Politico Tries to Sink Another Perry Campaign

April 2, 2013 | Filed Under Conservatives, Elections, GOP, Government, Journalism, Media, Media Bias, Politico, Rick Perry, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a March 28 article, Politico made to report on the situation in Texas Governor Rick Perry’s inner circle but instead of a concise report this long and oddly repetitive piece was seemingly more interested in constantly reminding readers that the Governor didn’t fare too well in the 2012 Presidential election.

The quixotic piece by Politico’s Alexander Burns is ostensibly about a lightly manned Perry campaign staff. Many older Perry staffers, Burns reports, have now left the Governor’s employ and there seems to be some confusion as to public knowledge of who is doing what inside Perry’s organization.

But Burns’ motivation for the long piece is questionable. For one thing, he notes several times that Perry is in a “different” phase of his work as Governor in that being governor is his chief job at the moment. Therefore, future campaigns have taken a back seat to governing. This, of course, would be a good reason why Perry has thinned his campaign staff. He just doesn’t need an entire retinue of advisors and campaign staffers to do his job as Governor. In fact, this point seems to make much of Burns’ speculations rather moot, yet his reporting leads readers to imagine that Perry’s staffers are like rats leaving a sinking ship.
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Politico Celebrates Obama’s ‘Bipartisan Spirit’ With Hagel Nomination

January 9, 2013 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Budget, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Military, Pentagon, Politico, President, Progressives, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

Politico Celebrates Obama’s ‘Bipartisan Spirit’ With Hagel Nomination
-By Warner Todd Huston

Upon President Obama’s nomination of Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense, Politico celebrated the move as proof of Obama’s “bipartisan spirit.”

Politico notes that Hagel has detractors on both sides of the aisle, but it appears the Washington political newser feels that makes him a great choice.

But inside the White House, the choice makes sense. It appeals to Obama’s bipartisan spirit — and the optics aren’t bad, either — to have any Republican as Defense secretary when Obama is seeking to end the war in Afghanistan and dramatically reduce the Pentagon’s budget.

Obama’s mythic sense of “bipartisanship” is deftly laid low by Peggy Noonan who wrote last week that Obama just loves to taunt.

Politico buries at the bottom of its long piece any listing of just why Hagel is opposed by some left and right.
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Politico Just Realized Progressives Have Gripes About Obama

December 5, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Budget, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Elections, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Politico, President, Progressives, Republicans, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Now that Barack Obama has been successfully re-elected, The Politico has miraculously discovered that some progressives are not exactly thrilled with the most left-wing president in American history. The lefties want more, says Politico. But, is this turn about really that sudden?

In a lengthy December 2 piece, Politico lays out the left-wing voices in the “progressive media” that have lately taken to criticizing the president for not leaning far enough to the left. If not criticizing, exactly, perhaps a more fitting word is they are “encouraging” Obama to take up the left-wing policies he’s given lip service to but not pushed too hard to implement.

The absurd aspect to Politico’s piece is that the Internet newser seems to think this criticism is all new. One has to wonder why Politico has paid no attention to the far left’s criticism until now? Perhaps Politico wanted to make it seem as if the left was united and had no qualms over Obama but now that he’s safely re-elected, it is Politico, rather than the far left, that finds it is safe to criticize the president?
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Politico Pumps NJ Gov. Christie as ‘Mitt’s First VP Choice’

November 5, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Chris Christie, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Ethics, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Politico, President, Republicans, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Ever since New Jersey Governor Chris Christie went all weepy over how wonderful Barack Obama was in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the Old Media establishment has been attempting to use Christie as a wedge to cleave voters away from Romney and toward Obama. Politico followed that narrative with another unnamed source story, this time saying that Mitt Romney really wanted the boisterous New Jersey Guv instead of Paul Ryan as his VP pick.

Calling the tall tale “one of the most tantalizing subplots of the 2012 campaign,” Politico offered the claims of those oh, so well known unnamed, “campaign insiders,” saying that Romney was leaning heavily in favor of Gov. Christie for his veep.

But as you read the story, it really tends to show that, to the contrary, Romney didn’t really consider Gov. Christie a top tier candidate for the number two slot. In fact, there are many good reasons why Chris Christie would have made a terrible choice for vice president.

