The American Spectator : Political Puppet Show

Text Size

Political Puppet Show

By Robert Stacy McCain on 3.6.12 @ 6:10AM

Santorum, Limbaugh, Breitbart, and a phony “controversy.”

Rick Santorum will hold a party tonight in Steubenville, Ohio, which he and his supporters hope will be a “Super Tuesday” victory celebration. Yet the latest polls indicate that Mitt Romney could win the Ohio Republican primary and, coming on the heels of Romney’s narrow win last week in Michigan, a Buckeye State victory might be enough to effectively clinch the nomination as the GOP Establishment’s “It’s His Turn” candidate. Whoever wins the Ohio primary, however, the result of today’s vote will be actual news, in contrast to the ridiculous ginned-up controversy that has swirled around Rush Limbaugh for the past week. And the story of how “SlutGate” became such an all-consuming affair is worth re-examining chiefly because it demonstrates the operational methodology of what the late Andrew Breitbart called the “Democrat-Media Complex.”

Go back to Saturday, Jan. 7, when ABC broadcast from Saint Anselm’s College in Manchester, N.H., a debate among six Republican presidential candidates, with George Stephanopoulos and Diane Sawyer as moderators. After the first commercial break in the broadcast, seemingly out of the blue, Stephanopoulos posed this question to Romney: “Senator Santorum has been very clear in his belief that the Supreme Court was wrong when it decided that a right to privacy was embedded in the Constitution. And following from that, he believes that states have the right to ban contraception.… Governor Romney, do you believe that states have the right to ban contraception? Or is that trumped by a constitutional right to privacy?”

For those unfamiliar with constitutional law, it is necessary to explain that Stephanopoulos was referring to the Supreme Court’s 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision. An 1879 law forbidding the sale of contraceptives in Connecticut was invalidated because, as Justice William Douglas wrote on behalf of the court’s 7-2 majority, it violated “penumbras, formed by emanations” which Douglas claimed to have discovered lurking in the Bill of Rights. Conservative legal scholars have long mocked this unusual doctrine of the Griswold ruling as a travesty of judicial activism in which the Supreme Court struck down a longstanding state law by creating from whole cloth a “right to privacy” — a right utterly unknown to the Americans who actually wrote and ratified the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Despite its legal implausibility, however, Griswold laid the foundation on which was subsequently built the constitutional “right” to abortion (Roe v. Wade, 1973) and eventually the “right” to homosexual sodomy (Lawrence v. Texas, 2003).

Rick Santorum is a 1986 graduate of Dickinson School of Law who spent years crafting legislation in Congress and is therefore fully qualified to discuss this legal history, but what was taking place in New Hampshire that Saturday night in January was not a seminar on constitutional law. It was a Republican presidential debate, and the ABC News moderator who raised this question about contraceptives and “the right to privacy” is a veteran Democratic Party operative. The television career of Stephanopoulos is merely an extension of his work as a communications director for Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign and subsequently in the Clinton White House. Like the late Tim Russert (a lifelong Democrat who worked for Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Mario Cuomo) and Chris Matthews (a former aide to Democrats Jimmy Carter and Tip O’Neill), Stephanopoulos is merely one of many who have followed the well-trod path from Democratic operative to liberal media star.

Indeed, what Breitbart dubbed the Democrat-Media Complex represents a revolving door, so that no one was really surprised when Jay Carney, the former Washington bureau chief of Time magazine, became White House press secretary in the Obama administration. Nor, for that matter, does anyone make much of the fact that (a) Carney was a frequent roundtable guest on ABC’s This Week during Stephanopoulos’s tenure as host of that Sunday show, and (b) Carney’s wife Claire Shipman is a senior correspondent for ABC’s Good Morning America, the same program for which Stephanopoulos now serves as co-host. Such direct personal and professional connections between the Democratic Party and major national news organizations are so common as to pass unnoticed in the day-to-day business of politics. Any Republican who makes mention of these facts as potentially significant can expect to be derided as a paranoid conspiracy theorist if he voices the suspicion that perhaps Democrats in the media are using their influence to help their fellow Democrats in political office.

Such a suspicion, however, was hard to avoid on that January night when Stephanopoulos raised the topic of contraception during the New Hampshire GOP debate. Four days earlier, Santorum had edged the longtime Republican frontrunner Romney in the Iowa caucuses. Although Santorum is a staunch conservative who has defended the pro-life doctrines of his Catholic faith, contraception had played no role whatsoever as an issue in the Republican campaign until Stephanopoulos asked his question in Manchester. That question, however, seemed to be the signal-flare that launched a carefully orchestrated effort to make contraception a major topic of public controversy, an effort that has been pushed relentlessly for the past two months by Democrats and their media friends. The past week’s “SlutGate” firestorm about Rush Limbaugh’s comments — which led to a number of advertisers canceling their ads on his nationally syndicated radio program — is merely a sideshow to the main event, namely the apparent attempt by Democrats to derail Santorum’s challenge to Romney for the Republican presidential nomination.

