The spectacle of reporters over the past week hounding Mitt Romney for speaking his mind does not come as a surprise.
By DOROTHY RABINOWITZ, WSJ Opinion, September 18, 2012
After an astounding week of ardent media focus on Mitt Romney's criticism of
the initial U.S. response to mob assaults on American diplomatic outposts, the
furor is dying down—but it's not over by any means. Nor was the message that the
furor sent a negligible one.
Condemnations of Mr. Romney had come thick and fast. He had been "crass and
tone deaf," in the view of MSNBC's Chuck Todd. He had committed a "slander"
against the president, according to Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic.
Journalists in pursuit of this story—to the exclusion of virtually all else
going on—were quick to point out that denunciations of Mr. Romney were by no
means limited to Democrats, that criticism came from Republican commentators
too. This fact was hardly surprising—the sanctimony of the virtuous knows no
political bounds.
 |
"I have to tell you, you know, it's part of reporting this
case, this election, the feeling most people get
when they hear Barack Obama's speech. My, I felt this
thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don't have that too
often." - Chris Matthews
|
The spectacle of those hordes of journalists in single-minded pursuit of the
Romney story day after day—days that saw the killing of four Americans,
embassies burned and trashed, mobs of the faithful running amok—shouldn't have
been surprising either. It's the most dramatic indicator yet that in this
election the pack journalism of four years ago is alive, and well, and in full
cry again.
Especially wonderful to hear were all the charges about Mr. Romney's
political opportunism and tone-deafness—this after three days of a Democratic
convention distinguished by shameless, nonstop exploitation of the military raid
that put an end to Osama bin Laden. It is impossible to imagine any other
president in American history orchestrating even two minutes—much less three
days—of the self-glorification and wallowing in a victory won by the nation's
armed forces that was on display at the convention. If any of this orgy of
boasting in the interest of a political campaign caught the attention of those
commentators whose sensibilities were so offended by Mr. Romney last week, we
haven't heard about it.
The governor's offense, as the world knows, had to do with his blast at the
eye-popping apologias that had come from our Cairo embassy while mobs of the
faithful were gathering to wreak havoc over a crude YouTube video insulting to
Islam—apologies that Mr. Romney linked to the general inclinations of the Obama
administration.
For this he was pilloried as having criticized the president in a time of
urgent crisis. Or, as Andrea Mitchell put it Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press,"
Mr. Romney had come out with his statement when the State Department didn't know
where Ambassador Chris Stevens was—"the body was missing."
At the time of Mr. Romney's initial statement, of course, no word had as yet
come about Stevens's fate or those of his murdered colleagues. Which didn't
prevent members of the press and pundits from proclaiming, all the rest of the
week, that Mr. Romney had embarked on a political attack while the world was
aflame and the president embroiled in the crisis. The same president who would,
in the midst of that crisis, go tootling off to Las Vegas for a campaign
fundraiser.
By the time the presidential campaign had ended four years ago, the media's
role in driving the outcome had become a fact too obvious to dispute. The impact
of the journalistic horde's devotion to the Democratic candidates was clear, the
evidence vivid—especially in the case of reporters transported to a state of
ecstasy over candidate Obama's speeches. One New York Times reporter wrote of
being so moved he could barely keep from weeping. Not for nothing did the role
of the press become a news story in itself—an embarrassing one that might,
serious people thought, serve as a caution during future campaigns.
In 2012 Barack Obama is no longer delivering thrilling speeches, but an
unembarrassed press corps is still available, in full prosecutorial mode when it
comes to coverage of the Republican challenger. If you hadn't heard the story
about Mitt Romney's bullying treatment of another student during his prep-school
days—1965, that is—the Washington Post had a story for you, a lengthy
investigative piece. On the matter of Mr. Obama's school records, locked away
and secured against investigation, the press maintains a serene
incuriosity.
Mr. Obama continues to receive the benefits of a supportive media—one prone
to dark suspicions about his challenger. The heavy ooze of moral superiority
emanating from all the condemnations of Mr. Romney last week, all the breathless
media reports on those condemnations, did not begin with something he
said last week. But the moral superiority was certainly on its gaudiest display.
Mr. Romney's tone was offensive, unpresidential, his critics charged.
Yet it is the president of the United States—the same one who presented
himself as the man who would transcend political partisanship because we were
all Americans—who has for most of his term set about dividing the nation by
class, by the stoking of resentments. Who mocks "millionaires and billionaires."
Who makes it clear that he considers himself the president of the other—the
good—Americans. How's that for presidential tone?
No one could have missed the importance to Mr. Obama's campaign of the
class-war themes that reverberated continually during the Democratic convention
speeches. The references to "millionaires and billionaires" are by now a
reliable applause line for the campaign. Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm
underscored the point with an address whose opening line declared, with a
strange note of defiance—it wasn't the only thing strange about the speech—that
the heart of America wasn't to be found in corporate board rooms.
But it is Vice President Biden who has been the most faithful purveyor of Mr.
Obama's class-war theme. Earnest, affable, with a bottomless cache of wise
maxims from his mother and father, the persuasive Joe Biden excels at
explaining, in his accomplished infomercial tones, how the other side wants to
ensnare you, the poor and the helpless. And how, I promise you, folks, Barack
Obama isn't going to let them.
Mitt Romney isn't going to have an easy time defeating a president with Mr.
Obama's advantages. A friendly press corps surpasses all wealth, sayeth the
sages. The governor will stand a far better chance if he takes to heart the
lesson of the past week, when he seems to have recognized, at last, that there
are issues in addition to the economy—matters like foreign policy, Iran,
America's stance in the world—that he must address. In the weeks that remain to
this election, he will have to speak to those matters in depth and in
unflinching terms that set him apart from his opponent. And he'll have to do it
often.
Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal's editorial board.
No comments:
Post a Comment