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.

(more…)

“Uh.”

—–

Allen: “These are members of your staff.”
Perry: “You got a name?”
Allen: “Who say –”
Perry: “You got a name?”
[pause]
Allen: “You won’t listen to –”
Perry: “You got a name?”
Allen: “Uh.”
Perry: “If you don’t have a name to tell me this individual said this, then I don’t take that as a corroborating source

If Mike Allen’s source(s) are protected, he should say so. But he doesn’t.

(more…)

When pressed for specifics about Herman Cain’s supposed wrongdoing beyond “gestures of a non-sexual nature,” Politico’s Mike Allen responds with, uhm, Twitter mentions.

Yeah, that’s the ticket!

Politico’s Jonathan Martin — whose Indian name is He Who Trashes Private Citizens For His Precious One — thinks it’s Herman Cain who should tell the world what he was accused of:

(more…)

The good news is that Politico’s Andy Barr is now going to work out in the open against Palin and the Right, as opposed to what he’s been doing since 2008, and that’s the exact same thing at Politico under the failed disguise of an objective journalist. One wonders if all he had to do in order to get his Democratic Party job was either staple his Politico work to the application or simply write “I work for Politico” when asked for a list of experience in promoting the Leftist cause.

Peas in a pod

The Daily Caller reports:

UPDATE: Larry Weitzner of Jamestown Associates, the media consulting firm that initially denied having described West Virginians as “hicky,” admitted on Thursday to having used that characterization in the firm’s casting call request. He has since been fired by the NRSC.  The NRSC maintains it had nothing to do with the wording and no one, apart from his political opponent, suggests John Raese has had anything to do with the entire affair.

***

In his eagerness to carry out a political hit job on the NRSC, Politico’s Mike Allen revealed himself to be easily led by West Virginia’s Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin, who is up against Republican contender John Raese for the late Robert Byrd’s seat.

Allen tried to create an issue from a non-issue by crafting a piece attacking Raese’s latest television ad which features some men in a diner finding solidarity in how much they dislike Manchin. With the headline “GOP ad casting call: ‘hicky’ W.Va. look,” Allen characterizes the ad as such:

But not just any actors: “We are going for a ‘Hicky’ Blue Collar look,” read the casting call for the ad, being aired by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “These characters are from West Virginia so think coal miner/trucker looks.”

[...]

The casting material was provided to POLITICO by Democrats.

You can view the ad above or watch an excerpt of the ad here. The original ad was pulled from YouTube.

The implication is that the NRSC was behind the wording.

Allen was quick to give platform for Manchin to blow out a comically self-righteous response: (more…)

In case you thought the “non-partisan media company” known as Politico was an objective news organization, playing politics right down the middle (as they promised they would when they started), think again. From today’s sob story about how the media is being mean to Michelle Obama:

It’s been a long time since Michelle Obama has been attacked like this.

The first lady’s lavish Spanish vacation was the lead story in the Drudge Report for days. Political columnists and commentators lampooned her as a 21st-century Marie Antoinette, unwinding at a luxury resort while unemployment lingers near 10 percent and President Barack Obama’s poll numbers fade. And headlines set off political sirens: Scandal! Tone deaf! Elitist!

Tone deaf? Elitist?

Yet still, those mean conservatives just won’t let the poor woman have her umpteenth vacation before the First Family, you know, goes on vacation again:

The attacks from right-wing commentators — and a handful of left-leaning pundits — produced the first harsh critiques against the first lady since the heated days of the 2008 presidential campaign when she told an audience that America had finally improved: “For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country.”

The outrage from conservatives could foreshadow how Republicans might treat the first lady when she sets out to stump for Democrats during midterm elections. When Obama returns to the campaign trail, it could expose her to attacks by Republicans and jeopardize her new, more polished image as a modern woman balancing a career, children and marriage to the leader of the free world.

Ya think? (more…)

You say MSM, I say Politico. You say corrupt, I say Politico.

Today, Politico’s Roger Simon was kind enough to almost scold JournoList for its lasting effect on his precious little profession of journalism. At one point, he and the scrupulously non-partisan Chuck “Fire Glenn Beck” Todd hold hands and commiserate over how this unfortunate JounoList thing is tarring “those of us who don’t practice activist journalism.” If Roger Simon wants to rebuild his precious little profession’s reputation, a good start might be asking his very own publisher some tough questions.

Politico might be an online publication, a part of the New Media, but when it comes to corrupted, left-wing arrogance they make the Washington Post look somewhat honest … somewhat. Part of the reason I reserve a special place in my heart to store up a unique resentment for all things Politico is due to the very fact that they practice their dark arts online. Like a toxic virus they spread over to the Internet where the right (by design) and the left (by accident) are trying to forever kill off the very thing Politico is — wolfish left-wing propagandists hidden in the sheeps’ clothing of “journalism.”

And yet these are the same bastards “journalists” who launched a smear attack on a private citizen for asking Their One a perfectly reasonable question, obsessed over Sarah Palin’s wardrobe (and yet ranked Obama being asked about his relationships with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers as a 2008 top-ten ”media blunder“), and though they occasionally find Levi Johnston worthy of note, Department of Justice whistleblower, J. Christian Adams, remained a ghost up until and including Ben Smith’s factually challenged Nothing-To-See-Here gift to his embattled president. (more…)