Ginning up a phony controversy about contraception permitted the Democrat-Media Complex to change the subject in the GOP campaign. Santorum had offered himself to Republican primary voters as a “full-spectrum conservative,” contrasting his record with Romney’s on a host of issues, including the 2008 Wall Street bailout and global-warming theory. Most especially, however, Santorum had criticized the former Massachusetts governor for his “Romneycare” scheme, saying that Romney had provided the template for Obama’s own national health-care plan. This would make it impossible, Santorum repeatedly said, for Romney to provide the kind of “stark contrast” necessary to defeat Obama in the general election campaign. Santorum argued that if the central issue of the 2012 election was to be the repeal of Obamacare — as many conservatives hoped it would be — then it would be the height of folly for Republicans to nominate Mitt Romney as Obama’s opponent. Even without the class-warfare arguments that would be made against Romney’s background with Bain Capital and his support for the Wall Street bailout, the nomination of Romney would be tantamount to giving away to the Democrats the entire issue of compulsory government-run health-care insurance.

Such was the central argument of Santorum’s campaign coming out of Iowa, where his late-December surge had catapulted him from sixth place to serious contender in barely three weeks. Santorum’s speech on the night of the Jan. 3 caucuses won him widespread praise, a flood of contributions came pouring into his campaign coffers, and the former Pennsylvania senator arrived in New Hampshire as the hot new celebrity of American politics. After months of being ignored as a hopeless “second-tier” candidate, Santorum’s belated emergence as a GOP contender presented serious problems for Obama’s re-election campaign. Democrats did not publicly acknowledge this fact until more than a month later, however, when a Feb. 17 Washington Post article disclosed that the Obama campaign was troubled by Santorum’s appeal to working-class voters in the industrial Midwest. The grandson of an Italian immigrant coal miner, Santorum had an “ability to connect with the population that is most disillusioned with Obama: white, blue-collar voters,” the Post reported. For months, Team Obama had been preparing for the 2012 campaign with the presumption they would be running against Romney, who would be easy to caricature as an out-of-touch wealthy elitist. Santorum’s surprising surge for the first time caused the Democrats to re-target their opposition research efforts to one of Romney’s GOP rivals.

In light of these revelations and subsequent developments, the Jan. 7 debate question from Stephanopoulos about contraception and the “right of privacy” seems far more significant than it did at the time, when many commentators dismissed it as silly and irrelevant. It is now possible to discern how Stephanopoulos, Jay Carney, and other members of the Democrat-Media Complex have manipulated this phony contraceptive controversy, up to and including the Feb. 27 appearance of Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke before a meeting of the House Democratic Steering Committee. Byron York of the Washington Examiner has explained that this followed an attempt by Democrats to add Fluke as a witness for a Feb. 16 hearing of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. The attempted last-minute addition to the witness list would have prevented members and their staff from adequately researching Fluke’s background. Democrats may have been attempting to conceal Fluke’s history as a left-wing activist, including her assertion in a law journal article that insurance policies that don’t pay for sex-change surgery are guilty of “heterosexist” discrimination.

At a Democrats-only meeting last week, Fluke claimed to have surveyed her fellow students and found that 40 percent said they “struggled financially” because Georgetown denied insurance coverage for contraception, which Fluke asserted “can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school.” This claim was quickly debunked by John McCormack of the Weekly Standard, who called a local D.C. pharmacy and confirmed that a month’s supply of birth-control pills cost only $9. This fact reinforced the absurdity of an Obama administration proposal to compel insurance companies to pay for contraception, without any “conscience” exception for Catholic institutions. As Santorum has often said, requiring health insurance to cover contraception — a relatively low-cost item — is like requiring auto insurance to cover the cost of oil changes or wiper blades. Fluke’s deceptive testimony should have been seen as an attempt by Democrats to manufacture phony evidence in support of the Obama administration’s policy. Instead, when Rush Limbaugh used “slut” and “prostitute” to describe Fluke on his radio show, the Democrats and their media allies manufactured a phony controversy over Limbaugh’s alleged “misogyny,” which served to distract from the original phony controversy over the supposed struggles of students to pay for their own contraceptives.