Naturally we know that the real purpose for this story is to keep in front of readers Christie’s over the top, effusive praise of Obama during natural disaster, Hurricane Sandy. They mention Christie’s response to Obama several times in the piece.

OK, we get it. Christie got weak in the knees for the Bamster.
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Yahoo! News, Politico: Come On, Those Polls Are Meaningless!

November 1, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Mitt Romney, Politico, President, Progressives, Warner Todd Huston, Yahoo! News | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Suddenly Yahoo! News wants you all to know that all those darned old polls showing a big Romney surge are “meaningless at this stage in the election.” That’s right, are you going to believe Yahoo! or your lying eyes?

For Yahoo! News, David Rothschild says that we should just ignore the polls. Obama is the big winner and that is that. Move along. Nothing to see here.

The reason Rothschild says the national polls are meaningless is because, thanks to the Electoral College, our system isn’t a national vote, per se. Rothschild is focusing only on the key swing states that he says are the only ones worth paying any attention to. And he feels all the swing states are in Obama’s column so forget what the national polls say.

Naturally, Rothschild favors the left-wing Nate Silver of The New York Times who has consistently claimed that Obama will practically run away with this election despite the fact that some of the most reputable polling organizations in the country such as Rasmussen and Gallup have shown a close race all along.
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Politico Hires Name-Calling Journo Fired From Yahoo!

October 16, 2012 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Ethics, Government, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Politico, President, Progressives, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

In the world of journalism, no bad deed goes unrewarded. Take the case of former Washington bureau chief for Yahoo! News, David Chalian. You may recall that he was fired after he was heard saying during the Republican National Convention that Republicans were “happy to have a party with black people drowning.” He may have been fired from Yahoo! for this ignorant statement, but now he’s been hired by Politico.

You’ll recall that the Republican convention started in the midst of a full-blown hurricane, a storm some feared would again swamp New Orleans. Of curse the Old Media was filled with reminiscences of Hurricane Katrina and worries for New Orleans’ minorities was again everywhere. Speculation that the GOP would cancel its convention was also ubiquitous.

The GOP did postpone its opening day, but decided not to cancel the whole show and this caused some left-wing tongues in the Old Media to start wagging that Republicans were obviously racist. Cue David Chalian who was heard on an open mic perpetrating that very calumny.

On August 28, while in an ABC control room, Chalian unleashed his hateful charge, saying: “They’re not concerned at all. They are happy to have a party with black people drowning.”
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Politco’s Full Court Press to Destroy Paul Ryan

August 17, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Ethics, Government, Journalism, Liberals, Media Bias, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Politico, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Politico seems to have decided where it stands on Paul Ryan. On its main page on the afternoon of August 15, the news site seemed to carry a single message: Paul Ryan is a bad, bad man and Romney made a big mistake picking him as his wingman.

Ryan is slammed in a dozen stories on Politico’s main page. He’s either personally bad, reflects badly on Romney, or he makes his Party look bad. In fact, on this day there was only one sort of positive story about Paul Ryan that appears on Politico’s main page.

One story even ridicules him for having appeared too many times on the campaign trail dressed almost the same as Mitt Romney. Seriously. Politico is even now trying to attack Romney and Ryan over how they dress!

Here is a listing of the Ryan is bad stories:

How Ryan spurned deficit commission
Ryan no help to Romney with Hispanics
Romney’s VP pick lays out a road divided
Obama attacks Mitt-Ryan on Medicare
Tom Reynolds warns on Medicare (Ryan pick is bad for publicity)
Romney and Ryan: Fashion twins
Boehner tries to calm House GOP (Over Ryan’s budget ideas)
Beneath ‘Mediscare’ talk, who’s right?
Press restrictions on Ryan trail (whining about how bad Ryan’s aides are)
GOP pros fret over Ryan
Romney/ Ryan Medicare plan (Jay Leno slamming the GOP)
Obama hits Romney/Ryan on Medicare (Video)

And the Positive Ryan Stories:

Poll: Small post-Ryan bump for Mitt

On the purported positive story, note that the headline goes out of its way to call the polling bump “small” as if it is inconsequential? Yeah, we don’t want people excited that Romney/Ryan got a bump in the polls, do we?

