[Posted by Karl]

If it’s the second full day of TX Gov. Rick Perry’s presidential nomination campaign, it must be time for the establishment media to deal the race card.  It’s posted a few places now, so I’ll send you to Allahpundit for the video of MSNBC’s Ed Schultz deceptively editing video of Gov. Perry saying a “big black cloud” hangs over the country.  Perry is referring to the debt, but MSNBC edited the video — and ABC News’ Michael Falcone and Arlette Saenz baldly quote Perry out of context — to suggest Perry was referring to Pres. Obama.

Having just written about the establishment media’s new obsession with discrediting Perry, I was loath to immediately return to the subject.  However, there are good reasons to do so.  First, this example is even worse, as Perry’s comment was completely non-controversial.  Second, to emphasize Allahpundit’s point that we have another 14 months of the left and the stablishment media hearing racist dog-whistles ahead of us.  Third, following from the second point and my prior post, it is to be expected precisely because the President Obama, the Democrats, the left and the establishment media have virtually nothing to run on.  Killing Osama bin Laden is about the only broadly popular issue Obama can raise, which is why Hollywood is rushing a movie out two weeks before the election.  If the economy remains largely stalled — as most think it will — they have nothing else.  And it won’t be enough to get Obama to 270 electoral votes.  Thus, the ritualized demonization of any possible opponent.

Update: MSNBC’s Chris “Tingles” Matthews says Perry “could be Bull Connor with a smile.”

Update 2:  The ABC News story now states: “Perry warned that a ‘big black cloud’ – the national debt – hangs over the country.”  The story adds “This post has been updated” — without noting that what was added was “the national debt.”

Update 3: Ed Schultz apologizes for editing the video… but not for the bogus charge of racism. Stay classy, MSNBC!

–Karl

[Posted by Karl]

That’s the too-funny headline TV’s Andy Levy floated for the too-predictable reaction of the establishment media to TX Gov. Rick Perry’s quest for the GOP presidential nomination.

Perry’s comment about Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is responsible for most of the furor:

If this guy prints more money between now and the election.. I don’t know what y’all would do to him in Iowa, but we — we would treat him pretty ugly down in Texas. Printing more money to play politics at this particular time in American history is almost treacherous — or treasonous in my opinion.

As is so often the case now, you could watch the establishment media get their narrative into shape on Twitter.  For example, New York Times Washington Correspondent Binyamin Appelbaum found these comments “horrifying,” adding, “Politicians should not threaten violence against other people.”  Politico’s Ben Smith called it “testing limits of cowboy schtick” and statred wondering “whether Perry can keep the loose charm on display this morning without daily gaffes of style or policy dominating coverage” — a though the establishment media does not play a part in that dynamic, blowing up Perry’s comments across the Internet.

The establishment media, wearing out its fainting couch on Perry’s first full campaign day, has a remarkably convenient memory.  Candidate Barack Obama boasted of bringing a gun to a knife fight.  President Obama summoned bankers to the White House to inform them,”My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”  Pres. Obama called Republicans “hostage-takers” and “bomb-throwers”  with whom he was “itching for a fight” for opposing his agenda.  And on none of these occasions did the establishment media get the vapors, despite the fact these comments are more explictly violent than what Perry said.

However, they did get the vapors when, after asking Perry whether Obama loves America, Perry replied that you would have to ask Obama.  Would I have given that answer?  As with the comments about Bernanke, the answer is “no.”  But that is not the question to be asked.  The relevant question is: When did GOP candidates become required to vouch for Democrats’ patriotism?  After all, even after the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the list of prominent Democrats continuing Obama’s example and calling Republicans terrorists, hostage-takers, and so on, from Vice-President Joe Biden on down, is quite lengthy.  And the establishment media never cares about it, let alone demands that Dems vouch for Republicans.

It is all too tiresome and predictable.  It is fairly obvious that Obama’s re-elect campaign will try distracting the electorate from his dismal record by demonizing his opponent.  It is now equally obvious that the establishment media is on board with the campaign, and will embarrass themselves employing the most pathetic partisan double-standards to help Obama win.  Unfortunately for the Obama re-elect campaign and its stenographers in the establishment media, the grim reality is that people outside the Beltway will care about Perry’s penchant for hyperbole about as much as the establishment cares about Democrats’ hyperbole.  Voters did not care about Republican attacks on Obama in 2008 or against Bill Clinton in 1992.  These Dems did not win because the media painted Dan Quayle or Sarah Palin is dumb.  When the economy is bad, the economy is the issue.  As long as Perry keeps the focus on the economy, dissatisfied voters will not much care how colorful his language is in discussing it.

–Karl

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

You really have to be aggressively self-centered to say something like this:

At his campaign-style town hall meeting in Decorah, Iowa, President Obama compared the criticism he has received from Republicans and other political opponents to the troubles faced by President Abraham Lincoln during the civil war.  “Lincoln,” the president said, “they used to talk about him almost as bad as they talk about me.”

Really, this is why he uses the teleprompter so much—because when he doesn’t have a script he says idiotic things like this.

Don’t let your admiration for Lincoln fool you.  Lincoln was so hated in his time that half the country seceded in reaction to his ascendency to the Presidency.  He was so hated that he was shot in the head.  No, President Downgrade, you are not being treated that badly.

And you all know this is not the first time the president threw a pity party.  Or even the second.

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]

[Guest post by Aaron Worthing; if you have tips, please send them here.  Or by Twitter @AaronWorthing.]

Ugh, what can you say to this unfathomable stupidity from Newsweek/The Daily Bestiality?

As Ken Shepherd writes:

In other words, “Okay, so some of us on the Left called a false alarm about theocracy when Bushitler was turning the country into a fascist regime, but trust us! This time the threat is real!!!”

If nothing else, the Bush years showed us how idiotically paranoid the left could be, believing that Bush had an evil plan to overthrow democracy itself, diffused by the simple act of stepping down at the end of his term.  Suddenly eight years of liberal paranoia looked pretty silly, to people capable of self-consciousness.

But it’s all they can do.  Obama is going down in flames, but as many times as polls show that a Generic Republican will win the election, that isn’t an option.  (Seriously, he dropped out last weekend.)  So we will have someone who is…  someone–not generic, but with an actual personality.  And the left hopes to so terrify you about the possibility of X (X being whoever the nominee is) being president that we will decide that we prefer four more years of President Downgrade instead.  That’s the gameplan, because its all they got.

Well, that and “I got bin Laden.”  Including the impending “I got bin Laden, the movie!”  Hey, weren’t liberals opposed to evil corporations making campaign donations?

[Posted and authored by Aaron Worthing.]