Oops. My headline mistakenly reads “cracker” journalism.

What I meant to write was ”crack” journalism – but in a completely sarcastic way.

At the top of Politico’s front page today sits a major spread on race and its cynical use in the presidential election. The co-authors claim that their inspiration came from (a week late) Arizona Governor Jan Brewer being called a bigot for daring to wag her finger at President Obama — something the media described as Speaking! Truth! To! Power! when Bush was in office.

Predictably, the article doesn’t hold the media accountable for blowing up, digging up, and focusing on bogus claims of racism, and just as predictably, the article doesn’t bother to mention Politico’s own racial scandal that blew up after their own Jonathan — He Who Investigates Private Citizens on Behalf Of His Precious One – Martin casually tossed off the slur “cracker” on a national cable channel last week.

I guess this is Politico’s transparently desperate way of pretending that neither they nor the rest of the MSM have anything to do with creating and/or fanning the flames of these phony racial firestorms, even though the media is usually the one holding the match.  The reason Politico wants to pretend the MSM isn’t the number one generator of this stuff is obvious. They want to report and create it but take no responsibility for it. This is how they fashion that artificial shield of objectivity for themselves even as they lead this partisan crusade.

It’s just a fact that both the Democrats and their MSM allies use these trumped-up racial charges as a way to distract from Obama’s failures, scandals, and issues that matter, like jobs and the deficit. By CONSTANTLY creating racism where none exists — food stamps, finger-wagging, basketball, Juan — the MSM also keeps the narrative alive that the right is racist which, in turn, keeps us on defense. After all, when we’re on defense, we’re not getting our message out.

As we’ve documented here, Politico isn’t simply reporting on this cynical game of racial gotcha; they are playing, contributing, and amplifying it.

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I take no pleasure in the misery of others, but as someone who recognizes that the mainstream media is the arch-villain in the fight for human liberty and the survival of an America that doesn’t resemble a European socialist country – yesterday, it was impossible for my heart to do anything other than leap for joy when I read that the New York Times lost $40 million in 2011.

No one wants to see anyone lose their job, but the New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times, and all the rest are nothing more than lairs for arch-villains, and when these hollowed-out volcanoes are bankrupted, the virtue of this outweighs what happens to the faceless henchmen who are now out on the streets looking for work. I wish them luck. I wish things were different. But this is about saving our country and humanity.

Over in England, some are openly panicking over the future of newspapers:

On Monday Representative Darrell Issa threatened Attorney General Eric Holder with a contempt of Congress if he does not fulfill Mr. Issa’s subpoena from October 12, 2011. Hardly anyone reported it. But then when I went to Google “Issa Eric Holder” this evening and a bunch of results came up. Unfortunately it was not about Mr. Issa’s statements. Instead it’s all about Mr. Holder and the Department of Justice’s remarks.

I’ve mentioned before it’s unusual for the Old Media to run any Fast and Furious news if the AP didn’t run something first. Same thing with this story. AP didn’t bother to post a story about Mr. Issa, but as soon as Mr. Holder says something they’re all over it. It’s quite pathetic and reminds me of Pavlov’s dog. This is the explanation of Mr. Issa’s letter:

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., made the accusation in a letter threatening to seek a contempt of Congress ruling against Attorney General Eric Holder for failing to turn over congressionally subpoenaed documents that were created after problems with Fast and Furious came to light. Holder was to testify Thursday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Issa chairs.

That’s it. No mention that this is a response to his subpoena on October 12, 2011. No mention of the emails sent Friday night. But the media goes crazy and reprints this article.

Not every outlet used the AP story though. The Washington Post again had an original piece written by Sari Horwitz! Weird, isn’t it, that she writes original posts when the DOJ and Democrats are on the defense. Surprise surprise! The story is on the front page of the website.

