Matthews: Sorry for saying last night that I was glad we had that hurricane last week

Via Mediaite, effusive regrets for his Kinsleyan gaffe . Go watch the original clip at the DC if you haven’t yet. He’s waxing rhapsodic about the country’s magnificent noble willingness to re-elect a guy who’s overseen four years of grinding unemployment and exploding debt, and he just kind of wanders into the idea that that killer ‘cane was really a lucky stroke insofar as it gave Obama a reason to put on his embroidered bomber jacket and look “presidential.” That’s a natural reaction for a hardcore O-bot in the throes of reflection; storms with death tolls come and go, but there’s only one Obama. In lieu of an apology, here’s all I want to know. What did Obama do over the past week to justify any significant political benefit from his handling of Sandy? Did he do something that Mitt Romney wouldn’t have? After Bush and Katrina, will there ever again be a president from either party who risks the perception that he’s not doing everything he can to aid in storm recovery, especially a week out from an election? We’re having a snowstorm here in NYC right now and thousands of people still don’t have power. Does that affect Obama’s superhero status at all? Says Sonny Bunch:

I’ve never been a “the media is biased, zomg sort of guy.” But Jebus has this cycle radicalized me. Imagine the coverage John McCain would have had to contend with if he had run for reelection after funneling billions of taxpayer dollars to donors investing in dodgy energy projects, 8 percent unemployment, a dead ambassador, and a drowning and freezing hurricane-ravaged New York City that his federal agencies were totally failing to help. It would not have been pretty.

If not for Chris Christie’s paeans to Obama for perfunctorily signing a FEMA decree for New Jersey, O would have been almost totally invisible in the aftermath of Sandy. My only recollection of him apart from the press conference in New Jersey was him sitting in some sort of storm situation room, looking concerned for the benefit of the White House photographer while he silently pondered his turnout targets in Ohio. The most striking thing about his performance since last Monday, as Bunch says, is what a total, utter pass our miserable media has given him for the problems New York is facing. It’s one of the most insane examples of media bias of the past four years vis-a-vis how a Republican would be treated and it arrived at a perfect moment in the campaign. It’s pure corruption. Matthews is apologizing for how he handled the politics of the hurricane, but where’s the apology from the rest of the press?

Update: You know, I could have handled any amount of gloating today. Liberals won big, it’s natural that they’d spike the ball. But I cannot, cannot handle Bill Maher claiming with a straight face that last night was a victory for … math. Maher was once a libertarian, mind you; in theory, he should have a leg up on other liberals in understand what runaway entitlement spending means for America long term. But his job now is to essentially troll conservatives, so we get this. A perfect buffoonish exclamation point on a victory for fiscal catastrophe.

• New MSNBC theory: Maybe the IRS commissioner appointed by Bush targeted tea partiers because they’re a threat to the GOP
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• White House word of the day – Irrelevant

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