Conservative Media Attack Obama Campaign, Media For Pointing Out Romney Debate Falsehoods

Written by Todd Gregory

Published

Joe Scarborough and Fox & Friends lashed out at the Obama campaign and other media outlets this morning for accurately pointing out that Mitt Romney relied on falsehoods during the first presidential debate.

Both Fox and MSNBC's Morning Joe showed clips of Obama campaign surrogates on Sunday morning news shows pointing out that during the debate, Romney had abandoned positions he had previously advocated and misrepresented the details of his own plans. Scarborough and Fox labeled this “desperate” and “sleazy Chicago politics.”

But the facts are on the side of Romney's critics. For instance, although Romney denied that his plan would cut taxes by $5 trillion, the plan does indeed call for reductions in rates that would amount to $480 billion a year for 10 years. Despite repeated opportunities, Romney has refused to spell out which loopholes would be closed to offset those cuts.

Similarly, Romney said during the debate that people with pre-existing conditions would be covered under his health care plan. But Talking Points Memo reported that Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom acknowledged after the debate that that those people would most likely not be insured under Romney's plan, but would have to rely on states passing their own regulations in order to obtain coverage.

On Morning Joe, Scarborough described coverage in The New York Times' Sunday Review section as “desperate,” and applied the same label to comments by Obama senior strategist David Axelrod.

Fox & Friends showed clips of Obama senior adviser Robert Gibbs on the Sunday shows, and later, co-host Steve Doocy said that “one of the things the president has going for him is the likability. And now with the shrillness, and it's like, 'That guy's a liar' ... this might backfire.”

Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson Jr. also said to Dana Perino, “This kind of sleazy Chicago politics that some people brand -- the kind of Gibbs attack, and some of the other attacks, where he accused him of being a liar, not telling the truth, making up the facts. How will the Romney campaign respond to that?”