For two months, then, liberals have manipulated public opinion to their benefit: First, to portray Santorum as an “extremist” in order to make him unacceptable to GOP primary voters, and then to generate absurd fears among women voters that Republicans are conspiring to deny them access to contraception. Finally, as an unexpected bonus, they were able to damage and demonize their longtime bête noire, Rush Limbaugh, by making a martyred victim of the deceptive witness Fluke. In each scene of this masterful marionette show, the liberal charade has been applauded by certain Republicans who were either too blind to see the puppeteer’s strings or else too stupid to understand the script.

Amid all this phony political stagecraft, America lost Andrew Breitbart, one of the few conservatives who understood how the Democrat-Media Complex operates, and who figured out how to fight back. Maybe GOP primary voters in Ohio will decide to fight back today. That would most certainly be shocking news to Stephanopoulos, Matthews, Carney & Company, as well as to those Republicans who have been cheerfully playing their assigned roles in the show.

About the Author

Robert Stacy McCain is co-author (with Lynn Vincent) of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party (Nelson Current). He blogs at The Other McCain.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (67) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

oldfart| 3.6.12 @ 6:41AM

If George had asked me that question I would have asked him if that was a weak attempt at humor since he was not making enough money in his day job.

Alan Brooks| 3.6.12 @ 5:57PM

At least existential issues such as Iran and Ashcanistan are being shoved to one side.
We don't want to be too serious otherwise
our faces might grow too long, and we'll look like horses, right?

Continue with bread and circuses, guys. Carry On.

The Late George Appley| 3.6.12 @ 8:02PM

Robert: Good article, but there are a few inaccuracies...
1) Santorum is the one who brought this issue up some months ago when he said that "states could ban contraceptives." The Democrats seized on that as a winning issue for them...
2) Stephie was not trying to damage Santorum, he was trying to tie Romney into Santorum's statement that states could ban contraceptives.
Romney did not fall for it...He handled it really well....
3) Rush fell right into their trap....
4) Nobody has ever questioned Ms.Fluke...Any
good lawyer would take her apart:
"Ms. Fluke are you married?"
"How many contraceptives are you talking about?"
"Do you think your sex partners should share the cost of contraceptives?"
"Have you asked your sex partners to use condoms, or is that not effective?"
"Are you Catholic? Why did you choose a Catholic university?"
"Are you still engagned in pro-abortion activities?"
"Do you agree with President Obama that partial birth abortion should be legalized?"
Etc. etc.

Occam's Tool| 3.7.12 @ 10:24AM

The solution is to go low, dirty, and vicious 24/7/365. The Israelis call it asymetrical response. That's what we need to be doing.

Data on Bathhouse Barack needs to surface.

DidITweetThat| 8.4.12 @ 3:59PM

Yes, that is the work of a Tool. One that's maybe not sharp, like a razor.

Tom| 3.6.12 @ 6:43AM

And the republicans keep falling for It every time! Would a professional sports team agree to compete in a game where the referees were paid by the opposing team? Why participate in debates moderated by these openly liberal "journalists" in which Nothing good can come?

Von Mises Jr.| 3.6.12 @ 9:26AM

Tom, the GOP Establishment is not falling for it. They are a particpant in the marionette performance. If they were outsmarted, they would figure it out afterward and complain. They would also learn. But do you hear McConnell, Boehner, Cantor, McCain or Rove squealing like pigs?
If the Progressives are the "pigs" in "animal Farm," perhaps the GOP are their "dogs" that protect the establishment. Throughout history you have seen "Brown Shirts," "KBG" and today the "Iranian Revolutionary Guards."
"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

People such as Bachmann, Issa, Gohmert and some of the new TEA Party congressmen such as West, Lee, Johnson and Rand Paul really annoy the GOP and are interfering with their establishment relay race. It is the progressive Romney who's turn it is to run the next leg.

scotchieguy| 3.6.12 @ 9:54AM

The real problem is the democrat voters, esp women, have fallen for this charade. They honestly believe in this phony "war against women." Somwhere, Axelrod and Obama are slapping themselves on the back laughing themselves silly.

Al Adab| 3.6.12 @ 2:20PM

The Obama campaign is simply raising these canards, like Fluke, as a ploy to misdirect the voters attention toward so called "social issues" and away from the economic and fiscal disaster the administration has created. Sadly the GOP is all to eager to fall for it and these issues are much more divisive for the voters than the true issues.

What is going on with the servers? The template keeps popping up with each others names and e-dresses.

