THE PRO-ROMNEY BELTWAY MEDIA INFECTION AT MSNBC METASTASIZES

OF COURSE IT HAS, WITH THE ELECTION APPROACHING, AS THE SENSE OF URGENCY to get Mitt Romney's message out to the corporate MSM, beyond the right wing FOX echo chamber (have you seen their ratings, lately?), grows stronger. The culprits, the facilitators, the principals at MSNBC, by their own admission and actions are Phil Griffin (who actually mentioned that execrable "a star is born" nonsense about Paul Ryan to make his point about MSNBC being so fair and balanced), Steve Capus who is a corporate Griffin lackey, and the two most egregious violators of providing a forum, or platform, for the false Romney Beltway Media narrative, Chris Matthews and Andrea Mitchell.

They're gone. Andrea, or as our sometime corporate collaborator Rachel says, "our beloved Andrea," is a willing co-conspirator. Chris Matthews, I'm convinced, is clueless about the circles he moves in; the D.C. political class is too intertwined and incestuous to escape the POLITICO groupthink. The Andrea-POLITICO connection is well known. As is the POLITICO Romney-Republican false narrative, willingly promoted by Andrea and perhaps unwittingly by Chris.

Today, in Hardball's opening segment, the theme was a "sweet" Democratic convention versus a "sour" Republican one. Chris hosted a real journalist, the Huff Post's Howard Fineman, and a Romney crapagandist, chief POLITICO RATBASTARD, Jim Vandehei. Immediately, Vandehei began pushing back with Romney trash talk:

• The Repugs had successfully sold the electorate on the need for a change. Oh really? Then why have the polls not moved ONE IOTA for Romney beyond the Repug electoral base?! Even Vandehei had to reluctantly admit the Romney campaign "internals" in Ohio have Obama ahead by 8. 

• Then he sought to diminish the FABULOUS Democratic convention, first, by denying the obvious, that Republicans weren't enthused for Romney, trying to build a TOTALLY FALSE case that they were; then he made another excuse, that the Democrats went second; SO WHAT!? That has NOTHING to do with putting on a great, well-managed convention. 

• Then Vandehei dismissed the Democratic "bounce" which was significant to Chris in one poll, because it placed Obama for the first time above 50% approval, at 52%, saying he agreed (naturally) with the Romney pollster who characterized it as a "sugar high."

Let's pause here to look at the BIG PICTURE. What Vandehei, and that RATBASTARD ROMNEY SNAKE Mark Halperin working the Andrea beat, are doing with these specious, false/sophistic arguments is to build, brick-by-brick, a pro-Romney corporate Beltway narrative, almost subliminally influencing their subjects (which is a little harder to do with Chris, now that we read him the RIOT ACT; but not much) to repeat it on-air, hence spreading the false "message" for adoption by the MSM lemmings. Finally, for the Vandehei misinformation coup de gras:

• He began claiming Romney's supposed debate prowess, while diminishing the President's. The aim here is to build false a priori expectations for who has "won" and "lost" the debate. It goes something like this: If the President wins, but Romney more or less holds his own, according to POLITICO's spin, then the debate goes to Romney. If the President creams Romney, then he has won "on points" but Romney connected with some dubious points. If the debate is perceived by the viewing public as more or less even, or a draw, then Romney has "won" because the diminished expectations, suddenly elevated, were so much higher for the President.

Such is the game the Vandeheis and Halperins of this world play. Speaking of Mark Halperin, he was  on Andrea's show making all sorts of false assertions, saying the President's speech was about the "fourth or fifth" best and didn't include any "specifics," then proceeded to riff on totally specious, sophistic points that sounded plausible but were completely false. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any transcript to rip this RATBASTARD's Romney crapaganda to shreds. Andrea, rather sheepishly, said to her other guest Obama's speech had more "specifics" than Romney's. UM ...YEA-AH.

Here's the thing, Chris. (Andrea, I'm not talking to you.) I don't care, or mind, if you have SELF-IDENTIFIED Republicans on your show to make their case for Romney. Good journalists, like Howard Fineman and Gene Robinson among many others, no matter their politics, leave their ideology at the door, and give us the benefit of their professional expertise and insights. Jim Vandehei and Mark Halperin are 'journalist' poseurs — and to host them on false pretenses on a news and commentary network is completely unacceptable.