So, Politico has decided. Paul Ryan brings nothing good to the ticket and there just isn’t a single thing out there to report that puts him in a positive light. Imagine that?
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Long After Romney-Killed-My-Wife Ad, Politico Finally Ready to Compare Claims Of Romney and Obama?

August 17, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Joe Biden, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, Politico, President, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Now that Mitt Romney has picked Paul Ryan for his running mate, Politico finds itself finally ready to compare the stump claims and campaign ads of the two campaigns. But instead of looking at gutter ads like Obama’s claiming Mitt Romney killed a steel worker’s wife, Politico thinks it’s better to compare ads and rhetoric focused on Medicare.

Calling it the “Mediscare” campaign, Politico’s piece is a long comparison of Obama’s and Romney’s claims of how each other would treat Medicare. This is certainly a useful discussion, to be sure, but where is Politico’s piece comparing Romney’s mild campaign thus far to the cynical, lie-filled attacks that Obama and Joe Biden as well as all their minions have launched at team Romney over the last few months?

Wouldn’t it have been useful to compare Romney’s issues-based campaign claims to Obama’s claiming that Romney killed a man’s wife or even this week’s claim from Biden who told an African American audience that Romney and Ryan want to bring back the black slave trade? (And worse, Biden even resorted to “black dialect” to do it!)
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Politico: ‘Ten Things to Know’ About Ann Romney’s Horse?

August 6, 2012 | Filed Under Animals, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Mitt Romney, Politico, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Political news site Politico is not done needling Ann Romney for having a top-rated horse in the Olympics, apparently. Witness an actual Politico headline: 10 things to know about Rafalca.

Most of the “ten things” are just facts about the horse, Rafalca, but one of them was a political jab and a second was misleading.

The political jab was that purported funnyman Stephen Colbert made a satirical video about the horse. Ho hum.

The misleading one was in the first few words of point five. It says that Rafalca “has her own clothing line.” Politico goes on to report that owners of the horse have made up ball caps and t-shirts screen printed with the horse’s name for fans to buy over the Internet.
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Politico Forgets to Mention Democrats Caused Student Loan Interest Rate Hike Problem

July 5, 2012 | Filed Under Budget, Business, Capitalism, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Education, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Politico, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

In its update on the coming student loan interest rate hike deal in Congress, Politico dances its blame-the-GOP tap dance once again saying that the coming rate hike is all just “politics.” But somehow Politico forgets to note that this interest rate problem is of the Democrats’ own making in the first place.

Reporting that Congress has signed off on a bipartisan deal to halt the scheduled interest rate increase on millions of student loans, Politico takes a paragraph to “explain” what the hold up was.

Lawmakers moved quickly on Friday to end a legislative dispute that got caught up in politics on Capitol Hill and on the campaign trail, as Obama repeatedly blamed Congress for delaying and Republicans accused the president of being AWOL in negotiations.

Yes, those darned old Republicans were just engaging in “politics.”

But, wouldn’t it have been nice for Politico to note why we got here with this student loan interest rate fiasco?
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Politico Gives Team Obama Pass on Its Twitter-tastrophies

June 12, 2012 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Blogging, Computers, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Inernet, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, New Media, Politico, President, Technology, Twitter, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

[Note: A shorter version of this article appears on BigJournalism.com]

One cannot help but feel that Politico is once again giving cover to Barack Obama’s reelection campaign with its latest love letter of an article. This time Politico is sure that Obama is king of the Internet. But it seems that at least one Internet-based area has been a disaster for Obama of late: Twitter. Not that Politico mentions any of that, of course.

Politico’s piece lauds Obama’s data advantage, sure that the President’s highly paid “techies” housed on the sixth floor of his Chicago HQ are sweeping away all before them on the Internet. In fact, Politico is so impressed with Obama’s “techie” effort that they proclaimed that this year’s organization makes the 2008 campaign’s “look like cavemen with stone tablets.”