Cuffs| 3.6.12 @ 3:47PM

Oh how right you are. I can just see Pelosi
laughing at all the negative coverage of Rush. Boy did he ever fall into the democrat trap!
The libs hysterical reaction will only show
them up as hypocrites and make us conservatives
stronger.

BSG| 3.7.12 @ 9:22AM

Nancy can't laugh, she's an ill-tempered and hate filled woman and besides her face might fall off.

Von Mises Jr.| 3.6.12 @ 10:18PM

I seriously doubt it scotchiegy. I may sound like a grumpy old conservative, but I love women. They are actually much better listeners in general than men. Perhaps it is because men are typically more aggressive, or a woman's maternal instinct; but women usually "get it."
You are hearing what the MSM wants you to believe. I don't buy it. ObamaCare IPAB "death panels" may be my undoing, but I lived a wonderful life "free" as a successful sales guy: pay for performance. I think women understand that ObamaCare, Dodd Frank, Agenda21 and the socialist (let's be clear, they are not liberal or progressives in the classical sense as they want us to believe) will enslave their kids.
I am spending my time and speaking out for my progeny. I am confident women will. But will the men fight back?

Timothy L. Pennell| 3.6.12 @ 9:38AM

Absolutely right. If I was Alan, I'd kiss you. And, if I was fckewe, I'd drink out of your toilet while you were using it.

Anywho.

As oldfart has said: If George had asked me that question yadda, yadda, yadda. Therein lies the problem. GEORGE. But, it's more than George. It's more than the RAPIST'S War Room General, Political Advisor, and Communications Director. It's Tip O'Neil and Jimmy Carter's Boy - "I only drink until I fall off the Bar Stool - Chris Mathews, on MSNBC. It's Christian Amanpour aka Mrs. Jamie Ruben (Formally with the RAPIST'S Administration) at ABC. It's Bob Schieffer at CBS, who once told Don Imus, when news broke that LBJ had been Secretly Taping people, in the Oval Office: "When I found out that Nixon had done this, I was ANGRY. When I found out that LBJ had done it, I just felt Sad." (No Bias, there) It's everyone at NBC who gets their SCRIPTS, every day, from the Jew who helped the Nazis, in their Extermination of his fellow Jews - George Soros - and his little band of SLIME: Mr. (or is it Ms.?) Brock, and another of the RAPIST'S little dirt digging Weasels - John Podesta. (When asked if he regretted having helped HITLER with his Final Solution, George Soros told the reporter: "It was the BEST TIME OF MY LIFE". It's ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, CNN, and it's the Network for the Bi-Polar, Mentally Challenged folks, who need a Bib to eat their meals, and a Diaper. ( just in case) - MSNBC. It's the TIMES (L.A. and N.Y.) It's the WAPO. It's AP, McClatchy, and USA TODAY. It's Hollywood, and it's Broadway, and it's Sundance.

In 2008, the Congressional RACIST Black Caucus was Sponsoring a Democrat Presidential Debate on FOX. Nobody came. One by one they pulled out, because they claimed that "FOX isn't Fair". Nobody came. They all moved on to another Gig, and the World kept turning. And nobody got called a RACIST because they blew off the only Debate sponsored by RACIST Blacks.

With all those people that I've mentioned, the BIGGEST Problem we face, as Republicans, is our Candidates, themselves. There's no reason to go to CNN. There's no reason to hold debates at ABC, CBS, or NBC. And who's the F-ing Genius, who thought that having MSNBC COMMUNISTS, asking the questions, was a good idea?

The Left REFUSED to go to the Right. It's time we had more Balls than Hillary Clinton. It's time we started playing by THE SAME RULES as these MFers do.

From now on, we go to NEUTRAL SITES for our debates, and we have OUR PEOPLE asking the Candidates questions. Let Mark Levin ask them questions. Let Hannity. Let Walter E Williams and George Will, and Thomas Sowell ask the questions. It's time we stood up on our hind legs like MEN. And who's stupid/dumbfck/dumb*ss Idea is it, to have OPEN PRIMARIES?

If this F-ing Party were a Football Team? They'd have the other Team's Defence, sitting in on their Offensive huddles.

Wouldn't wanna seem DIVISIVE, ya know.

Tommy Frisco| 3.6.12 @ 10:35AM

The open primary is just another method for which the GOP establishment can force another moderate candidate upon us, much like using the MSM as debate "moderators." They say it's so we can see which candidate(s) can attract Reagan Democrats and Independents, but that is B.S.. It's so the Dems can help our most liberal/moderate candidates. The GOP primary should be a Party primary, where we can select the candidate who best represents our interests. It should not be a popularity contest for the entire population.