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Senator Marco Rubio is a bona fide political star able to communicate his ideas and vision with an eloquence few can match. He’s also Hispanic and a Republican, which freaks the left out — and by “left,” I of course mean the mainstream media.

The media’s biggest fear is Obama losing his upcoming reelection, and Rubio is the kind of VP candidate that keeps the corrupt MSM up at night. Not only could he help swing the all-important Hispanic vote into GOP territory; he also hails from the all-important swing state of Florida.

The nightmare scenario for Obama’s MSM Palace Guards is this attractive, articulate young man taking it to Obama on the campaign trail while wrapped in the mantle of history as the very first Hispanic nominated as vice president.

Unfortunately, the MSM is corrupt but not dumb, which is why over the last few months we’ve seen two major pushes from two major news outlets to discredit, toxify, and marginalize Rubio. Oh, and both of those stories were riddled with factual errors that we’re assured were nothing more than honest mistakes.

The first hit came from The Washington Post back in October. Their information was so blatantly wrong that early one Saturday morning I caught them red-handed quietly scrubbing away their mistakes from the hit piece. This is what I wrote at the time:

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Polk Award-Winning Rolling Stone writer Michael Hastings made a startling set of admissions on CSPAN, recently. Not only did he admit that most “journalists” are liberals, but he implied that they really aren’t interested in just reporting the facts of stories. Instead he said they are filled with a liberal “moralistic righteousness” and their goal is to “afflict” those they disagree with.

In the discussion, Hastings laid out how he sees his work as a journalist. “I think any journalist worth his salt often has a real moralistic kind of righteousness to them somewhere in their soul… and we talk in grand terms about ourselves, you know, afflicting the powerful and comforting the afflicted,” he told the CSPAN host.

Not much “objectivity” going on there, is there?

In the video segment featured by Townhall, Hastings is initially asked about his “prestigious” Polk Award and this discussion led CSPAN’s Brain Lamb to ask Hastings about the ideological mindset of Polk Award winners. This brought Hastings to his admission.

Of course, if one has to explain how “prestigious” an award is, one should suspect it ain’t that prestigious! Prestige is something that others should assign to you, not something you should assign to yourself.

Now, you might recall Mr. Hastings as the man whose 2010 Rolling Stone article eventually led to the firing of General Stanley McChrystal. Hastings caught some off-record carping by McChrystal’s staffers the revelation of which made the General look bad to his political leaders. Even then, many might have questioned Hastings’ actions by actually publishing those unguarded and casual, off-record conversations. It smacked of agenda or “gotcha journalism.”

But as we see in this interview, as far as Hastings is concerned, that is what journalists are supposed to do. They are supposed to approach their work with a “moralistic” agenda guiding them. They aren’t supposed to just publish the facts and let readers decide. They are supposed to “afflict the powerful” and that with all the left-wing political ideology such a crusade implies.

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Remember this? Yes, last Friday night the DOJ dumped documents on Congress about Fast and Furious. Anyone with an ounce of common sense & critical thinking skills would come to the conclusion based on the emails between Monty Wilkinson, Attorney General Eric Holder’s then deputy chief of staff, and then-US Attorney Dennis Burke, Mr. Holder and quite possible Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer knew about Operation Fast and Furious.

The majority of the media ignored the documents. They took the AP article and printed it, but buried it among other articles. Only NPR, The Daily Caller, and CBS had original articles. The New York Times really buried it: Even if you searched for it you wouldn’t find it. The AP article mentions the emails at the very end, but just repeats the talking points instead of using their common sense. “Mr. Wilkinson does not recall discussing this aspect with the attorney general.” Come on people let’s use our brains! Do you believe Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. Holder’s deputy chief of staff, did NOT tell his boss about this?