That’s pretty definitive, isn’t it?
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Guilt By Association Used by Old Media Only to Hurt Republicans

January 23, 2012 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Ethics, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Politico, President, Republicans, Scott Walker, The New York Times, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last week two political operatives were arrested in separate incidents, one Democrat and one Republican. It certainly isn’t news that political operatives sometimes break the law, but how the different incidents were reported is typical of how the Old Media establishment uses guilt by association to tar Republicans but rarely does the same thing to take swipes at Democrats.

The similarity in the two stories is that both of the accused are former staffers of high profile politicians. The Democrat was an Obama campaign staffer while the Republican was a staffer of the Republican Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker. Neither currently works for those high profile pols, but only the Republican was linked to his former boss. The Democrat’s link to Obama was mostly ignored by the media.

Story One: Some Guy Arrested

We’ll begin with the tale of Iowa Democrat operative Zachary Edwards who tried to steal the identity of a rival Republican in order to use that identity to get the Republican in trouble.

Edwards tried to use the identity of Iowa Secretary of State, Republican Matt Schulz (and/or Schultz’s brother) to illegally obtain some sort of state benefits so that he could then claim that the Republicans were illegally obtaining state benefits. This Edwards fellow hoped he could smear the GOP Sec. of State as engaging in some sort of unethical behavior. (The Iowa Republican blog has more on the fight between Schultz and Iowa Democrats)

Now, as it happens Edwards is not only a member of a politically connected Democrat consulting firm, Link Strategies — a company with long-standing ties to powerful Iowa Democrat Senator Tom Harkin — but Edwards was also a member of Obama’s Iowa team in 2007/08. Edwards’ bio has since been scrubbed from the Link Strategies page but read in part, “In September 2007, Zach joined the Obama New Media department as co-director of the Nevada New Media team and then moved on to direct New Media operations in five other primary states (New Mexico, Texas, North Carolina, and South Dakota).”

For a screen shot of Edwards memory-holed bio from the Link Strategy site, see the Iowa Grounds blog.

So, how was Edwards’ arrest reported? For one thing, it was hard to find Edwards’ Democrat affiliation and his past role as a top Obama campaign staffer in stories of this incident.
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Politico’s Fake Tea Party-Slamming South Carolina Poll

January 17, 2012 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Elections, GOP, Government, Liberals, Media, Politico, President, Republicans, Tea Party, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

It almost seems that on a daily basis the onetime political news website Politico is edging toward a Daily Kos-like experience and on Jan 14 we see yet another step in Politico’s journey toward left-wing extremes with a fake poll that claims that no one in South Carolina likes the Tea Party movement. Did I mention it was a “Facebook poll”?

The headline ways it all, really: Facebook/POLITICO poll: South Carolina users cool to tea party. If the fact that this “poll” is just some posting on a Facebook page doesn’t make you laugh at its validity, the hilarity continues as Politico goes on to treat this silliness as real news.

“Almost two-thirds of adult Facebook users in South Carolina say they aren’t fans of the tea party, according to a Facebook poll conducted today with POLITICO,” the “news” website begins.

Come on. Does anyone imagine that Politico reached “almost two-thirds” of the Facebook uses in South Carolina? Does anyone even imagine that Politico reached even a representative number of Facebook users in South Carolina? Was there any scientific method at all to this or was it just some posting that a handful of South Carolinians saw on Facebook? Bet you can guess.
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Politico’s Top 10 Political Blunders: Mostly GOP Blunders?

December 28, 2011 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Ethics, Government, Corruption, John Boehner, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Politico, President, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Top ten lists at year’s end are always subjective, to be sure. But some lists seem rather obviously out of whack at first glance. Politico’s “Top 10 political blunders of 2011” is one of those lists that is glaring for what isn’t present as opposed to what is. And what isn’t seems to bespeak that Politico wanted to avoid focusing on Democrat failures in a year when there are so many Democrat failures.

Politico bills this list as one of the “worst political strategic decisions” of 2011. Strangely enough, this list contains fully seven GOP “blunders” yet only three Democrat goofs. Some of the GOP blunders are also questionable for any top ten list considering what is missing from the thing.

First we need a rundown on what is on this list, and in the order Politico places them.