BTW, no one, including Rush Limbaugh, should be promoting registering as a member of the other Party just so we can create turmoil in a primary race. Our political system is screwed up enough without us adding to it. I agree with Rush more than anyone else I know, but sometimes I do disagree with him. We should win by working the hardest and fighting for what's right. We shouldn't have to lie, cheat, and steal to get what we want.

Should Have Impeached| 3.6.12 @ 9:52PM

Yeah. When anyone says open primaries will only help to select more "moderate" candidates who reflect the true views of the American public, beware.... Open primary is just a way to let progressives "help select" the conservative candidate--the one they know they can beat. Be sure that during an open primary every progressive will vote for the conservative candidate they know will be most likely to LOSE. But then again, the conservatives can use the same strategy against the progressives. However, because progressives tend to make continual gains and never really lose ground (giving up ground is what conservatives do, and allowing open primaries is one way), the overall effect is an eventual progressive takeover. I can't stand open primary, and think each party should be allowed to reject it as not being in their interests. At least in California, it was voted on by the population at large--which of course tends toward progressive in many areas, so it was just a move to effectually stamp out true conservatism in my opinion.

Jacob Morgan| 3.6.12 @ 1:50PM

The Media Party (the media / Democratic Party ran by an elite of secularist / progressives) could backfire in a big way if, and when, Republicans pull back the curtain and expose them.

The "narrative" ought to be that middle America is being railroaded by a small group of radicals that controls the media and the DNC. A group of radicals that pulled off the biggest bait-and-switch scam in history, i.e., Obama's 2008 campaign. People thought they were going to get some Clinton economic magic (which is silly, but somehow people assocaited democrats with fiscal management) and instead the DNC took advantage of the crisis to bloat government and then shove creeping socialisim down the country's throat. Meanwhile, where are the good jobs?

Make that point, make it every day, make it every hour. State loudly that the real 99% are those not in the DNC - Media complex. Make that argument and force the DNC and the Media to reform themselves or become toxic to the average voter.

Stop playing by the Media's rules, expose them, and destory them. Name names. Mobs with pitch forks ought to run every smug liberal propagandist small town editor out of town. Advertising in the MSM news casts ought to result in no ad revenue, better to run an old Simpsons rerun instead. The owners of NBC / ABC / CBS / CNN need to tell their news readers to play Michael Moore on their own time.

Clint| 3.6.12 @ 6:48AM

" In a stunning coincidence, It appears Andrew Breitbart suffered his untimely death just hours before he was set to release damning video footage that could have sunk Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.

Around three weeks ago on February 9 during the ‘Blog Bash’ event in Washington DC, Breitbart made a prophetic comment that takes on a somewhat chilling nature given the fact that he died in the early hours of March 1st.

Speaking to Lawrence Sinclair of Sinclair News, Breitbart stated, “Wait til they see what happens March 1st.”

It’s almost certain that Breitbart was referring to his plan to release damning footage of President Obama that he had been promising to reveal throughout the month of February.

As we reported yesterday, Breitbart spoke of his intention to release the tape during his CPAC speech last month. The footage shows Obama in his college days appearing alongside former Weather Underground terrorists Bill and Bernardine Dohrn. Observers had speculated that the footage could have derailed Obama’s hopes for a second term.

“I’ve got video from his college days that show you why racial division and class warfare are central to what hope and change was sold in 2008 – the videos are going to come out,” said Breitbart, adding that Obama would be vetted."

benny havens| 3.6.12 @ 8:04AM

Again?

jcrew| 3.6.12 @ 6:32PM

In a stunning turn of events, it turns out nobody cares about this Brightfart fella. Too bad he wasn't the national hero Whitney Houston was, he might have gotten more coverage.

DidITweetThat| 8.4.12 @ 4:02PM

Maybe he should have used more crack and prescription meds. Alas, to remake a man...

RCV| 3.6.12 @ 11:57PM

Keep dreamin' Cliff...

jppc| 3.6.12 @ 6:57AM

This whole issue was designed to motivate women in order to rally them to vote for Hussein Obama. Period.

Teaghan| 3.6.12 @ 7:02AM

And Breitbarts people have those videos and are set to release them next week.

Clint| 3.6.12 @ 7:21AM

Watch The Axelrod/Obama, Blame/Credit Election Campaign Attempt To Go Into Their Shuck & Jive Tap Dancin' Spin Mode On Their Alinskyite Socialist Obama's Ties With The Weather Underground Bomb Chuckers.

USSAlabama| 3.6.12 @ 10:30AM

Notice in Andrew's first 'vetting' article this past weekend how Obama used the first name "Baraka".

