Rupert Murdoch is signaling displeasure with Team Elephant's choice of Presidential candidate.
To hear Rupert Murdoch tell it lately, Mitt Romney lacks stomach and heart. He “seems to play everything safe.” And he is not nearly as tough as he needs to be on President Obama.You'll pardon me if I pause here to soak in the schadenfreude.
Mr. Murdoch’s thoughts on the Republican presidential candidate’s prospects? “Tough O Chicago pros will be hard to beat unless he drops old friends from the team.” Chances of that? “Doubtful,” he tapped out in a Twitter message from his iPad last weekend.
Then, on Thursday, Mr. Murdoch’s flagship newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, published a blistering editorial criticizing Mr. Romney’s campaign, accusing it of being hapless and looking “confused in addition to being politically dumb.”
Mr. Murdoch has never been particularly impressed with Mr. Romney, friends and associates of both men say. The two times Mr. Romney visited the editorial board of The Journal, Mr. Murdoch did not work very hard to conceal his lack of excitement. “There was zero enthusiasm, no engagement,” said one Journal staff member who was at the most recent meeting in December.
You see, it was Murdoch's Fox News that has served as the leading cheerleaders for Romney for the past year. It was Murdoch's Fox News that declared Romney the front-runner well before the primaries started and continued to label him the front-runner through the early primaries notwithstanding the obvious lackluster response to him from the electorate. It was Murdoch's Fox News who declared Il Dilettante the only candidate who could defeat Obama. And it was Murdoch's Fox News that served, effectively, as Romney's unpaid propaganda machine.
NOW Rupert decides he isn't that into Romney? NOW?!?!?!?!?
You created this situation, Rupert. You can like it, or, like the rest of us, you can lump it.
But don't try to sell us your belated regrets now. Anyone who has been paying attention ain't buying it.
