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" (Optional soundtrack to this blog post...)      Oh, Lord. Politico thinks this is news. Steve M over at No More Mister Nice Blog has handled ably the fact that we&amp;#039;ve all known for six years that the president smoked dope in his youth. (In fact, he has the best answer to the question ever given by an American politician: &amp;quot;Of course, I inhaled. That was sort of the point.&amp;quot;) And also the fact that Ann Romney&amp;#039;s dressage \u2014 which she has cited not only as recreation, but also as a therapeutic for her multiple sclerosis, which must deeply amuse the people with MS in the country who are looking for change in the sofa cushions to afford a course of interferon treatments \u2014 is a recently revealed aspect of the Romney lifestyle. But, to me, an even more piquant bit of business comes a bit later.... No wonder Republicans are livid with the early coverage of the 2012 general election campaign. To them, reporters are scaring up stories to undermine the introduction of Mitt Romney to the general election audience \u2014 and once again downplaying ones that could hurt the president. C&amp;#039;mon, guys. You&amp;#039;re the hardbitten veteran Beltway reporters who started Politico. You know the way of the world, how the game is played. The Republicans would be &amp;quot;livid&amp;quot; with the early coverage of the 2012 general election campaign even if the Democrats had dumped the president in favor of Dwight Eisenhower, or Herbert Hoover, or Zombie Nixon, or Trigger. That is because the Republicans are professionally livid. Livid is the default personality. And they have spent almost 50 years being professionally livid about news coverage. Spiro Agnew was elected vice-president in 1968, for pity&amp;#039;s sake. They are professionally livid because it works. How do you all think Fred Barnes ever had a career in the media? Why do you think a bloody-handed liar like Ari Fleischer isn&amp;#039;t being followed down the street by howling mobs hurling produce, instead of doing the occasional gig on CNN and being cited in your story as a respectable observer? The cynic in me sees this story as a &amp;quot;balancing&amp;quot; antidote to the huge blunder yesterday on Fox And Friends, when the three otherwise unemployables ran what amounted to an attack ad on behalf of the Republican party that was so clumsy and obvious that even some conservative commenters hid their faces in shame. Both sides, after all, do it, right? That&amp;#039;s why Fox News is a legitimate news outlet, a &amp;quot;sister network&amp;quot; to ABC&amp;#039;s Jake Tapper. That&amp;#039;s the way of the media world, as it slides steadily toward the abyss. PLUS: Check Out the Potential GOP VP Candidates for 2012 &amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;gt; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a14209/media-bias-campaign-2012-9312846/>