I came across this clip in another site, and was struck by the tone/purpose of Andrea Mitchell in her questions/statements about Romney’s secretly recorded speech to donors to John Sununu, Romney’s senior adviser to the campaign.
I don’t have a problem with what Romney said in the now “infamous” secret tape (except for Mother Jones’ editing), but he has to nip the Democrats attempts to redefine, or really, misrepresent what he said. That’s what he managed to do with his taxes, albeit a bit more slowly than I would have liked: in a well played, albeit a bit delayed move, he left the likes of Howard Dean sputtering that Romney is “unqualified” because he overpaid his taxes last year! Of course, Dean sees the Walker victory as a win for the Democrats too….
While it is fun and educational to watch Sununu tear up Mitchell yet again (and without notes, I might add), some of the things she said further reinforces her role as a mouthpiece for the Øbama campaign:
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QslAvJVqAXE
Take special note at about 2:29, where Mitchell tries to insert race into the discussion, commenting that “the people getting these benefits are largely white people, including the majority of people that are on food stamps, and unearned income tax credits. The suggestion, certainly, in what Gov. Romney said….”, then Sununu cuts her off, realizing that she was going to continue with this screed, noting that ” ‘freeloader’ is David Brook’s word”.
But really: “white people”?? Where did Romney mention anything about race? Where did he use the word “freeloaders”, for that matter? Not in the tape or transcript Mother Jones released (see below), unless they “edited” that out. But why would they? Clearly, Mitchell was trying to create her own Romney “suggestion” out of liberal whole cloth, that he believes all blacks are “freeloaders”. Clearly, when you live under a rock like Mitchell apparently does, it is easy to find racism there. It is even easier to parrot the day’s Democrat talking points. Dog whistles anyone?
Here is the relevant part of the speech, up to the point where, allegedly, “the recording stops”:
Romney: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. And I mean, the president starts off with 48, 49, 48—he starts off with a huge number. These are people who pay no income tax. Forty-seven percent of Americans pay no income tax. So our message of low taxes doesn’t connect. And he’ll be out there talking about tax cuts for the rich. I mean that’s what they sell every four years. And so my job is not to worry about those people—I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives. What I have to do is convince the 5 to 10 percent in the center that are independents that are thoughtful, that look at voting one way or the other depending upon in some cases emotion, whether they like the guy or not, what it looks like. I mean, when you ask those people…we do all these polls—I find it amazing—we poll all these people, see where you stand on the polls, but 45 percent of the people will go with a Republican, and 48 or 4…
[Recording stops.]
Maybe it is just me, but it appears that Mitchell is deliberately inserting race into Romney’s statements, where he clearly made no mention of race, and is doing the double duty of trying to incite racial divisions and turn lower income whites against Romney? At about 5:50, she continues to drag in all the groups that fall into the “no income tax” bracket, including the elderly, recipients of credits for child care and the working poor (a group I think I must be in!), education credits, AMT deductions etc. Sununu notes that they all lean towards the Democrats, who promise continued and unending benefits, which is what Romney was saying.
Kudos to Sununu, who, once again, did an outstanding job of defending Romney’s statements against a proven media hack for the Øbama administration.
Thumbs down to Mitchell, who can’t even pretend to be a real journalist.
