MRC Spending $300,000 Preaching To the Choir At RNC Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center is dropping some serious coin to promote its anti-media message at the Republican National Convention. From an Aug. 27 CNSNews.com article by Pete Winn:
From now until Sept. 2, the media watchdog group, which is the parent organization of CNSNews.com, has rented three 14 ft- by-48 ft. billboards along Route 60 -- the primary road running from the Tampa airport to the convention site, the Tampa Bay Times Forum.
In addition to the billboards, a plane will fly a 40 ft.-by-80 ft. aerial banner around the city, weather-permitting, and a mobile billboard truck with the same slogan will drive around the Tampa area displaying the slogan.
High-powered projectors will also shine night-time projections with the message onto buildings surrounding the downtown convention site. And "Don't Believe the Liberal Media" buttons, bumper stickers and signs will all be handed out around the outside of the convention hall, according to MRC Marketing Director Ed Molchany.
The $300,000 Tampa campaign is part of an overall $5 million “Tell the Truth 2012” campaign that MRC President L. Brent Bozell III announced in January, during the New Hampshire primary.
Does the fact that the Media Research Center has to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get its message out to a highly targeted audience that should theoretically already be receptive to it indicate the weakness of that message? If the MRC thinks so, it certainly won't say so in public.
Winn's boss, Brent Bozell, is quoted as making this curiously worded statement:
“Our goal is not--and I underscore this--our goal is not to do what they do, which is to attempt to elect or defeat a candidate," said Bozell. "We want a level playing field. We want the rules to apply to both sides. If you are going to have hard-hitting investigative reporting on one side, perfect. Then have hard-hitting investigative reporting on the other.”
Bozell has to say that the MRC's efforts are not intended "to attempt to elect or defeat a candidate" -- the MRC would be violating its 501(c)3 nonprofit status if Bozell wasn't tossing out that disclaimer and keeping up the pretense that it's not an arm of the Republican Party and the Romney campaign.
However, Bozell is simply lying when he says that "we want the rules to apply to both sides." The MRC has never applied the same rules to, say, Fox News that it applies to the "liberal media." And the MRC's "Tell the Truth!" campaign is hostile to media outlets that tell the truth about conservatives.
In rapid response to Mitt Romney’s joke to a crowd in his home state of Michigan, that “No one ever asked me for my birth certificate,” Barack Obama’s campaign put out a 15-second TV spot to declare, “America doesn’t need a birther-in-chief.”
I’ve finally found a point of agreement with Obama.
America certainly does not need a “birther-in-chief” – which is one of at least 2,012 reasons to dump Barack Obama from the White House on Election Day.
America already has a “birther-in-chief.” His name is Barack Obama.
Who started the controversy over his identity? He did. For at least 17 years he boasted in his literary biography of being born in Kenya. That claim was quietly withdrawn only in 2007 – less than a year before he declared his candidacy for the presidency. It was never repudiated or explained. His own wife referred to Kenya as his home country. His autobiography claims he is the offspring of two parents, neither of which could bestow upon him the constitutional requirement of “natural born citizenship.” When repeatedly asked for years into his presidency to produce his birth certificate, he released a document every expert who has looked at it agrees is fraudulent – including the one and only law enforcement investigation to examine the evidence.
No one else besides Barack Obama can claim credit for the title “birther-in-chief.” He owns it. He prompted the very term. He sustained it needlessly. And then he blames others for his own absolute unwillingness to provide the most rudimentary documentation of his eligibility for office.
Well, it's easy to claim that "every expert who has looked at [the birth certificate] agrees [it] is fraudulent" when you blacklist the experts who agree that it's authentic. WND even solicited one expert, Ivan Zatkovich, who failed to conclude that the document was "fraudulent," but cherry-picked his findings and refused to publish his full report.
That, of course, is just the latest lie Farah has told his readers. Speaking of lies, providing two different birth certificates apparently does not qualify as "the most rudimentary documentation of his eligibility for office" in Farah's paranoid, hate-filled little world.
