While Fox News still can’t seem to say enough bad things about President Obama, they haven’t exactly been uncritical of Mitt Romney lately. In fact, the criticism of Romney has been downright jaw-dropping considering where it's come from.
On today’s Fox News Sunday, the panel was unanimously critical of Romney, including host Chris Wallace, an obvious Romney supporter – or at least he plays one on TV. Yet, as the panel criticized Romney for not being clear enough on what actual policy alternatives he’d enact and for not discussing Afghanistan during the convention, Wallace noted that Romney is “losing ground,” “not campaigning with a bold agenda” and asked – with obvious disapproval – why Romney had “absolutely no plans” to give a major foreign policy speech before the debates.
Fox News contributor Bill Kristol was more explicit, saying, “It’s crazy not to address it.”
But all that was almost complimentary compared to what the Wall Street Journal writers said yesterday on the Journal Editorial Report.
They highlighted how Romney had lost significant polling leads over Obama on economic issues. Panelist Jason Riley called many of Romney’s woes “self-inflicted” and cited his refusal to release his tax returns as an example. Riley added, “You can sympathize with (the public) in thinking maybe he’s trying to hide something here.”
The group later tore apart one of Romney’s recent ads attacking China as one cause of our economic woes. They found it unlikely to “drive votes,” said it let Obama “off the hook” and called it “an ad from a weak campaign.”
Panelist Kimberley Strassel continued, “When you have to resort to talking about American anxiety, whipping up the voters over, you know, ‘the China meance,’ you’re not on offense. You’re not out there making your case for your own presidency. And I think it’s a bit disturbing that they have gotten to this at this point in the campaign.”
Although I don’t expect to hear this kind of talk on Hannity any time soon, hearing it anywhere on Fox News says more about the kind of trouble their candidate is in than any poll numbers can.
The Fox News Sunday video is available at Mediaite.
It ainât pretty but it certainly is mesmerizing.”
Yes — I love the smell of rightwingnut desperation in the morning!
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Panelist Kimberley Strassel continued, âWhen you have to resort to talking about American anxiety, whipping up the voters over, you know, âthe China meance,â youâre not on offense. Youâre not out there making your case for your own presidency. And I think itâs a bit disturbing that they have gotten to this at this point in the campaign.â
Kim, where have you been? That’s been the rightwingnut GOP strategy since the Eisenhower Administration: always scare the voters into being afraid of the “other” — whether the “other” is the communists in the ’50s, the blacks demanding civil rights in the ’60s, the communists {again} in the ’80s, the immigrants in the 2000s, or the Muslims in the ’10s . . .
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There’s rarely been much “substance” on Fox where anything less than total fawning servility has always been tantamount to treason, heresy. Murdoch’s tweets mentioned in the previous thread provide a credible answer for this unheard-of propensity of the foxies to levy any sort of criticism at their obligatory hero: a disillusioned Murdoch is using his whip on Romney and that whip is FNC.
Further evidence of a train wreck in progress.
It ain’t pretty but it certainly is mesmerizing.
I disagree. I think Fox News Sunday has been pretty darned supportive of Romney. Check out Wallace’s suck up interview with him right before the convention.
This is why the behavior of Hannity and Dick Morris will likely only become more entertaining all the way up into November. I expect that Greta will continue to flack for Romney until the situation becomes obvious after the debates, and then she’ll join that chorus. O’Reilly is more of a wild card. My instincts say that he’ll start castigating Romney after the first debate, for not following whatever course O’Reilly would have preferred. I expect him to get more and more skeptical with the pro-Romney guests until November.
Absolutely right Ellen. Not anytime soon, in fact, Slanthead will keep spinning (and lying) for Romney right through Election Day, right up to when the polls close!
And then when the results start coming in, and he loses big to Obama, Hannity will disavow Romney big time. He’ll do it in his usual Third Reich style: “He vas a miserable candidate… he deserved to loose!”
Hannity did exactly that with d’Amato in 1998, and Lazio in 2000 NY races for U.S. Senate. They were heroes and saviors right up until the polls closed, then scumbag Hannity spit on them with his patented contemptuous vile!
It’s the weekday crowd that would give Romney a pass on anything.
