MSM Reporters Caught on Open Mic Planning Attack on Romney

Joel B. Pollack @ Big Journalism:

The Right Scoop reports that unnamed mainstream media journalists were caught on a live mic coordinating hostile questions for Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney before his press conference today on the U.S. embassy attacks.

Their goal was to make sure that no question would address the substance of the crisis but instead put Romney on the defensive about made-up mistakes in his criticism of President Obama.

In the event, six out of the seven questions were almost exactly the same, all questioning Romney for his supposed mistake. (Romney handled the questions very well.)

By contrast, President Obama did not take questions at his press conference today–and rather than criticize the Obama administration’s failure to anticipate the 9/11 embassy attacks, the State Department’s eagerness to apologize for any offense caused by an obscure anti-Islamic film, or the Obama campaign’s immediate departure for a Las Vegas fundraiser in the midst of a profound crisis, the mainstream media is attacking Republican Mitt Romney for criticizing the president–and lying about what he said.

Here’s Time‘s Michael Scherer:

Mitt Romney began the 2012 anniversary of September 11 by calling for a suspension of politics. “There is a time and a place for that, but this day is not it,” Romney told a morning National Guard gathering in Reno, Nev.

Just hours later, Romney could no longer resist.

Hold it right there. Romney did suspend politics for the entire day, issuing a statement only late at night, for the morning news bulletins. By contrast, Barack Obama broke his campaign promise not to attack his opponent, letting Bill Clinton loose on the stump in Florida to launch false attacks on Romney and Paul Ryan.

Scherer ignores just about every fact about the violence and the Obama administration’s amateurish response–then lies about Romney’s press conference today, calling it an attempt to explain himself rather than what it was: a plain statement of his position on events and his differences with President Obama.

Here’s NBC’s David Gregory:

https://twitter.com/davidgregory/statuses/245918248057597952

Romney did not launch an “attack” before the facts were known. The relevant facts were already apparent–that our embassies had been attacked, and that the Obama administration had apologized for the so-called pretext for the attack, rather than expressing outrage at the Egyptian attack (it condemned the Libya attack). That was the basis for Romney’s statement, and those facts have not changed since yesterday, even though more facts have become known about the causes of the attacks and the terrible consequences.

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