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This segment is entitled "The Media vs. Mitt" on CNN's website. Evidently there's some whining (when is there NOT whining?) in conservative quarters that Mittens isn't getting a fair shake by the media. Never mind that Pew found that President Obama had received far less positive coverage than negative during the first four months of the year, and followed that up with another study more recently affirming that at no time has President Obama received more favorable coverage than Mitt Romney.

Never mind all of that, because Politico has now weighed in with their "concerns," which involve the number of stories about Mitt's mendacity, meanness, and other character flaws—things Ari Fleischer thinks are "personal" and which Jennifer Rubin thinks are "shiny things."

Of course, right about the time Rubin refers to them as shiny things, she's off to the races listing the number of media "vetting failures" there were over President Obama's drug use as a college student.

Shuster is great at debunking their manufactured poutrage, calling it "just more Republican BS," which is a great characterization to use on a cable news channel that actually thinks it's a good idea to employ Dana Loesch and Erick Erickson as commentators.

Fleischer and Rubin are just playing the refs, and hoping to nip any media curiosity about Mitt Romney's penchant for impersonating fake cops in the bud before that story actually gets in front of the American people. As to the so-called "failure" of media to vet President Obama, well, here's a pretty clear picture from The Grio as to how much of a lie that is.

Really, Ari? You’ve got to be kidding. The press is still running probing, sneering stories about PresidentObama. Are you familiar with Maureen Dowd’s work? It is not for the faint of heart. And if you are brave enough to venture into the outer reaches of the Internet where World Net Daily resides, you are sure to find tales of Obama munching on puppies for lunch.

As for candidate Obama? I have two words for you: Jeremiah Wright. In 2008, the electorate was treated to “God d**n America!” on a loop for what seemed like ever. And now, thanks to Romney surrogate Donald Trump, Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, and an assortment of conservatives, we are going to be treated to six months of intense Birther speculation that the media is still loathe to call racist because the word “racist” is so uncivil.

Shuster really nails Rubin, though, when he hammers her on her false equivalencies with regard to the different stories. On the one hand, there is the self-disclosed drug use on Obama's part. On the other, there's Mitt Romney pinning down a gay student and cutting his hair while he cried and screamed. What is equivalent about those two stories? Answer: Not a darn thing, and as Shuster explains, to try to equate them is ridiculous.

I'll clarify further: Romney's treatment of that student and fake cop incident are entirely relevant because they go straight to the question of how he relates to and treats others. Obama's drug use is relevant to the extent that it was better for him to disclose it and rob conservatives of screaming headlines, but it says nothing about how he regards other members of the human race.

It isn't a shiny thing, these things Romney does. And it's not wrong to bring them into the light. Voters deserve to understand how Mitt Romney views his relationship to others and his place in the larger sea of humanity. It's clear he sees himself as One Appointed To Bully Them.

h/t David at Video Cafe for the clip.

In case you missed it, this week Roger Ailes claimed Fox News employs 24 liberal contributors and 1 conservative contributor to two separate college audiences. As Media Matters points out, this just doesn't withstand scrutiny on any level. But does Howard Kurtz take a look at these falsehoods on his "media accountability" show? No.

Ailes also described New York Times reporters as "lying scum" in a speech at Ohio University. Howie took this on in his Daily Beast column, but once again ignored the lies Ailes tells about his own news channel. In that column, Howie allows a "senior Fox News executive" to run interference for Ailes, saying he "went too far and regrets using that language." But does Howie ever push a little harder and suggest that perhaps Ailes ought to be the one making that apology? No. Instead, he tells us all why Ailes might actually have justification for being angry at the NYT:

So why did Ailes go off like that, other than his tendency to sometimes get carried away when critiquing what he sees as the left-wing media?

Ailes is still ticked off at one particular Times reporter, Russ Buettner. In an article last year, Buettner reported that Judith Regan, who had been fired by HarperCollins (which, like Fox, is owned by Rupert Murdoch), had identified the company executive who once urged her to lie. That executive, the article said, was Ailes.

