The American Spectator

Ben Stein is absolutely right to point out the hyperpolitical reaction of the Obama campaign to Mitt Romney’s statement on the events in Libya and Egypt. As Ben put it, Romney is not the enemy.

While I’m not breaking news here, the fact that the media (whether because it’s just how they think or whether as an intentional effort to help Obama) also view Romney as the enemy was brought home (again) during Romney’s press conference yesterday.

Romney made a short statement and then took questions for several minutes. Almost every question was along the lines of “did you comment too soon?” with nothing about the fact that American lives and property were being destroyed. The questions were, particularly given the information at the time, even more reprehensible than the Cairo embassy’s early apology for free speech.

It’s not breaking news to note that the media often functions as a propaganda arm of the Obama campaign. But it can still be eye opening to see such a barefaced example as yesterday’s press conference.

As AmSpec reader Nick points out, an open microphone (link well worth checking out) caught the reporters at the press conference basically conspiring to go with only this line of questioning.

Here’s the Romney press conference:

For those of you who don’t have time to watch the video, allow me to post the text of some of the reporters’ questions from the transcript:

• “The statement you referred to was a toughly worded statement last night. do you regret the tone at all given what we know?”
• “Governor Romney, do you think, though, coming so soon after the events really had unfolded overnight was appropriate, to be weighing on this as this crisis is unfolding in realtime?”
• “You talk about mixed signals. The world was watching, isn’t this assault a mixed signal when you criticize the president? When americans are being killed shouldn’t politics stop?”
• “Governor, some people have said that you jumped the gun a little in putting that statement out last night and you should have waited until more details were available. Do you regret having that statement come out so early before we learned about all the things that were happening?”

There was not a single question about the events themselves. Every question was either a criticism of Romney or asking him what he would have done differently from Obama. Shameless, barefaced propaganda by the American press corps. Disgusting.