Obama pivots to deficits
Republicans vote on the Ryan budget
Tim Pawlenty bets it all on Ames
Mitt Romney hides
Rick Perry debates
Jon Huntsman returns from China
Mr. Daley goes to Washington
Mitch and Haley stay home
Dems pick Charlotte
John Kasich pushes S.B. 5

Isn’t it fascinating that some of these “top blunders” did not actually result in a major reversal of great import of some type or another? Take the Jon Huntsman point, for instance. Jon Huntsman is not consequential and his decision to enter the GOP primary race instead of staying in China is not going to make much difference to anyone, anywhere. The Mitch Daniels point is also specious for such a list as Daniel’s decision to sit out 2012 did not necessarily end his career. Further the blunder of Democrats picking Charlotte, North Carolina, while certainly a messy proposition fraught with mistakes, is hardly any kind of end of the world goof, is it?
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Hypocrisy: Left Wants SCOTUS Justice Thomas Recusal, Ignores Kagan’s Clear Conflicts

November 22, 2011 | Filed Under Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama, Clarence Thomas, Democrats/Leftists, Elana Kagan, Government, Government, Corruption, Health, Journalism, Judges, Law, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Obamacare, Politico, President, Supreme Court, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston, Washington Post | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

This past weekend the Washington Post published a hit piece on the grand opening of a museum in Georgia dedicated to the birthplace of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. The paper was desperate to make some grand conspiracy, some lawbreaking evil from the project. But whatever is going on with the museum, this story was just one more shot orchestrated by the left aimed at forcing Justice Thomas to recuse himself from the upcoming hearings on whether or not Obamacare is Constitutional. Of course, this is all a smoke screen to hide the fact that it is really left-wing darling Justice Elana Kagan that should recuse herself from the case.

The Post story was a mish mash of innuendo, guesswork, and partisan claims, all amounting to much of nothing for proof of wrong doing. The Post even took the opportunity to use the word “whitewashed” when describing the color of the building housing the museum commemorating Justice Thomas’ birthplace. None too subtle, that.

There was plenty of other coverage of the opening of the museum that was positive, of course. Still it is apparent that the left hates Justice Thomas so much that they can’t even stand it that a small commemoration of his place of birth be created.

But real facts weren’t on the agenda for this article on Thomas. This article was meant as yet another slap at Thomas in order to mount pressure against him for the upcoming case against Obamacare. The left has been floating the demand that Justice Thomas recuse himself because his wife has worked as a “conservative activist and lobbyist, where she specifically agitated for the repeal of ‘Obamacare.’”
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Politico Misstates Concealed Carry Law Claims it Violates State’s Laws

November 17, 2011 | Filed Under 2nd Amendment, Anti-Americanism, Congress, Constitution, Democrats/Leftists, GOP, Government, Corruption, Guns, House of Representatives, Journalism, Law, Liberals, Media Bias, Politico, Regulation, Republicans, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Apparently Politico does not like the new concealed-carry reciprocity law recently passed in Congress. They must not like it. After all, aside from covering it in a negative light, the newser so badly misstated the law that it could easily turn its readers against the whole idea. But perhaps that’s the idea?

The law, the National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2011, would allow gun owners that have a concealed-carry license in their home state to carry their firearm in another state if that state also has a carry law in place. The law, however, does not allow someone to carry a firearm in a state that does not currently allow its own citizens to enjoy concealed-carry rights.

All this law does is standardize the lawful status of interstate gun carriers so that law-abiding citizens are not confused by and in fear of violating the many different state statutes concerning their firearms when traveling.
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Politico Tries to Smear Herman Cain With Bad Pizza

October 20, 2011 | Filed Under Conservatives, Elections, GOP, Government, Herman Cain, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Politico, Republicans, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

Politico unleashed an incredibly misleading smear job on Herman Cain this week by attacking “his” Godfather’s Pizza in a faux taste test in both written and video form. The idea was to see if Herman’s pizza was a good product. Naturally the taste testers hated the pizza. But is Godfather’s Pizza really Herman’s pizza? Of course not.

