I guess if you’re Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and you can’t (or don’t want to) explain your record of investing in companies that sent American jobs to foreign countries, you simply request a retraction from the news source that published the story.
The Washington Post will not retract their June 21 report about Bain Capital‘s investments in firms that specialized in outsourcing American jobs, POLITICO has learned.
“We are very confident in our reporting,” Washington Post spokesperson Kris Coratti told POLITICO following a meeting between the Post’s executive editor Marcus Brauchli and Mitt Romney campaign representatives, who had sought a retraction from the paper.
This really does underscore the sad state of the 2012 presidential campaign (and the Romney campaign specifically) that the Romney campaign thinks it can simply demand retractions from the media simply because they don’t like a story printed about their candidate.
The arrogance of these people is absolutely stunning.
Romney has reached a new and dangerous plateau here. Previously he actively resisted media inquiry by simply refusing to speak with specificity or to speak with the media at all. Be wary of this new effort. It is an escalation, and it’s not merely contemptible arrogance. It’s Media Suppression and Corporate Intimidation. Romney didn’t approach WaPo on his own, but with a bevy of corporate partners. It points toward Romney’s continual insistence that capitalism – free enterprise is the kinder, gentler term Conservative Extremists prefer – is beyond criticism, not subject to criticism. It also speaks to the Right Wing effort to position themselves beyond enquiry.
Pay close attention to this story. If WaPo isn’t sued by a bivouac of corporate law firms I will be quite surprised. But this, I suspect, will be a new tactic seen more frequently on the Right. The journalism industry is the weakest it has ever been. I highly doubt even the largest conglomerates will be able to withstand a continual tide of Monsato-esque law suits month after month, year after year. Certainly if individual journalists or editors are singled out and targeted, the Right’s unceasing effort to weaken tort reform will come into play. The Tea Party plan to pack every level of the judiciary with extremists, too, will have an impact. Finally, when Fox and the Right Wing’s Propaganda Echo Chamber expresses their 24 hour indignation with “media suppression” and mostly likely this will be perpetrated by the Left, the effort will be well under way and a noticeable pattern will have emerged – calling for – criticism – which by that time will be even more difficult than it is now to wage.