The Media's Take If Romney Had Won...

[stopbush]

...the media would be rife with stories about how the economy has improved, unemployment has dropped, the deficit is shrinking faster than ever, how the CBO just said that the deficit problem is basically solved for the next 10 years, that housing starts are up, how healthcare costs are dropping and are projected to continue to drop dramatically in the future, and that the stock market is at a record high - and all because the country and the world has a renewed sense of confidence since the Kenyan despot was sent packing from the WH, and a conservative businessman was back in charge of the country's well being and future.

The headlines would read, "The Country was ready for a change, and boy, they got change!"

The developing story would be, "Renewed prosperity portends Democrat wipeout in 2014, 16."

Of course, all of the above is true and is happening (except for Romney winning...and that D wipeout), but Obama is still president, so the media doesn't feel the need to talk about the above so much.

[malaise]

1. True true

so instead they attempt to repeal Obamacare for the 37th time and invent some scandals

[Dawson Leery]

2. Certainly.

[treestar]

3. +10000000000000000000

I recall the media actually saying, when Poppy Bush was so popular in wake of Gulf War I, that the Democrats would not even bother to run someone for President in 1992.

[Bandit]

32. And most Big Name Democrats did decline to run.

That is how a little known Governor form a small state got the nomination..

[SheilaT]

38. Yes. And that's what I keep bringing up

every time Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden are brought up as the inevitable nominees three years from now.

[Arugula Latte]

4. So true.

We'd see a lot of these headlines: "Does Good News for Country Mean Bad News for Democrats?" ... Guess what their answer would be?

[tomm2thumbs]

5. B I N G O ! ! !

There's nothing to see here -- move along.

[zeemike]

6. And there would be Mormon fawning everywhere.

Mormons would suddenly become mainstream and the Evangelicals would fall in love with them and have sex with them...(in a spiritual sense)
If we can attribute things to God then I say he saved us from all of that...because there is nothing more pornographic than Evangelicals and Mormons having spiritual sex.

[spanone]

7. you're damned right. it's odd how little 'good news' on the economy gets reported

in fact, it's almost like collusion

[1StrongBlackMan]

29. It gets reported ...

but with a "yeah, well ..." before it, and a "let's not read more into it than ..." afterwards. And listening, one would have to assume the stuff just happened ... on its own ... with NO connection to President Obama's policies and initiatives and the President Obama appointed, fed's current policies.

[siligut]

36. "The stock market's most hated rally"

Actually heard on CNBC's Squawk on the Street.

[JackN415]

8. I had bet on the economy would improve ... and were afraid that Romney & Repugs would

take credit for something they didn't deserve.

So glad he lost.

[NoMoreWarNow]

11. the economy was bound to improve no matter who was president

the main question was how fast would it get better? Obama probably did better than Romney would have, and could have done a lot better if not for the insane levels of GOP obstructionism. But the thing is the Rethugs might have signed onto decent job bills with Romney in power and not tried to fuck over Obama.

[lastlib]

18. no, they wouldn't have signed onto decent jobs bills.....

They would've enacted the same screw-the-worker, enrich-the-rich crap that Walker did in WI, Brownback did in KS, and called it all economic progress! Then they'd crow about "look what we could do without Obama!" Oh, and they would've repealed health-care reform on top of it, then lied about it decreasing the deficit.

[ruffburr]

33. +1

[NoMoreWarNow]

42. yeah, you're probably right

I guess it's not clear whether they are going insane in general in the last ten years, or it's just Obama that pushed them over the edge.

[uponit7771]

24. No true at all, no M3 spending no improvement PERIOD

[NoMoreWarNow]

43. M3 spending?

[jlover70]

15. bingo !

that s why they picked romney....business man....saves nation's economy and he's mormon too.............romney wanted to take credit for things obama did ... hell he even tried to run on obama's record

[JackN415]

17. welcome to DU n/t

[NoMoreWarNow]

9. the media treats Repubs like they are little kids-- everything they do is so precious

and they can act dumb and get away with it.

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. I'm afraid that's true

[Whisp]

12. That is correct.

But let's protect the little darling's 'rights' to do this shit.

[jonthebru]

13. Who are this "media" you speak of?

I get my science from Doctor Who and my news from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

And my

[JHB]

14. There's also be some stories about our troops in Syria, and the upcoming war with Iran...

Don't forget who was running his foreign policy team: more chickenhawk neocons, 'cause they were just so awesome the last time they got to run foreign policy.