Farah unsurprisingly approves of Mitt Romney's birther dig at Obama, lamenting that "I’m only sorry he apologized for it later." Farah laughably goes on to claim that his rapidly self-destrructing birther conspiracy is "a story bigger than Watergate and the Teapot Dome scandal combined." Again, that's easy to believe if you deliberately ignore all evidence to the contrary, which appears to be WND's official editorial policy.
NewsBusters: Only Conservatives Should Review Anti-Obama Films Topic: NewsBusters
Mike Bates spends his Aug. 27 NewsBusters post having a conniption over a less-than-favorable Los Angeles Times review of the factually challenged Dinesh D'Souza film "2016: Obama's America."
Bates largely ignores the substance of the review -- in which review Betsy Sharkey points out how the numerous re-enactments in the film "play like badly scripted sitcoms" and dhow D'Souza's "quiet, scholarly sensibility ... works against him on screen" -- to obsess over how Sharkey unfavorably compared the film to the works of liberal filmmaker Michael Moore.
Bates concludes: "Reviews are by nature subjective. But couldn't the LA Times have found an analyst who's not an unabashed fan girl for Michael Moore to report on a conservative movie?"
So only conservatives -- who, presumably, would be more predisposed to giving favorable reviews to films that promote views they agree with -- should be allowed to review a conservative movie? Isn't that the kind of media bias the MRC argues against?
Oh, we forgot -- conservatives are exempt from bias allegations at the MRC.
Right-Wing Doctor Agrees With Akin on Rape Pregnancy Topic: WorldNetDaily
Jane Orient is the executive director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, a right-wing group that 's known for its extremistviews on medicine. Thus, it's the group you'd expect would come to the defense of Todd Akin's discredited claim that rape rarely causes pregnancy because "the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
And given that Joseph Farah himself agreed with Akin, it's no surprise that WorldNetDaily would be the one to publish Orient's defense:
Is the risk of pregnancy lower with forcible rape, and if so, why? Off the cuff, Todd Akin gave a layman’s restatement of the point made by some pro-life physicians that the female body has some defense mechanisms against pregnancy in cases of rape.
The process of fertilization, implantation and maintenance of pregnancy is an intricate one, highly dependent on hormonal signals. Stress is conceded to make miscarriage more likely by disrupting the hormonal milieu. What could be more stressful than a forcible rape?
The intensity of the media outrage against Akin’s remark shows that this is not a scientific dispute about numbers, or the definition of “really rare.” Medical science is being replaced by political demagoguery about the issue of rape.
Actually, the person injecting politics into the issue is Orient. What do doctors who aren't pushing an agenda have to say?
"What we know is that chronic stress can decrease fertility," said Dr. Sharon Phelan, a fellow at the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of New Mexico, in a telephone interview with CNN.
Phelan cites emotional, medical or nutritional stress as forms of chronic stress.
"The acute stress does not have the same impact," she added, referring to the act of rape.
A 1996 study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology estimated 32,101 pregnancies in the United States each year result from rape.
Orient then deviated even more from medical reality to launch an even more explicit political attack:
Starting from one extreme, some radical feminists appear to believe that most if not all sex involving a man and a woman is a rape. The man is always the perpetrator, and the woman, a victim. Clearly, there are activities that are not forcible rape and do not involve the same emotional reaction, but are still not legitimate. These would include statutory rape, “date rape” and seduction. To suggest that a woman ‘s dress or behavior might in some cases have contributed is, of course, unacceptable.
At the other extreme, radical Muslims appear to believe that rape rarely if ever occurs, and that all non-marital contact between a man and a woman is illegitimate and the fault of the temptress. From the fury directed at Akin, you’d think he had advocated Shariah law and “honor” killings.
[...]
Politicians who claim to be pro-life are often adamant about preserving an exception for rape or incest. This exception is a fig leaf over the reality of what an abortion is. Coming too close to The Question is feared to jeopardize the chance to gain political power.
Akin’s phrasing became a convenient pretext for raising a disproportionate clamor as a diversion from the real problem. Those politicians and commentators who are calling for Akin’s head have signaled where their priorities lie.
Remember, this is the woman who was accusing others of replacing medical science with "political demagoguery." Or was she talking about herself?
