Hurricane Politics

Hurricane Sandy has arrived, and putting aside the fact that Bev was reduced to chasing a man dressed like a taco down the street to avoid starvation, the MSM has been busy doing what they do best – spinning this storm for political gain. Here are three big examples.

● The “Craven” Mitt Romney Exploits Your Pain: On Tuesday, Romney turned a campaign rally in Ohio into a hurricane relief rally. He asked people to bring food and supplies and to donate money to the Red Cross. Who could object to that? MSNBC.

MSNBC spun this story in the most despicable and deceitful way. First, they claimed that Romney “dressed up” a campaign rally as “a charity drive.” Then Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, said:

“I think that this is just another moment where you see the clear striking difference between a president who has a heart for the American people and someone who simply wants to be president of the United States.”

Huh?! This was seconded by MSNBC host Martin Bashir and other guests. Then they accused Romney of “politicizing” the storm and said “in this sort of disastrous moment [we] can really see in bold relief the differences between President Obama and former Governor Romney.” Really? All Obama has done is his job – he gave a speech asking for donations. . . the exact same thing Romney did. Yet, Romney is rotten and Obama is great? How does that work? Finally, they brought on GQ’s Ana Marie Cox, who said of Romney’s efforts: “I found that sort of fake, relief rally, whatever it is, to be pretty offensive, and also wrong-headed.” And then this hag called Romney “craven.”

Wow.

So what is this character assassination based on? They claimed that Romney was collecting goods and not asking people to donate money, which is what the Red Cross “really wants.” Ok, for starters, any sort of aid is helpful in these situations, that’s why aid organizations always ask for stuff, not just money. And who are these jerks to impugned anyone’s charity? I doubt they gave a penny. . . unlike Romney who has given millions. Moreover, Romney DID ask people to donate. The video of the event shows two huge screens with the Red Cross donation number on them. So their entire argument is not only vile character assassination, but it’s based on an intentional lie. Talk about politicizing a tragedy!

● The Evil Mitt Romney HATES FEMA and you!!: Almost the moment Sandy hit radar screens across the country, the MSM started running with this question: “Does Mitt Romney want to shut down FEMA?” Uh, no. He’s never advocated that. Yet, reporter after reporter began asking this question. They were always told “no,” but that didn’t stop them from suggesting the answer was really “yes.”

Where did this idea come from? Last year, a group of leftist bloggers claimed that Romney called FEMA “immoral” and said disaster aid “makes no sense at all.” This was picked up by reporters who surprise, surprise, read leftist blogs (“Journolist II” anyone?), and was even brought into a New York Times editorial smearing Romney two days ago. The problem is, it’s a lie.

What Romney actually said was this. He was asked by CNN’s John King in June 2011, during the primaries, what Romney would do about FEMA which was about to run out of money. King asked, “[aren’t we] learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role?” Romney responded: “Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction.”

Notice that Romney does not say to shut down FEMA, nor was he asked about it.

He then went on to talk about the debt and the need to trim the federal budget. He said, “We cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.” During this speech, King tried to speak over Romney and asked, “including disaster relief?”

These leftist bloggers are pretending that Romney’s entire speech became about disaster aid the moment King threw the question out there, even though Romney was already talking about something else and never acknowledges King’s addition. Romney never said disaster aid was “immoral” or “made no sense at all,” as they now claim he did. What he said was that disaster aid should be applied at the state level and he said continuing to raise our debt was “immoral.” But that doesn’t make Romney seem heartless.

By the way, no one in the MSM is mentioning that Obama proposed a $900 million cut of FEMA’s budget.

● The Hurricane “Stole” The Election!: Finally, the MSM is trying to plant the idea that Hurricane Sandy “stole the election.” They are setting this up by claiming that the hurricane has unfairly taken Obama away from the campaign and will disrupt the very liberals Obama needs to win by disrupting the Northeast.

Of course, Obama will still win these states, so the hurricane doesn’t really change anything substantive. Also, it’s only taking him away for a few hours, and even then he’s getting tons of free media coverage out of it. But never let the facts stop a new “conventional wisdom.”

So why would they do this? They want to delegitimize Romney’s victory, just as they tried to delegitimize Bush by claiming he stole Florida (when even their extensive media-sponsored recount effort found that Bush did win), and just like they did with claims about electronic voting machine fraud in 2004 and the Swift Boat “smear,” as if harsh ads were somehow something new. Why do this? Because they think the only way the left can return to power will be to make Romney seem like an illegitimate president presiding over a chaotic and hopelessly gridlocked Congress. To do that, they need to fight everything he does. And to do that, they need to keep their mindless followers feeling victimized so they keep turning out for protests, keep supporting hateful propagandists like MSNBC, and keep sending death threats to prominent Republicans. They need chaos and anger. Hence, “Romney cheated.”

Trust me, 2013 is going to be an ugly year on the left.