Always a lizard.

jcrew| 3.6.12 @ 6:54PM

That is a brilliantly constructed sentence. Almost as profound as the thought you poured into it. It's people like you who challenge us all to take a serious look at the issues and come up with reasonable solutions. Thanks you so much Clint, you deserve a medal. About a 100 hundred pound medal tied to you neck before you get shoved overboard.

Mimi| 3.6.12 @ 7:10AM

The ONLY power-house we have to outsmart these culprits...Who is on to them , and figures out their treachery and is STRONG and BOLD enough to call them out..and to explain it to US is ....NEWT!
If any of the disgusted Primary elegible voters able to take part in Super-Tuesday...I beg you, get off the couch and make it your BUSINESS and SACRED DUTY to go vote for him... the time is getting short ...the power lies with the PEOPLE...YOU!

R Martin| 3.6.12 @ 7:39AM

I agree that Newt is superb at addressing and refuting Democrat demagoguery but, as good as he is at that, he is equally poor as a presidential candidate. He could be so important to a Republican victory this year. One hopes he uses his talents accordingly.

oldfart| 3.6.12 @ 7:47AM

VP slot? I am sure he would have fun as President of Senate if Dingy Harry is still the Senate Majority leader? LOL

JP| 3.6.12 @ 7:59AM

The GOP deserves an assist on this. Why they agreed to have CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and MSNBC host thier debates is anyone's guess. Would the Dems ever allow Rush Limbaugh, George Will, Charles Krauthammer, or Glenn Beck moderate its debates? I'm thinking that the Establishment GOP wants the debates skewed as far Left as possible.

USSAlabama| 3.6.12 @ 10:33AM

The Establishment DOES.

They think having Center (left-center) or Right Center (center) candidates will entice Independents to vote and that that is the way to win.

They haven't learned from Ronald Reagan that a Conservative candidate needs to be fully Conservative.

jcrew| 3.6.12 @ 6:36PM

They agreed to it because Republicans aren't very good at thinking about consequences. Let's see... Bush Jr., Iraq, Medicare Prescription Plan, Attacking Women and Minorities, Doing Nothing to help out America in the Recession, Being Extremists, the list goes on. To boil it down for you Billy Bob they just aren't very smart.

Chef Schnauzer| 3.6.12 @ 9:13AM

Has the press voided its 1st amendment shield?

jcrew| 3.6.12 @ 6:56PM

Have you ever voided a coherent thought in your world changing time on this Earth? Just wondering dog, sweet dreams!

Doctor Right| 3.6.12 @ 10:22AM

Honestly, I don't know why people get all upset at the hypocrisy of the left-wing media.

Duh!

That's WHO they are. That's WHAT they do.

Their Liberals. They lie, cheat, steal, and do anything to advance their cause.

Stop getting mad, and start getting EVEN!

It's time that an information database was created on all left-wing "journalists" and bloggers - at the local, state, and federal level - information that they might not want people to know about their habits, personal shortcomings, etc.

These scum-bags need to know that if they open their miserable mouths and play their little games that there will be a price.

Our "leaders" lack the guts to do it. It's up to us.

jcrew| 3.6.12 @ 6:45PM

Yeah, it's up to us to rise up off our beer stained recliners and dress up like the Founding Fathers. Then we can scream about our freedom to take away other people's rights. Oh boy I can't wait to show everyone how much more patriotic I am than they are. Good call Dr. Love!

stmichrick| 3.6.12 @ 10:44AM

Andrew Breitbart DEAD in Bloody Homosexual Murder Suicide! BREAKING!

http://www.drudgereport.com/

USSAlabama| 3.6.12 @ 11:37AM

Yet another troll.

stmichrick| 3.6.12 @ 10:45AM

Andrew Breitbart DEAD in Bloody Homosexual Murder Suicide! BREAKING!

http://www.drudgereport.com/

USSAlabama| 3.6.12 @ 11:32AM

What an idiot.

USSAlabama| 3.6.12 @ 11:41AM

Spectator --- PLEASE --- it's time to upgrade those servers!

Please email editor@spectator.org

Al Adab| 3.6.12 @ 2:15PM

Yes, the comment template keeps coming up with each others names and e-dresses. I'm beginning to think the Obama campaign has hacked the system.

Tommy Frisco| 3.6.12 @ 2:50PM

Yes, I've had that happen to me when replying to you. Your information showed up on my comment template. That's just another reason for me to stop replying to trolls and other idiots.

Al Adab| 3.6.12 @ 3:05PM

Tommy:
Clearly a major security breech. BTW, I trust I'm not in your troll and idiot category.