We've detailed the logrolling relationship between Newsmax's Ronald Kessler and David Keene, former head of the American Conservative Union (which gave Kessler its "Robert Novak Journalist of the Year Award") and current head of the National Rifle Association.
Well, this dynamic duo is back together again in an Aug. 27 Newsmax article, in which Kessler gives Keene a platform to opine that "Mitt Romney is well positioned to win the presidency and should pull it off by five to seven percentage points."
Kessler even serves up some of his trademark slobbering, declaring that "Keene is one of the country’s sharpest political observers." Weirdly, though, Kessler doesn't mention Keene's current NRA job, identifying him only as "former chairman of the American Conservative Union."
Colin Flaherty's latest race-baiting opus at WorldNetDaily is an Aug. 26 piece on how he determined a fight at a warehouse party was "black mob violence." Apparently, if there's more than one black person involved in a violent incident, that qualifies as "black mob violence" as far as Flaherty's concerned.
Flaherty never explains why he's so driven to prove that all black people are violent thugs.
NewsBusters Misleads About Obama and Abortion Topic: NewsBusters
Matthew Sheffield uses an Aug. 24 NewsBusters post to try and deflect fro the Todd Akin controversy by purporting to tell "the actual position of President Barack Obama" on abortion. But he misleads in doing so, asserting that Obama has come out "in favor of allowing an abortionist to let a born alive infant die outside of his/her mother's womb." Sheffield claims this demonstrates "who the real extremist on the subject of abortion is."
That same day, a NewsBusters post by Chuck Donovan echoed Sheffield in claiming that Obama opposed "a law guaranteeing equal treatment for children born alive after failed abortions."
In fact, Illinois already had a law requiring medical care for a viable fetus that survived an abortion. What Sheffield and Donovan are apparently referring to are efforts in 2001, 2002, and 2003 to expand that law with a "born alive" clause requiring that any fetus that survived an abortion, even ones that could not survive outside the womb, receive medical care. Obama has said he opposed those bills because the law would likely have been struck down in the courts for giving legal status to fetuses, a requirement that a second doctor be present at abortions, and their lack of a "neutrality clause" to make sure the bill would not affect current abortion laws.
Taking Obama's votes out of context -- context that demonstrates Obama is not the "extremist" Sheffield claims he is -- shows the extremes Sheffield and Donovan will go to smear Obama and defend Akin's extreme no-exceptions rule on abortion.
Molotov Mitchell Downplays His Anti-Gay Hate Topic: WorldNetDaily
Molotov Mitchell doesn't want to admit how much he hates gays.
In his Feb. 22 WorldNetDaily video, Mitchell claims that he ended up by the Southern Poverty Law Center's "crazy bad guy list" becuase "I had the audacity to disagree on gay marriage."
Mitchell is lying. Here's what the SPLC said about Mitchell:
Mitchell looks like a hipster, but he reads the Bible like a Christian Reconstructionist, or one who seeks to impose biblical law on secular society. In a 2009 video blog for WorldNetDaily (WND), a far-right online publication (see also Joseph Farah profile above), he endorsed a Ugandan bill that would make homosexuality in many cases a capital offense.
[...]
Mitchell’s wife also posts on WND, under the name “DJ Dolce.” In 2010, she endorsed the thoroughly disproven theory that gay men were responsible for the Holocaust.
So, yeah, there's a lot more going on with ol' Molotov than merely disagreeing on gay marriage. He apparently wants to be treated like a victim. (We've previously written about Mitchell's fondness for the anti-gay Uganda law and gay-bashing in general, as well as his similar fondness for playing the some-of-my-best-friends-are-gay card.)
Mitchell also uncritically repeats Family Research Council chief Tony Perkins' discredited assertion that his organization was targeted by a shooter because the SPLC put it on a hate-group list merely for opposing gay marriage, "right up there with real white supremacists."
Speaking of which, that link to "real white supremacists" isn't as far-fetched as Mitchell want you to think. In the 1990s, Perkins was the manager for the campaign of a Senate campaign in Louisiana that rented a mailing list from former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke. Perkins has also spoken before a chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group descended from the anti-integration White Citizens Councils of the 1950s and 1960s.
