-By Warner Todd Huston
Remember weeks and weeks of reports on how down-in-the-mouth the defeated John Kerry was when he lost the presidency to George Bush? Remember how the Old Media establishment obsessed about how badly Al Gore felt after he lost in 2000? Me either. But we sure keep getting stories about how downtrodden Mitt Romney feels after his epic loss.
This time it is The Washington Post in a lengthy December 2 piece that portrayed the Romney’s as sad sacks that have nothing left in life but to mope around the house and feel sorry for themselves.
In this empty report, The Post tells us the Romney’s “wake up each morning now without a plan.” We find out that Romney has become “secluded” and is “marked by repressed emotions.” He’s just a mess if you believe The Washington Post.
Well, the Post must have gotten quite a lot of access to have so thoroughly assessed the Romneys mental state, right?
Maybe not:
Through an aide, Romney declined an interview request for this story.
Oh, I see now. We don’t really have any “news” here. No, what we really have is the conjecture of a so-called “reporter” making up how he thinks the Romney’s feel after their loss.
Oh, but wait. This “reporter” also gave us the word of a hater of both Republicans and the Romney’s to “report” on how the Romneys feel. The Post quotes Bob Shrum, a Democratic operative, about how the Romneys feel. Surely a guy the Romneys wouldn’t even say hello to — and vice versa — must know all about how the Romneys feel, right?
Then we get a whole slew of pop psychology from friends, acquaintances, and neighbors of the Romneys all telling us how they feel.
The only thing we don’t get in this story is any actual quotes from the Romneys about how they feel.
In other words, this whole thing is just this reporter’s fantasy being treated as news.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.