Tommy Frisco| 3.6.12 @ 4:05PM

Of course not, Al Adab. You're one of my favorite virtual colleagues. I respect your opinions more than some of the contributors to this site. Keep up the good work, my friend.

Tommy Frisco| 3.6.12 @ 4:11PM

BTW, this security breach has been going on for a couple of weeks now.

Anthony| 3.6.12 @ 1:50PM

Stephanopolis, shilling for the Obozo administration asked this phony question of Romney about contraceptives.
Then the D party put up this generation's Anita Hill, Ms. Fluke, who has a hard time budgeting her contraceptives money from her $45,000 p/y tution to Georgetown Law.
This war has been on for decades, but now the Ds are storming the hill, going for broke!!
It's time to lock and load. Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes or until they waive their empty contaceptive pill case!!!
Fire (blanks, if you desire) at will!!!!

YippeeK| 3.6.12 @ 2:17PM

Add the incoming HBO hit piece on Sarah Palin and the revisionist hatchet job on the legacy of Margaret Thatcher and you have a complete picture of a massive convergence of leftist conspiracies. The timing does make one raise one's eyebrows and go, hmm.

Anthony| 3.6.12 @ 2:38PM

Can we now stop all the bullshit, and let's finally get it on???

jcrew| 3.6.12 @ 6:49PM

You mean actually do something? I think you should stick to hiding behind your keyboard. We can't all be the star soldier, somebody has to clean the toilets. Think of yourself as the Janitor of the Revolution. Have a nice evening Annie.

Frank| 3.6.12 @ 2:52PM

Re: Obamacare

It will be an issue, but certainly not THE issue, in this years elections. Because the public have other, more pressing concerns.

People who support Obamacare will support, obviously, Obama. People who oppose Obamacare will support the guy running against Obama. Theories about how Obamacare is "off the table" if Romney is the nominee are just absurd.

John OB| 3.6.12 @ 3:33PM

Robert Stacy McCain,
Go back five more days, to Jan. 2. The blueprint for Stephanopoulos was framed first by his colleague, ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper. On Jan. 2, the eve of the Iowa Caucus, with Santorum surging in the polls, (Tapper--in Iowa!), interviewed Santorum. Dropping the contraception bait, he asked Santorum about that 1965 Supreme Court decision. Later that day, Tapper’s headline on abcnews.go.com seemed to confound Santorum’s position on States Rights vs. Supreme Court activism to mean the candidate favored States ban contraception. The Democrat-media complex, Andrew’s thread, runs through the White House press corps. indeed.

TCAZ| 3.6.12 @ 7:18PM

If we had candidates who could answer a question with conviction, clarity, and courage we would be less likely to see the MSM distort their comments. As it is, they parse and nuance themselves right into labyrinth of fog.

DidITweetThat| 8.4.12 @ 4:06PM

You had me @ "Santorum surging in the polls,"

Actually, to be Santorum, it has to first surge from the pole into an appropriate oriface, where it mixes and is excreted, accidentally or otherwise, in all its Santorimy goodness. ;-D

RJ| 3.6.12 @ 4:19PM

Excellent article, Robert.

Andrew Breitbart's term "Democratic Media Complex" is an accurate reflection of much of today's media. As a high school student, I couldn't get enough of the network evening news and would flip between CBS, NBC and ABC every night. Now, I haven't voluntarily watched television news for years. Somewhere along the way they completely gave up on being reporters of the news and became propagandists for a statist society. So many of them are simply ignorant and biased. They have lost their credibility with me and are no longer part of my world.

Sure the media and the Democrats work together to frame issues to favor more government control and they coordinate on debate questions. They are uninhibited hypocrites. It is obvious. Conservatives and fair-minded people should take what they say with great scrutiny.

Riff Raff| 3.6.12 @ 5:00PM

Politics trumps everything. Truth is irrelevant. The Socialist want absolute power and they see their opportunity to get it. That they have failed once in power every time they have had power is irrelevant. They want power for themselves, not to build a better society. Socialists are by definition narcissists, worshipping themselves and their own egos. The world may crumble around them, but they will not stop their quest. Politics trumps everything.

m schulzke| 3.6.12 @ 7:23PM

Limbaugh has damaged himself in this campaign without needing help from the "slut" controversy. I was a twenty year listener to his show-- until he proved so consistent in his pursuit of any candidate but Romney. The hypocrisy on his part, and many so-called conservatives including yourself, in labeling Romney who has never worked in Washington as part of "the Establishment" when both Gingrich and Santorum have been eager feeders at the Establishment trough is pathetic. It is also either blind or dishonest.
I no longer am a Limbaugh fan, and would not rally for him under any circumstances. Hypocrisy is not an inspiring quality.