[jmowreader]

16. I'm sorry, but they wouldn't be saying those things

Romney-Ryan planned to cut taxes and spending. Those are the things that damaged the country under the last three GOP presidents; with the economy as weak as it is they would have collapsed everything. The story would be Obama Policies Destroy Economy.

What has actually happened: Obama raising taxes has allowed the government to reduce borrowing, which has stimulated confidence in the economy. But they won't give him credit for it.

[siligut]

37. Yes, we would not be where we are if Mitt had won

But the M$M would lead us down the garden path until it was too late. GOP mission accomplished.

[watoos]

19. Just another example

of the corporate-controlled MSM. Stick to the narrative please; the scandals.

[47of74]

20. Collection of snakes and traitors

[polynomial]

21. Its the Media Stupid

In a cynical way many of us agree “The media would be rife with stories”. However they are now in Blazing Saddles anywhere from rare form to toasty insane. Whereas the Republicans grandstand everything Obama does, like holding an umbrella to ordering a hamburger. The Media especially Fox News is characterizing every movement every teeny tiny step as clearly dysfunctional, weird, or scandalous. Still especially Benghazi yet here a general is known to have offered John Christopher Stevens protection two times. Or did you know the Republicans appropriated bonus money targeted to IRS persons perhaps connected to the IRS mischief.

American Journalism is teaming with Old World red neck values, prosecute over the electromagnetic spectrum now then sort it out later hoping it will stick to President Obama. Or talk about it as having legs. Did you ever notice this new word called “Leaks” perhaps a thing that the American people should know.

Overdue reporting, here the leaks are actually a watershed of overflowing stuff the Media already knows though luring the American electorate to the next commercial such as Fox News. Glazed by Greta Van Susteren her gritty smile, glitzing a political stretch wider than the Sahara desert. Or Rachel Maddow’s Closet Gay resources opening like a judge finding everything gay that commits to real answers only if you stay tuned after some messages.

America our government is leaking. I have to laugh to myself wondering what kind of repair we need to get rid of this leak. Does Homeland Security need to post a leak color code as Bush did for terrorism? That is the hopeful relation; yes Republicans are in full gear culturing Obama as a terrorist. In fact this Republican one percent party is unfolding into the perfect profile of being the Party of fear monger or torture terrorism. The new arc of the covenant is now inscribed inside someone’s boat in his back yard by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's so called Boston Bomber.

How dare the American IRS try to figure out where the Tea Party members might buy their ammunition, AK47’s, M16’s or grenade launchers to bring to the table? Or pull guard duty around the political rallies often converged upon by bus touring caravans salted by the religious right with Palin reloaders and freeloaders all pander for your free money. From my view there is nothing wrong to target any organization for profit or not during the war we are in. Did not Bush and the Republicans create the Patriot Act just for that purpose to address Joe McCarthy Types?

[siligut]

39. I don't believe the IRS was investigating where they got their weapons from

But I do agree that it is the media and I appreciate your style of writing.

[Cha]

22. Instead they find every damn negative shit story they can make up.

.. and pound it to death ad nauseum.

They're so predicatable. Occupy the US plutocratic media.

thanks stopbush!

[yodermon]

23. Also, Al Gore would have been impeached had he been President on 9/11

but that's a topic for another thread.

[stevenleser]

46. Had he not prevented it, but I think he would have.

Don't forget, the Clinton team was very much on the ball with paying attention to Al Qaeda, and Gore would no doubt have taken his cues from that. Also, he is the one who chaired Clinton's efforts on improving aviation security so if there had been CIA warnings about Al Qaeda attacking the US and using airliners as weapons, he would have taken it seriously AND he would have known what to do about it.

[yodermon]

47. Absolutely agree. They would have listened to Richard Clarke.

My point was more of a thought experiment based on current repuke hysteria and hypocrisy.

[stevenleser]

48. And you are absolutely 100% right about that!

[cali]

25. I realize this is the narrative that DU loves, but the media wasn't kind to Romney

when he ran.

[Cosmocat]

31. He was a truly horrible candidate

they could not help, under the scrutiny of a presidential election, but to allow SOME of his negatives shine through

Even at that, he didn't have to spend, literally months, defending whether he wore a flag pin or not.

The OP is 100 percent correct.

The entire media meme right now is THE SCANDALS - 95% of which are complete and total contrived bullshit.

There is no doubt, NONE, that the small, but meaningful gains we have seen would have been trumpeted as Romney turning the country around. The time Cover would have his face and a headline along the lines of "THE GREAT TURNAROUND."