But Congressional Democrats and the media don’t think this way. Instead of investigating further they simply take someone’s word, even if it sounds suspicious. This morning I saw an alert from The New York Times. The Democrats on The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee cleared the Obama administration of any wrong doing. This is the same Times that ignored the Friday night document dump. This story appeared on the front page of their US section and is an original piece written by Charlie Savage. Ironically the article by Pete Yost at the AP is the most concise one he’s written about Fast and Furious. Gee, I wonder why. The Huffington Post put Mr. Yost’s article on the front page of their politics section. What’s this I see? The Washington Post actually didn’t publish the AP article, but had Sari Horwirz write an original piece? I believe that hasn’t happened since September.

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Whether they choose to acknowledge it or not, everyone in media understands what Media Matters for America (MMfA) is really about.

MMfA is an online group of modern-day book burners, a tax-exempt gang of bullies and propagandists dedicated to snuffing out conservative political opinion from the national discourse. To accomplish that goal, the George Soros-funded organization uses boycotts, intimidation, and the like.

Another of Media Matters’ obvious goals is to affect the mainstream media’s political narrative using these same tactics. Any story that might damage the left is immediately targeted by MMfA, using outright lies and half-truths.

The bottom line is that Media Matters is not dedicated to correcting or clarifying or illuminating truth; they’re dedicated to a left-wing political agenda which they intend to achieve by any means necessary, including outright blacklists and censorship.

In this same vein, most of us who work in media know what Politico is really about. The online publication arrived in early 2007 and pulled one of the most effective cons in Internet history. By using all of 2007 to masquerade as a news outlet sincerely dedicated to honest and unbiased reporting, Politico was able to ingratiate itself with high-profile conservatives and conservative outlets.

It was all a lie, but we all fell for it, and through the Right’s generous links, praise, blog-rolls, and talk radio interviews, Politico rose in prestige and name recognition.  Its power and influence in hand, in 2008 Politico threw off the disguise and came at conservatives with both barrels blazing in order to see Barack Obama to the White House. In the three years since, Politico has never looked back.

What prompted me to look into the possibility of an unspoken relationship between Media Matters and Politico was this story. As biased as Politico is, to witness Politico media blogger Dylan Byers use tactics perfected by Media Matters to push for a conservative’s firing from CNN was a new evolution for Politico–and not in a good way.

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George Soros’ disciple Ken Vogel wrote a front-page Politico piece laying out the left-wing site’s narrative-attack regarding Governor Mitt Romney’s tax returns. To say the Vogel article is contextually challenged would be quite the understatement, and charitable.

Ebenezer Obama

What Vogel wants you to know:

Mitt Romney and his wife earned more than $20 million in each of the last two years — including a total of $13 million from Bain Capital investments — and paid a rate of about 15 percent in federal taxes, according to tax information released by his presidential campaign Tuesday morning. …

They showed a tax rate far lower than those of his rivals, and foreign investments including a since-closed $3 million Swiss bank account and a Cayman Islands-based fund as well investments in Solamere Capital[.] …

In a conference call with reporters detailing the taxes, Romney’s campaign stressed the couples’ charitable contributions of about $7 million over the two years, and cast the tax documents as a window into the affairs of someone who has achieved the American Dream, and is intent on giving back. …

The Romneys’ tax rate was far lower than the 2010 rates paid by President Barack Obama, 26 percent, or Newt Gingrich, 31.5 percent.

Here’s the context Politico’s resident Soros’ disciple did not include in his story:

[T]he Romneys paid out 42 percent of their income in taxes and charity. …

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Over the past couple days, it’s been fascinating to watch and read the corrupt media’s reaction to the effective counter-attack Speaker Gingrich has launched against them. Here are a couple of  prime examples:

New York Times:

John King of CNN, Juan Williams of Fox News and Brian Ross of ABC News all ended up being hit by Mr. Gingrich in his relentless criticism of the news media last week, part of an anti-elite, anti-establishment campaign that is rallying conservative voters around him.

Translation: Angry GOP voters just want to see the MSM take a beating.