The Late George Appley| 3.6.12 @ 8:20PM

Agree completely...Rush has been against Romney from Day 1 & now he has fallen in the Democrat trap on contraceptives...Here's the new headline: "Republicans, led by Rush Limbaugh, have stated that women who use contraceptives are 'sluts' and 'prostitutes'...This "Establishment'
stuf is BS...Who's more establishment than Rush Limbaugh, George Will, etc. etc.

Alex| 3.6.12 @ 9:22PM

the media is mean to conservatives. In other news, the sun will rise in the east tomorrow. Can we stop the whining about unfairness. It is what it is and it is not going to change.

DidITweetThat| 8.4.12 @ 4:13PM

Besides, the Right has their Fair and Balanced equilibrium machine, and we all know EVERYTHING on it is TRUE and NONE of it is made up.

Check out this 120% accurate report. (by the way, I give credit to the Fox fact checking dept, as those ARE the actual Rasmussen numbers)

http://www.thedailyshow.com/wa.....dumbs-down
:30 - 2:00 Funny stuff.

POST American| 3.6.12 @ 10:12PM

---Gingrich
-----'SUB--Mitt ROME--knee'
-------and 'TTT-Rick Sanitarium'

are, one and all, vetted and utterly
'on board' Globalists.

The three Caligulas ( Clinton/ Bush Jr
and 'BAR--Rockefeller' Obama) we already
know about.

"RON PAUL is the minister in the whorehouse."
-Lew Rockwell

WE are the crack whore going down for
the third time.

Over 70% of ALLLLL donations from the
serving military are going to RON PAUL.

---Just days away from the ever more unnatural
looking 'natural' death of Andrew Breitbart
---WHAT MORE DO WE NEED TO KNOW?

Ohiolad| 3.7.12 @ 11:21AM

"...the liberal charade has been applauded by certain Republicans who were either too blind to see the puppeteer's strings or else too stupid to understand the script."

The GOP is not called the stupid party without reason, but would someone care to name names here?

Abu Nudnik| 3.7.12 @ 12:07PM

1. To give Fluke just one break, contraceptives can be more than birth control pills. Condoms are considerably more expensive if stopping STDs is your goal. Judging by my youth, I'd say the amount she quoted might be right for some very active people.
2. The right needs to find a better way to fight Roe vs. Wade. Privacy can be deduced from private property rights (but not penumbra). The real issue is conception vs. birth. The midway trimester battle is just avoiding the real issue. Is it murder or not? Is the mother owner of chattel or is the fetus a being in its own right for whose health she is responsible? As it begins, so it ends. Similarly, beginnings can be deduced from ends.
3. Rush was stupid but everyone has a right to be that from time to time. His style is enthusiastic. I'm thinking about joining up to help him defray costs (I usually only join the month before and the month after a big election).
4. Fluke is wrong. Not covering sex-change surgery cannot be heterosexist since gender identification disorder has nothing to do with object choice.

Farmer| 3.7.12 @ 8:39PM

Abu Nudnik, Some conservatives do deny that a right to privacy exists in the Constitution. I agree that this seems like a weak position; property rights are addressed and property presupposes the private, and a right to the private. Privacy must therefore exist within the Constitution. However, Roe v Wade said a women has a right to an abortion based on a right to privacy. The problem with that contention is her potential offspring is not her property; its life is its own. Even if the child's right to life is denied, at the very least, the father would have a claim of co-ownership because the genetic material involved is not the full property of the woman, thus negating the woman's claim of a right to privacy. Therefore, even if human rights are completely denied to the fetus, an abortion cannot be based solely on "a woman's right to choose." BTW-I am a conservative who believes in the right to privacy being Constitutional and in human rights that begin at conception.

C. Reichert| 3.7.12 @ 5:06PM

Excellent!!!!!

Bill| 3.7.12 @ 5:20PM

I salute the talk-radio legend Rush Limbaugh!

DidITweetThat| 8.4.12 @ 3:58PM

And the story of how "SlutGate" became such an all-consuming affair is worth re-examining chiefly because it demonstrates the operational methodology of what the late Andrew Breitbart called the "Democrat-Media Complex."

By Democrat-Media Complex - do you mean GOP 2.0.... repeat the same three words until the bottom 50%+ of the IQ / breeding pool give you enough street cred to make your point?

Yes, that Democrat-Media Complex is annoying.

The American Spectator