This had to do with a controversy involving Bernie Kerik, the former New York police commissioner with whom Regan had had an affair, and who was close to Rudy Giuliani, then gearing up to run for president. Kerik later went to jail.

And this morning on Reliable Sources, all Howie had to say about the incredibly nasty Roger Ailes was that "when Roger Ailes goes too far, he goes overboard." Ha. Ha. Ha. So Howie, what about these things that Roger Ailes said in his Ohio speech? Are they over the top? Out in left field? Or are they what most of us would call "outright lies?" Why no mention of these?

Media Matters writes all of the primetime programming for MSNBC. All of it. That’s what a recently published book says.

MSNBC is out of the news business. Brian Williams, a sincere newsman, wouldn’t want to be caught dead over there.

I would love for the AP to go back to being a neutral news source. But it slants stories, slants headlines. It tips to the left.

The only difference between Fox talk shows and those on CNN or MSNBC is that Fox invites liberal voices to engage in dialogue.

See, for Howie Kurtz it's only the New York Times slam that matters. The rest of what Ailes said, including his lies about employing mostly liberal commentators, and MSNBC being a Media Matters echo chamber? Bah. Of no consequence.

What exactly is this man's purpose again?

I'm probably dooming the chances for any C&L blogger to appear on CNN (Home to Blogger Extraordinaire Erick Erickson!), but it has to be said: Howard Kurtz is a big friggin' idiot. Huge. For a person with a purported focus of examining how the media covers the news, he has a dumbfoundingly shallow understanding of journalism. Or maybe he just plays dumb to further his own agenda...

Like for example, when he talks to veteran newsman Ted Koppel on the state of television news and the death of true journalism. Koppel famously wrote an op-ed complaining that the prevalence of opinion on cable news has killed giving viewers information, i.e., journalism. Now this is an area near and dear to my heart, and the subject with which I spend the vast majority of my time on this site. And while an pretty considerable argument can be made to the fact that Koppel is ignoring the plank in his own eye when it comes to failed journalism, it's Kurtz whose sole focus appears to be bringing up examples of that evil liberal bias in news, in the form of Keith Olbermann and NPR.

In the sixteen minute interview, Kurtz is really only interested in bringing up the dangers of opinion media when it pertains to MSNBC or NPR. Koppel tries to play the equivalence game, but Kurtz keeps going back to Olbermann, showing a clip from the Special Comment did on the false equivalence of Koppel comparing Keith to anyone at Fox News. Koppel blandly defends himself in saying that Olbermann probably didn't watch every Nightline, which is probably true but distracts from the more salient meta-point: the metamorphosis of news divisions from being loss leaders to being required to make a profit for their parent companies has turned them less into information disseminators to entertainment arbiters. And that has hurt our democracy greatly.

KURTZ: But, you know, [Olbermann] got good ratings at MSNBC.

KOPPEL: Absolutely.

KURTZ: Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck have good ratings at Fox. CNN has struggled a bit with an approach that's probably closer to the objective news you're talking about. There are exceptions, Eliot Spitzer.

KOPPEL: You're describing the problem, Howard.

KURTZ: Right.

KOPPEL: I mean, if they were not getting good news doing --

KURTZ: Yes.

KOPPEL: -- you know, wildly-opinionated material, they wouldn't be doing it. They're only doing it --

KURTZ: Why is it a problem if people like to watch it?

KOPPEL: Because we're not talking about entertainment, we're talking about news. And news is important in a democracy because the idea that a voting public actually have access to objective information and that the focus of the journalism be on issues that are of genuine importance, not just of wide-ranging interest

And Howie's next question? "Isn't Charlie Sheen news?" *sigh*

Kurtz also throws in O'Keefe's debunked video smear of NPR for good measure, of course abdicating any responsibility for providing that contextual bit of information.

How ironic in a conversation about how the media is failing us.

I'm also going to let you contemplate all the oblique references Kurtz made to Koppel's wealth ("in his converted barn office", "pictures of Koppel with the notables in his career") and questions about his friendship with Henry Kissinger as to whether Kurtz felt that needed to be taken into consideration when evaluating the truth of Koppel's statements on the death of journalism.

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