Politico:

This left-wing, journOlist-infested outlet can’t bring themselves to dig into Fast and Furious, Solyndra, the number of unemployed who stopped looking for work, the doubling of gas prices since Their Precious One took office, or some human interest angle on the thousands of workers who might have gained employment with Keystone, but this stupidity ranks a prominent spot at the top of the front page:

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Buried near the bottom of a mostly glowing feature piece written by George Soros’ disciple Ken Vogel at the left-wing Politico:

Brad Smith, a past FEC chairman who now heads the Center for Competitive Politics, which advocates for less campaign finance regulation, also counts himself a fan of Colbert’s campaign finance jokes in the past, but thinks that this year, he’s off base.

“I think his super PAC stuff has largely been misleading the public,” he said. “He’s giving very misleading impressions about how disclosure obligations work, and he’s given a misleading understanding about why there are rules about coordination in politics.”

The rule banning coordination is “intended to prevent campaign contributions from being essentially a substitute for bribery,” he said, and is not really as ridiculous as Colbert and Stewart try to make it seem.

More broadly, he takes issue with those who look at Citizens United as some kind of cataclysmic event.

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On Monday evening, the political blogosphere was rocked by the unprecedented publishing of a 200-page opposition research book on Mitt Romney written by the John McCain campaign for the 2008 GOP presidential primary. Who decided to release this information to the public? It wasn’t ThinkProgress; it wasn’t Newsweek or the Washington Post or Mother Jones. It was by a website which currently features the headlines “Martial Artist Kicks Down Banana Tree,” “Baby Flummoxed By New Sound,” and “Jessica Simpson Wearing A Giant Deformed Penis Mask.” I kid you not.

BuzzFeed, the name of the site in question, is the latest venture for Politico’s JournoList-er Ben Smith, as previously reported by John Nolte. Smith is heading up the “Politics” section of BuzzFeed, and while he claims objectivity, the case of this leaked document reveals exactly how he plans to use the site to hurt the GOP and aid Obama’s reelection campaign.

Screenshot of BuzzFeed’s politics page

The “About” page of BuzzFeed presents the site as nothing more than a place where readers can find interesting and viral Internet content:

We feature the kind of things you’d want to pass along to your friends: an outrageous video that’s about to go viral, an obscure subculture breaking into the mainstream, a juicy bit of gossip that everyone at the office will be talking about tomorrow, or an ordinary guy having his glorious 15-minutes of fame.

The site’s niche naturally extends to its political page, headed up by Smith. The political news cycle is chock full of bizarre and hilarious information that normally doesn’t end up on NPR–Mitt Romney sparring with pop group LMFAO, Herman Cain singing “Imagine” with pizza-themed lyrics, or Rick Perry blasting a coyote while jogging, for instance. Thus, a site to present this kind of offbeat content (the categories on BuzzFeed include “LOL,” “WTF,” and “Fail”) sounds like a great place to unwind, to set aside all the partisan bickering and just check out posts “for the lulz,” as we whippersnappers say.

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So, the other day on her local St. Louis radio talk show, our own Dana Loesch said the kind of thing that just a few years ago was celebrated by the mainstream media as the perfect example of “brave and edgy dissent” — “the highest form of patriotism,” and “the kind of free speech our men and women in uniform are fighting for!”

Then Barack Obama became president.

The real mistake Dana made, however, was two-fold. First, she forgot that she’s a conservative and second, she forgot that dissent is only applauded and defended in MSM circles when you defame the troops, not defend them.

Here’s what Dana said:

“Now we have a bunch of progressives that are talking smack about our military because there were marines caught urinating on corpses, Taliban corpses. Can someone explain to me if there’s supposed to be a scandal that someone pees on the corpse of a Taliban fighter? Someone who, as part of an organization, murdered over 3,000 Americans? I’d drop trou and do it too. That’s me though. I want a million cool points for these guys. Is that harsh to say? Come on people, this is a war. What do people think this is?”