Mitchell doesn't mention any of that in his video, of course, but he does makessure to point out that Robert Byrd was a former Klansman (never mind that he recanted his membership decades ago, and is also dead).
Another MRC 'Special Report' That Isn't Topic: Media Research Center
the Media Research Center's longhistory of not-so-special "special reports" continues with an Aug. 8 "special report" by Tim Graham and Geoffrey Dickens, "The Media's Obama Miracle," in which they complain about the "the stunning lack of coverage" of certain Obama administration "scandals" in the media (well, only "the morning and evening news shows" on network TV). But really, they're just complaining that the media isn't parroting right-wing anti-Obama talking points.
Graham and Dickens write:
In the first two months of 2002, the Big Three networks reported a stunning 198 stories on the Enron bankruptcy, often tying the fiasco to President Bush. By comparison, since declaring bankruptcy on August 31, 2011, despite a half-billion dollars in federal loans from the Energy Department through Obama donor connections, ABC, CBS, and NBC filed a grand total of 24 stories on Solyndra, and barely connected it to Obama -- even as Obama told ABC he had no regrets, and even as the promise of “green jobs” demonstrably collapsed.
As we pointed out the last time the MRC did this, that's a ridiculous comparison. Enron was a huge company using impenetrable and deceptive accounting methods to obscure massive corruption and market manipulation, and its bankruptcy was the largest in history at the time. Solyndra was a small company making solar panels that fell victim to a change in the market -- a rival method of building the panels suddenly became much cheaper than Solyndra's -- and nobody has accused Solyndra of Enron-level fraud or corruption.
The authors continue with a little conspiracy mongering:
Federal agents twice raided the plants of Gibson Guitar in Tennessee to investigate whether they improperly imported wood from Madagascar and India, but waited for almost a year before settling with the guitar maker for a $300,000 fine. No one found it newsworthy that Gibson’s CEO is a Republican donor, while other guitar makers who weren’t Republicans were not raided by the government over wood imports.
Perhaps that's because the other guitar makers weren't breaking the law. As NPR reports, Gibson continued to import wood from Madagascar despite knowing the risk that it might be improper to do so. In settling the case, Department of Justice officials said that "Gibson has acknowledged that it failed to act on information that the Madagascar ebony it was purchasing may have violated laws intended to limit overharvesting and conserve valuable species." Do Graham and Dickens think Repubicans should be above the law?
As for the rest of Graham and Dickens' so-called Obama "scandals"...
Obama’s presidency is unique in the history of this nation. This president has governed by brittle fiat, forcing socialized medicine down the throats of a majority of citizens who opposed this move. He has wildly outspent his predecessors, swelling the national debt at a dizzying pace. He has proclaimed his hatred for traditional American values (notably, by supporting gay marriage), spat on dead U.S. soldiers by giving light-hearted “shout outs” at what should have been a solemn announcement (regarding the Fort Hood shootings) and revealed his contempt for individual effort (in telling business owners that they “didn’t build that” and were not responsible for their success). The bad news we receive every day is numbing in its scope. We are a nation in decline, and there is no single person more responsible than the president presiding over that decline. How, then, does Obama hold a lead in (albeit Democrat-rigged) national polls?
The answer is simple: Obama understands how to use the Internet. He understands how to influence the many people for whom the Internet is the dominant information and entertainment outlet. He understands the significance of our interconnected and technologically saturated society. He understands why a website is instant credibility … or just the opposite.
Mitt Romney understands none of these things, and that is why he is losing this election.
I am now prepared to say that the photos of young Obama, appearing to be stoned out of his mind, the photos of him doing his best pimp look – wide-brimmed pimp hat cocked to the side with a cigarette in his hand – and the photos of him puffing on a cigarette as if it were a marijuana joint – speak to his commonality.
The photos we see of him as a young man and a college student symbolize him as a pothead or trying to be ghetto-cool. The photos of Michelle show her with angry expressions or in the most unflattering clothing, trying to look sultry.
My son and the FreeRepublic commenter bring an important subject matter to the dialogue pursuant to the Obamas. My late grandmother used to say, “Water always seeks its own level.” Such is the case with the Obamas.
