist. He is a right wing propagandist who uses his his nightly program to disseminate Republican talking points. The reason why any Republican who gets in hot water goes on Hannity is because they know they will be softballed. Sean Hannity makes Larry King look like Edward R. Murrow.

cont'





http://www.politicususa.com/bob-woodward-wing-closet-praising-sean-hannitys-journalism-skills.html

RW Tool Woodward Backtracks while Axelrod mops floor with him.....



Former White House adviser and current MSNBC analyst David Axelrod on Friday pressed Bob Woodward on whether he really felt threatened by Obama administration official Gene Sperling. "The headline in the Washington Post, your newspaper, was Woodward says that he was threatened by the White House," Axelrod said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."


"But I never have. Come on. You know that. No," Woodward said.(The headline on the Washington Post actually read: "Woodward vs. White House: Washington at its weirdest." "They got the impression, from what you said, that you felt you were being threatened," Axelrod continued. "And you just read to the Politico one line from that email. And when the full emails came out they were as cordial as can be. His email was cordial, and your response was cordial. So if you felt threatened, why didn't you say to Gene, don't threaten me?



"No, I did not feel threatened," Woodward responded. "What I have said, David, and come on, you are making, putting words in my mouth. I said I don't think this is the way to operate. And you and I have had many discussions. You've never said to me, Oh, you're going to regret doing that, am I correct?"



"Yes, but this was a specific discussion about a specific point you had raised," Axelrod said. "It seemed like Gene was, in that email, certainly was very, very polite in the way that he pushed back on that. I'm not putting words in your mouth, Bob. It's your newspaper that said you said you were threatened."





http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/axelrod-presses-woodward-on-whether-he-felt-threatened?ref=fpa

.

First Bob Woodward, now Lanny Davis. The former special counsel to President Clinton came forward Thursday with a claim that he, too, received a threatening message from the Obama administration. "That exact thing happened to me," Davis told WMAL in Washington. "And I haven't spoken of this before."


Davis said his editor at the paper, John Solomon, received a call from a White House official who threatened to revoke the paper's White House credentials if he continued to publish Davis' columns.


"Now that is unfortunate," Davis said. "It is an intemperate person. I think it's the same person -- I'm not gonna mention names -- who must have called Woodward, because it sounded like the same language."


Politico revealed Thursday that White House economic adviser Gene Sperling sent Woodward the message that he would regret his reporting. It turned out Sperling's message was not very threatening. He said, "I know you may not believe this, but as a friend, I think you will regret staking out that claim."

cont'








http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/lanny-davis-claims-white-house-threatened-him-too?ref=fpb

Who's on the short list to fill St. Peter's sandals?

After jokingly refusing to endorse her congressional candidacy on his show, Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert broke down and broke character at a fundraiser he hosted over the weekend to do just that, telling South Carolinians in a video published Monday that he endorses his sister, Elizabeth Colbert-Busch, mostly because “she’s sane,” but also because Congress desperately needs more women.



During his heartfelt and personal speech, given shortly before everyone went bowling, Colbert said his character on television talks a lot about politics but he’s never actually endorsed a candidate. Following a brief overview of their family history and her career, he quipped: “One of the things I thought when Lulu said she was going to be running for Congress is how lucky it would be for the low country and for South Carolina to have her, not just because she is hard working, intelligent, talented and dedicated, but because she’s sane!”

“I’m from South Carolina, but we’re a crazy state!” Colbert continued. “I think we invented crazy.”



cont'




http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/02/26/colbert-drops-character-and-endorses-sisters-run-for-congress-shes-sane/