[jmowreader]

41. A couple things here are screwed up

The most important being the theory that small gains would have been called "Mitt turning the country around." Mitt's platform was Reaganesque--basically, American-style austerity similar to the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut. Kemp-Roth almost destroyed America. It caused the highest U3 unemployment in the history of the number - 10.8 percent. We were in Reagan's second tern before we erased the disaster Reagan caused in his first eight months. And remember, what fixed the economy for Ronnie wasn't the shit Reagan campaigned on, it was pure and simple Keynesian tax-and-spend governance.(The biggest tax increase in history was the elimination of the non-mortgage interest deduction. Reagan's signature is on it.)

The difference between Reagan's crew and either 43's or the one Romney would have brought is simple: Reagan's people, when faced with the fact the tax cut made things worse, raised taxes to try mitigating the damage.43 didn't do that, and Romney wouldn't have.

Go upthread to my last comment: under Romney the economy would have crashed and Obama would have been blamed.43 blamed HIS fuckups on Clinton; the difference between 43 and Romney is Romney is, in many ways, much worse. At least 43 was able to get reelected governor, and 43 only bankrupted three companies and those he didn't do on purpose.

To the poster who said the media was unkind to Romney, I cry Bullshit! The media could have killed Romney's chances the minute he announced by explaining what Romney did to earn his fortune, and how he went about it. That didn't happen.

[Cosmocat]

45. I don't disagree

The assumption being that the same modest turnaround we are seeing now would have been framed MUCH differently with Romney, I do agree that there is a potential with Romney and an R house and compliant small D majority senate, that the policies they put forward likely would have done more damage than good.

And, yes, while it is unacceptable to note the absolute depths that 43 drove the country into and with a completely oppositional partisan party in congress how hard it has been to turn the ship around, it would be just accepted fact to blame any Romney failures on this President.

I think that he would have been absolutely run over by the House. He is a complete empty suit, and there is little doubt that he would just signed off on all of the crazy arse crap they have done ...

[siligut]

40. The media had to get the bit between their teeth to make Mitt not look bad

He is a miserable excuse for a human being. And DU will continue with this narrative until we have honesty in media.

[HughBeaumont]

49. The two Republican strongholds CNBC and Faux fellated Mitt on a daily basis.

I don't know how many times I had to watch propaganda arm CNBC have businessperson after trader after CEO after financier come on Squawk Box and endlessly, without interruption or question, blather on and on how much of a disaster Obama's re-election would be for the country and how much better a businessman running things would be. This would continue throughout the day, and I imagine the same thing happened throughout the day on Faux (not that I would ever turn that sham of a station on).

Every other station besides these two realized that Romney's obvious ruthless wealthmonger point of view was even too much for them to defend, and bowed to the inevitable.

[Vietnameravet]

26. Fox news

Obama and Limbaugh have a foot race and Obama wins.

New York Times reports: President Obama and commentator Sean Hannity engaged a two man foot race in Washington today and President Obama won.

Fox News; President Obama took time off from his national security duties to take part in a Washington foot race today. Noted Fox commentator Sean Hannity came in second, and President Obama came in next to last..

[n2doc]

27. I suspect they still would be going on and on about Benghazi

Other headlines "Pressure on Senate to repeal Obamacare" and "Special Forces prepare the way for Syria Intervention" as well as "Ryan plan supported by Congress, President" with the meme "We no longer need to worry about the deficit, so let's cut takes more!"

[Lucky Luciano]

28. Yup. At least the media hasn't endorsed the sequestration as the reason for the falling deficit.

They would never address the reason because the shrinking deficit cones from some increased taxes on the rich and higher revenues from people getting jobs.

Still a lot of work to do. Employment to population ratio still very unimpressive as ate the wages at some of these jobs.

[Cosmocat]

30. YEP

spot on ...

[SCVDem]

34. If the IRS were doing the WH bidding

How come Romney hasn't been exposed as a tax dodging POS beyond what little we know?

I really hate that asshole!

[kairos12]

35. Rmoney claiming this was my one of biggest fears if he got elected

[PennsylvaniaMatt]

44. If the GOP is conconting these "scandals" this early....

Could you imagine the shit they are going to come up with later on in President Obama's term....

Jonathan Karl on ABC: "There is new evidence from e-mails obtained by ABC News indicating President Obama is responsible for the 1996 death of Tupac Shakur"