Politico assembled a taste-testing panel made up of a Democrat operative, a Republican operative, and a food blogger. Three pizzas were presented in a blind tasting and the result was that the Godfather’s pizza was deemed the worst of the bunch.

But was this a straight forward, unbiased test? Hardly.
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More Evidence that Centrists Democrats Are Dead

February 8, 2011 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, Harry Reid, House of Representatives, Journalism, Liberals, Media Bias, Nancy Pelosi, Politico, President, Republicans, Senate, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Ben Smith of POLITICO is reporting that the Democrat leadership Council is on it’s last paws and about to go belly up. This is one more little hint that the centrist, the moderate, or the “Blue Dog” Democrat is truly an extinct animal in America today. The Donkey’s big tent is more like a birdcage cover any more and apparently that cage holds only the red crested, double fisted, lefty bird.

The Democratic Leadership Council was the “iconic” centrist Democrat political organization founded during the Clinton years that had quite a lot of influence at the time. Many styled the DLC as the rebirth of the Democrat Party after the failures of the liberal wing in the 60s and 70s. But as the years have worn onward, there have been fewer and fewer centrist Democrats to be had with few of them in any position of power in Washington. With the Pelosi/Reid/Obama wing of the Democrats gaining power the Democrat Party itself has marched quickly toward the far left leaving the small coterie of Blue Dogs on the outside looking in.
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Politico Says Florida’s Allen West Will Become the Alan Grayson of the Right?

November 11, 2010 | Filed Under Allen West, Anti-Americanism, Congress, Conservatives, Democrats/Leftists, Elections, Florida, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, House of Representatives, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Politico, Republicans, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Lt. Col. Allen West is one of the most stand up guys you’ll ever meet. He first came to the public eye when his interrogation of an Iraqi yielded lifesaving results even as it was a bit unorthodox. His professional handling of that incident put him on a track to run for Florida’s 22nd District House seat, a race he won handily despite the left’s unhinged attacks upon him.

West ran a clean campaign in Florida’s 22nd. He avoided over-the-top attacks on his opponent and did not indulge fits of name-calling. This is not to say that he soft-pedaled his opinions on just how wrong the Democrats were as he sought to delineate the policy differences between himself and the left he was battling. But West did campaign with a serious tone and an even-tempered demeanor. He was not an arm waver, he did not indulge flights of fantastic conspiracies, nor did he employ vile attack ads in his race. Pointed rhetoric? Yes. Obscene, wild-eyed, foaming at the mouth attacks? Not at all.

With that said, why does Politico seem to think that Allen West is on track to become the right’s version of the despicable Alan Grayson, also a Floridian?
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In Which I Come to Meghan McCain’s Defense… Sort Of

November 7, 2010 | Filed Under Barack Obama, Democrats/Leftists, Entertainment, Journalism, Media, Media Bias, Politico, President, Radio, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Politico must feel it has a delicious little story of media feuding to report upon. Recently Meghan McCain shook her head in amazement that President Obama would stoop so low as to appear on a Ryan Seacrest show. Seacrest has shot back at McCain snarking that McCain herself tried to get on his show, so what’s the deal with her criticism he wonders? For its part Politico is lapping it all up. But the whole story misses an important point, one that mitigates in favor of McCain’s point.

When it was announced that President Obama was going on Seacret’s show, McCain was somewhat aghast at it all. Of the plans, McCain said, “there is something so unbelievably desperate and sad about the president going on Ryan Seacrest -exactly WHO is on his communications staff?” She went on to say, “it is belittling to The Office of The Presidency. But at the end of the day, it’s all good things for Republicans…”
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Politico Lying about Palin Again?

October 21, 2010 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Elections, GOP, Government, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Politico, Republicans, Sarah Palin, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Radio host Mark Levin says that Politico’s piece slamming Sarah Palin today is an outright lie, at least as far as his part in the story is concerned.

In a long piece by Jonathan Martin about how he thinks Sarah is wrecking havoc on GOP politics across the country, he says this…

According to a source familiar with the situation, she backed out of planned interviews with conservative talk-show hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin the morning she was scheduled to talk to them. And her multiple schedule changes so annoyed Glenn Beck that he finally decided not to have her on his radio or TV show to promote the book.