As a response, a number of left-wing media outlets, most notably Politico, have drummed up more phony indignation than they’ve ever been able to summon against anything the monstrous Taliban have done to our troops or to innocent Afghans.

Here’s Politico’s Dylan Byers doing his passive-aggressive best to pretend that what Dana said is some kind of scandal or story and get her fired at CNN:

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And so, let the word go forth that Super PACs must bloom in every corner of America! Let the free speech flow! Let the money fall like rain, and let the national debate give voice to opinions other than those held by the MSM!

Wikipedia’s description of a Super PAC:

[A] political action committee, or PAC, is the name commonly given to a private group, regardless of size, organized to elect political candidates or to advance the outcome of a political issue or legislation.  … The 2010 election marked the rise of a new political committee, dubbed “super PACs,” and officially known as “independent-expenditure only committees,” which can raise unlimited sums from corporations, unions and other groups, as well as individuals. … Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate directly with candidates or political parties and are required to disclose their donors, just like traditional PACs.

Question: How is any part of that description different from what the MSM does on a daily basis and what it has been doing for years now?

Just like Super PACs, the MSM does most of its partisan campaigning in print, on radio and on television, and just like Super PACs, the MSM enjoys unlimited amounts of cash, much of it coming from the super-rich top 1% and their big multi-national corporations.

There are, however, three important differences between a Super PAC and The New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, The L.A. Times, The Huffington Post, ABC, MSNBC, CNN, NBC, CBS, and all the other usual suspects. And those differences make the case for why Super PACs are better for America than the mainstream media:

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This morning on Bloomberg TV’s “In the Loop,” RNC Chairman Reince Priebus did an admirable of job staying on message as host Betty Liu tried to pretend Republicans were in some kind of awful chaos because they haven’t chosen a nominee after a single contest.

Then her spin gets progressively worse:

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The simple premise of her question when it comes to Rick Santorum is completely out of line and is meant to communicate, without saying outright, that a former two-term Congressman and two-term Senator would be somehow unacceptable to Republicans–that he’s toxic in some way. Unless Santorum spent 20 years in some racial demagogue’s church or began his career in the home of a domestic terrorist, whatever could Ms. Liu be hinting at? Nothing. But substance isn’t the point. The goal is to create a stench of unacceptability to the viewers.

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Ah, Politico. JournOlism at its finest.

Here we have the first real vote of the 2012 season with all eyes on the GOP, and Mike Allen’s idea of a “headliner ” for his live stream’s “instant analysis”  is DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Ed Morrissey:

Let me get this straight.  Their headliner for tonight — the one they want to promote to demonstrate how their coverage will best the competition — is the hacktastic chair of the other party, Debbie Wasserman Schultz.  Who are the other “special guests”? … Chug your drink when Wasserman Schultz offers up these cogent points about Republicans:

• Republicans wanting to “literally drag us back to Jim Crow days“
• Refusing to increase spending amounts to something “almost like dictatorship“
• Paul Ryan’s Medicare reform will “throw you to the wolves”
• Ryan’s overall budget amounts to a “death trap for seniors” and “a tornado through nursing homes“But Republicans should stop “demonizing their opponents Michael Moore?  Bill Maher?  Janeane Garofalo?

This is – if you’ll pardon the expression — Mike Allen’s playbook. To portray whatever Wasserman Schultz will say tonight as “analysis” is beyond absurd. But Politico is so deep in the tank for Obama, so determined to destroy our candidates one by one, that what Politico is doing here actually makes sense.

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Larry O’Connor’s well-caught “sound bite for the day” yesterday deserves further elaboration.

Yesterday, on MSNBC, left-wing journalists Chris Hayes of The Nation and Ezra Klein of the Washington Post–no strangers to Democrat-media collusion–revealed that they had been part of an off-the-record White House briefing in which it was made clear that President Barack Obama planned all along to let the temporary payroll tax holiday expire, and then blame Republicans.

