Soledad O'Brien's Pauline Kael Moment

Pauline Kael of the New Yorker was quoted at the end of 1972 by the New York Times as saying, “I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”

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Soledad O’Brien of CNN lives in a rather special world as well –as Ace paraphrases, “Soledad O’Brien: You Know, All My Friends Say That The Poor Economy Isn’t Obama’s Fault:”

Okay, she doesn’t say “my friends.” She says “many economists we called this morning.”

It’s very odd that they never bother to call up Greg Mankiew.

Yeah, I’d love to be proven wrong, but I wouldn’t expect to see this chart on the air on CNN anytime soon:

As Ace goes on to write:

Obama’s big economic speech from three weeks ago repeated the refrain that the country faced a “choice.” Meanwhile, Romney sticks to his basic campaign like that Obama Isn’t Working so it’s time to jettison him.

Now, given that that’s the basic ur-structure of the political argument, that should be left for voters to decide, and candidates and surrogates to argue.

But CNN, and Soledad O’Brien, aren’t respecting that. They are siding completely with Obama on this major, major point, declaring, on their own authority, that this is a choice election, and that voters can only select Mitt Romney if they find his future plans superior to Obama’s.

I don’t expect them to shill for Romney and declare he’s right, and that this is a referendum. To do so would be to issue a not-so-stealth endorsement of Mitt Romney.

But neither will I abide them offering a not-so-stealth endorsement of Obama.

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Time-Warner-HBO’s CNN is the network that brought you the Wright-Free Zone, baked a cake on-air to celebrate the first year of the Obama “stimulus” and earlier this year did an on-air Obama “fist bump” during Whitney Houston’s funeral. Their tactics have earned them a special place amongst captive airport departure lounge viewers across the country — why would they stop now?

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