Levine says that this is flat out untrue. On his Twitter feed, Levine wrote:

This is a flat out lie. Sarah Palin never backed out of any interview with me. Period.

One wonders why Martin didn’t actually practice proper journalism and check out the claims of his “source familiar with the situation” and call Hannity and Levine and see whether or not it was true from their perspective?

So much for “journalism,” eh?

On her Twitter feed, Governor Palin tsked Mr. Martin:

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny…ya just made big mistake lying about Levin, Beck, Rush…U can lie about me, but taking on the Big Guns? Not smart

She cracks me up.
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Politico Ignores Dems. Culture of Corruption to Talk of GOP’s ‘Offbeat Candidates’

August 17, 2010 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Elections, GOP, Government, Liberals, Media, Politico, Republicans, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Interestingly, Politico is trying to rearrange this election’s narrative from the real one of widespread voter dissatisfaction with the Democrat status quo to one of “offbeat GOP candidates” that will “hurt the GOP.”

Gee, why would that be, eh?

As Democrats all across the land are either stepping aside so as not to face difficult reelection campaigns, or losing their incumbent seats to primary challenges, the latest polls show the GOP beating the heck out of Democrats on a generic ballot. Further, Republican voters are energized as never before and 57% of poll respondents even say that the Democrat’s agenda is “too extreme.” But even with all this Politico sees defeat in the wind for the GOP. They’d be about the only ones that do, too.
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Is The Tea Party Like A Starfish, Like the Apache… Like al Qaeda?

August 3, 2010 | Filed Under Congress, Conservatives, Constitution, Founders, Government, Government, Corruption, Journalism, Liberals, Media, Media Bias, Politico, Revolutionary War, Tea Party, Warner Todd Huston | Comments Off

-By Warner Todd Huston

Politico’s Kenneth Vogel has an interesting piece on a book that Tea Party activists are starting to glom onto as an administrative guidebook of sorts. The book, “The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations,” is a book that explains how leaderless organizations work and can be effective. Of late tea partiers have accepted the tome as a way to explain the success of their movement as well as a way to legitimize their hold on a certain amount of power into the future.

The book, written by two lefty Stanford MBAs, has become what Vogel calls an “unlikely” guidebook for a conservative movement.

The principle of the book is in its title. The spider of the title is the typical top-down organization. Cut the spider’s head off and you have a dead spider and presumably, in the analogy, a dead organization. However, a starfish can regenerate itself if it loses an arm. Further that severed arm can also become a starfish that lives on because there is no “head” per se in a starfish. Cut up a starfish and you have many smaller starfish, not a dead one.

The thought is that the tea party movement is like a starfish. No head, no hierarchy, no way to “kill” it in the traditional sense.

Now, I must say one thing about Vogel’s piece. It will certainly destroy the left’s contention that the tea party movement is an “astroturf” effort. For the entire first year of its existence the left has tried to claim, falsely, that the tea party movement was invented by Fox News, or is a top-down creation by folks like Dick Army, former Congressman and top man for FreedomWorks.
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Politico Misleads on NJ Gov. Chiristie’s Immigration Position

July 1, 2010 | Filed Under Chris Christie, Congress, Democrats/Leftists, GOP, Government, Government, Corruption, Immigration/Immigrants, Liberals, Media, New Jersey, Politico, President, Security/Safety, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment

-By Warner Todd Huston

This morning Ben Smith of Politico posted a story that essentially mislead readers about what newfound conservative hero Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey thought about immigration. Smith’s article spun Christie into an “amnesty” supporter when it doesn’t seem he is. One has to wonder why Smith did this?

Among many other issues, in the multipage interview with Gov. Christie Smith broached the immigration issue. Being a governor, Christie is faced with as much trouble over the issue as any other, of course, but Smith’s characterization of Christie’s position on immigration would tend to make one feel that Christie is an amnesty supporter. In fact, Smith seems to impute several ideas or feelings into Christie’s replies that may not have been in them at all.

First off, Smith says that Christie had “long declined to ‘demagogue’ the issue” of immigration. It does not seem, however, that Christie has ever claimed to have a long record of refusing to “demagogue” the immigration issue.
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