The meeting may have been the one first revealed on December 19, 2011 by ABC News’s senior White House correspondent, Jake Tapper, who tweeted that day that “a group of progressive media stars” had attended a private meeting at the White House with the President.

However, if Hayes is to be believed, the message of that meeting may have extended far beyond the “progressive” media niche at MSNBC, and reached a broader audience in Washington.

According to Hayes, “everyone in Washington” knew that Obama wanted the payroll tax extension to fail–and yet the same journalists eagerly covered the subsequent payroll tax debate as if Republicans were the only obstacle to an extension. The result of the media’s collusion was a year-end political victory for Obama and the Democrats at the expense of House leaders, the Tea Party, and Republicans in general.

Here is the exchange between Hayes and Klein (0:44 to 1:04), with MSNBC contributor Melissa Harris-Perry chiming in encouragingly (transcript follows):

More MSM Palace Guarding as documented by RCP’s Richard Benedetto:

Over the past five months, the Republican presidential candidates participated in 13 debates where they fielded dozens of penetrating questions on every major issue facing the nation, and some not so major.

The nationally televised and/or Internet-streamed forums each drew an average of 5 million to 6 million viewers, along with breathless wall-to-wall coverage, commentary and criticism from the news media, radio and TV talk shows, Internet blogs and partisan websites.

Indeed, the GOP hopefuls have been thoroughly queried on a laundry list of issues ranging from immigration problems to the faltering economy, Iran’s nuclear program to trade deficits with China, the intricacies of climate change to strategies to combat terrorism, exploding government regulations to skyrocketing public debt, plus some uncomfortable questions about their pasts and their personal lives.

Yet, during all that time, the man they hope to defeat next November has rarely been asked by news reporters about many of these issues. Since August, President Obama has held only one formal White House news conference. That came on Oct. 6, nearly three months ago. It lasted 74 minutes, shorter than any single Republican debate, and the president was asked 17 questions, most of them softballs on the economy and his latest legislative proposals to create jobs.

No questions on immigration, no questions on Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan or Israel or North Korea — global trouble spots the GOP candidates have been queried about repeatedly. Moreover, he was not asked about what spending cuts he would make to reduce the deficit, nothing about Medicare and Social Security reform or his health care law, all familiar questions for the Republicans seeking his job.

Full story here.

The media will do anything to keep Eric Holder in a good light. Politico has a piece up about Mr. Holder’s statements on more police deaths. According to Politico the statistic jumped 13% in 2011 and Mr. Holder said it is “a devastating and unacceptable trend.” He blames them on illegal firearms.

Yes, the man who is in charge of the department that allowed 2,000 guns to be illegally bought and walked into Mexico — resulting in the deaths of 300 Mexican civilians and Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry — is upset about deaths caused by people using illegally purchased guns. Mr. Holder goes on to say:

“This is a devastating and unacceptable trend. Each of these deaths is a tragic reminder of the threats that law enforcement officers face each day,” Holder in a statement. “I want to assure the family members and loved ones who have mourned the loss of these heroes that we are responding to this year’s increased violence with renewed vigilance and will do everything within our power — and use every tool at our disposal — to keep our police officers safe.”

What a slap in the face to Brian Terry’s family. It wasn’t until Senator John Cornyn asked Mr. Holder if he apologized or expressed remorse to Mr. Terry’s family that Mr. Holder finally did say something to them. Ironically it was Politico (and the article was written by Tim Mak, author of this article) who leaked the apology to the public before Mr. Terry’s mother even had a chance to see and open it. It’s nice Mr. Holder is reassuring the family members of these fallen heroes, but why did it take so long for him to say something to Agent Terry’s family, especially since one of the guns from Operation Fast and Furious was used to murder Agent Terry?

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From Jake Tapper’s Tweet:

Progressive talking heads and journolisters meeting the President?

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