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Whether or not the reporter exposed Romney as a liar is irrelevant, it was a stupid comment that is difficult to defend, and his reaction was...sub-par.




Also, Beth Meyers doesn't officials "run" (an ambiguous term) his campaign either. Matt Rhoades is his campaign manager.

Associated story.

...I don't get it.

Politician plays semantics and word games.

This clip really plays into the Republican narrative that the media is in the tank for Obama. When reporters challenge and argue with candidates it creates the perception (whether real or unfounded) of bias.

biccat wrote:...I don't get it.

Politician plays semantics and word games.

Its more the "Don't be argumentative with the candidate." bit than anything else. This is par for the course, but doing it on camera is simply unprofessional (read: stupid).

biccat wrote:
This clip really plays into the Republican narrative that the media is in the tank for Obama. When reporters challenge and argue with candidates it creates the perception (whether real or unfounded) of bias.

It also plays into the narrative that the Republicans are ideologically inflexible.

Though why anyone would think that bias doesn't exist is beyond me (not really).

dogma wrote:

biccat wrote:...I don't get it.

Its more the "Don't be argumentative with the candidate." bit than anything else. This is par for the course, but doing it on camera is simply unprofessional (read: stupid).

Really? I thought it would be perfectly reasonable to expect journalists to be unbiased reporters rather than agitators for the political opposition.

Guess it's my fault for not going to J-school.

biccat wrote:
Really? I thought it would be perfectly reasonable to expect journalists to be unbiased reporters rather than agitators for the political opposition.

Guess it's my fault for not going to J-school.

Well there's your problem, a reporter and a journalist are not the same thing (and even reporters have biases).

And that's before we get into the fact that "A man was shot.", "A man was murdered.", and "A man was brutally murdered." are all biased statements, particularly when viewed by readers that do not agree with the connotation applied.

The whole "You should have no bias!" act is just naive.

This thread would be better if you have the track to "Oh Donna" going through your head when you open it.

dogma wrote:The whole "You should have no bias!" act is just naive.

So expecting reporters to not badger politicians and take sides when covering a political event is naive? Well damn, don't I feel foolish.

I'm pretty sure you know exactly what was meant by 'bias' in that statement.

biccat wrote:
So expecting reporters to not badger politicians and take sides when covering a political event is naive?

Yes.

Though I don't know when it became "badgering" to say that a politician has a campaign run by lobbyists when said politicians says that his campaign, unlike other campaigns, is not run by lobbyists and is not beholden to lobbyists, when said campaign has a very prominent lobbyist working and travelling (for free) with it.

biccat wrote:
I'm pretty sure you know exactly what was meant by 'bias' in that statement.

I do, by bias you meant "People with opinions that I don't like."

Because, as with most people that argue from bias, your conception of the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is very poor.

People will make of it what suits their existing prejudices.

I felt it was disingenuous of Mitt Romney to claim that his campaign is free of lobbyist influence because the senior lobbyist on his staff is not his campaign manager.

Kilkrazy wrote:...because the senior lobbyist on his staff is not his campaign manager.

Mitt's campaign manager is Matt Rhoades, not Beth Myers. Make of that slip what you will.

biccat wrote:I thought it would be perfectly reasonable to expect journalists to be unbiased reporters rather than agitators for the political opposition.

You mean unless you're watching Fox, right?

Or any other news channel.

Just out of interest what is this past "Great America" that he was referring to? Apparently Obama is making a different America, he wants to take America back to some past Great America? Didn't you really only come into your own as a great power after WWII? All that industrial power was turned to making consumer goods along side the fact you had a bloody great fighting force?

I thought before that the US was happy just to be the the US. Do business and protect your interests. Sounds like some of our lot when they go on about "the good old days".

Oh and the other thing, why do they all say "today we made history!" ?

I found that back and forth between romney and the reporter amusing, but I'm not big into giving weight to things that are said when badgered.

OTOH, when you are the clear Establishment candidate, and have been for years... why the hell are you trying to make it seem like you're free of lobbyist influence?

And yes, I know what his actual quote was, which if parsed the way he seemed to spin it actually said "the vague collective of influence known as "lobbyists" are not actually meeting in committee and controlling my campaign." Which is reassuring the same way that telling us he's not a Manchurian Candidate is reassuring.

Polonius wrote:And yes, I know what his actual quote was, which if parsed the way he seemed to spin it actually said "the vague collective of influence known as "lobbyists" are not actually meeting in committee and controlling my campaign." Which is reassuring the same way that telling us he's not a Manchurian Candidate is reassuring.

It's like you're pretending that this is the first time this has ever happened in politics.

All politicians do this, which is why you can't take them at anything more than face value; and sometimes it's difficult to determine what that face value is.

biccat wrote:

Polonius wrote:And yes, I know what his actual quote was, which if parsed the way he seemed to spin it actually said "the vague collective of influence known as "lobbyists" are not actually meeting in committee and controlling my campaign." Which is reassuring the same way that telling us he's not a Manchurian Candidate is reassuring.

It's like you're pretending that this is the first time this has ever happened in politics.

All politicians do this, which is why you can't take them at anything more than face value; and sometimes it's difficult to determine what that face value is.

And nearly every politician cheats on his wife. It's still bad when they caught!

I'm not pretending anything. I'm merely observing that as far as doublespeak goes, this was pretty sloppy.

Exactly. It's wrong for politicians to misrepresent things to the electorate, and part of the job of journalists is to expose those cases.

It may well be the journalist involved in this case is a registered Democrat, but that doesn't in itself invalidate his point.

When the Democrats hold their primaries, the Republican journalists will have an opportunity to get their own back.

If Mitt Romney had wanted to avoid this kind of incident he could either have not employed a lobbyist in his campaign, or at least not claimed that his campaign was free from lobbyist influence.

biccat wrote:
It's like you're pretending that this is the first time this has ever happened in politics.

All politicians do this, which is why you can't take them at anything more than face value; and sometimes it's difficult to determine what that face value is.

Here's the thing, I don't even care that he had his way with information, I would be disappointed if he didn't. Its the confrontation with the reporter, on camera, that I find foolish.

Romney wasn't fighting with that reporter

This is a politician fighting