Yesterday MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell took a hatchet to comments Gov. Romney made on the campaign trail in an effort to portray the GOP frontrunner as an out-of-touch elitist.
Mitchell played a clip of Romney appearing “fascinated” over the ability to order a sandwich at a local WaWa (a chain of convenient stores) using a touch-screen computer. Of course what Romney was actually saying was that government has a lot to learn from the innovation and efficiency found in the private market place.
I tend to shy away from screaming “liberal media bias,” but this was really over-the-top. Romney was making the point – that clearly went over Mitchell's head – that when government gets out of the way, private industry flourishes.
Opponents on both the right and the left have tried to make Romney out to be a Wall Street barracuda that preys on working Americans and is disconnected from the real concerns of voters. This is not only a cariacature of Romney, but also a suspect political strategy. The fact is, it’s hard to point to Romney as elitist without drawing attention to the fact that the current White House continually misreads the feelings and concerns of the American public.
Time after time, Mr. Obama has shown he is (truly) out of step with voters: His decision to send his daughters to an elite private school, while threatening to cut the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program; his embrace of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez; his fumbling of the Henry Louis Gates debacle; first lady Michelle Obama's lavish trips; his stumbling response to the Ground Zero Mosque controversy; the episode with Colbert poking fun at immigration reform, and his recent comments about the private sector.
It's becoming increasingly clear that the media is actively working to re-elect President Obama. But this time, it just may have backfired.