I know leftist liberals and the media like to heap praise upon Michelle as being a fashion plate, but dressing up like a “Soul Train” dancer doesn’t make her Jackie Kennedyesque, as they opine her to be.
Now that Obama’s hair has begun turning gray, I think the folks at Grecian Formula are missing a good bet by not hiring him to do commercials for their product. It’s a natural connection. After all, when it comes to our economy, this goof has spent the past three years employing the Grecian formula as his model. As a result, we’re nearly in the same dire financial straits as Greece.
The Church of Obama, much outspent by the Latter-Day Saints in the White House campaign, is in a panic. It has even resorted to a swear-word in an email inviting potential supporters to stump up $5 or more to keep Mr. Manchurian in the luxury to which he has become accustomed.
The hard-left “Democrats” of today (the quote-marks should surely be part of WND’s house style from now on) don’t just hate conservatives. They fear us.
Right now, pragmatists are laser focused on only one thing: getting Son of Saul out of the White House before he finishes the job of destroying America. The decades-long Republican argument goes something like this: “Forget what you think about our candidate. Let’s just get this evil guy out of office; then, once we’re in power, we can work on changing our man.”
Truly, Obama promised change and delivered chains. This is not hyperbole. It’s not about race. It’s about placing limits on liberty in favor of expanding government power. His philosophy and his practice, his rhetoric and his actions, all suggest he detests everything that made America the greatest experiment in self-government the world has ever known.
I might even question why Obama doesn’t think “The Star Spangled Banner” isn’t “one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset” as said of the Muslim call to prayer. I might even have someone ask the question of whether Obama can recite the Apostles’ Creed with the same perfect annunciation that he recites the Muslim call to prayer, the Adhan. After all, he does profess to be a Christian.
As I watch Obama and his army of lying thugs frantically spewing out the most preposterous lies imaginable, I am reminded of Eric Hoffer’s warning that the louder the drums of deceit, the more vigilant one has to be about learning the facts. And therein lies the problem. A significant portion of the populace is totally uninformed, and it comprises the very people who decide the winner of every election!
To Obama and his army of taxpayer-funded community organizers, the America he inherited was so screwed up he needs eight years to fix it, not four. That makes perfect sense to them; in fact, they knew it all along. If they could amend the Constitution to make Obama president for life, they would.
Newsmax's Walsh Tries His Hand At Media Criticism Topic: Newsmax
James Walsh takes a break from hating immigrants in his Aug. 24 Newsmax column, devoting it instead to bashing a Tampa-area newspaper prior to the Republican National Convention in that city next week.
Walsh asserts that the Tampa Bay Times (formerly the St. Petersburg Times) is "nown locally as the 'Florida Pravda,'" something he provides no evidence for. He also insists that it's "an ultra-liberal anti-Republican paper," though Walsh demonstrates only that it has criticized Republicans, which hardly makes it "ultra-liberal."
The paper's actual record belies Walsh's smear attempt. Would an "ultra-liberal" newspaper have investigated a Democratic member of Congress for accepting a car from a West African financier for whom the member of Congress had mounted a lobbying campaign to keep the him out of prison? Probably not.
After first going back to the 1960s for things to attack the Times over, Walsh jumps to opinion columns published in the past week. He nitpicks one Times columnist for daring to criticize Paul Ryan:
Times columnist Bill Maxwell attacked Congressman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., for being a radical devotee of Ayn Rand, an author who saw laissez-faire capitalism as the ideal economic system.
Ryan says he respects some but not all of Rand’s positions, differing with her in part because he is a Catholic. Ryan believes education decisions are better handled at state and local levels than at the federal level. Maxwell says, “Do not believe him, especially when it comes to public education, higher education in particular.”
Walsh omits the fact that Maxwell pointed out that Ryan is hiding his devotion to Rand now that he's a VP candidate:
Ryan, first elected to Congress in 1998, has said during interviews that he started reading Rand in high school and credits Atlas Shrugged for triggering his interest in economics. "I give out Atlas Shrugged as Christmas presents, and I make my interns read it,'' he told one interviewer. "Well … I try to make my interns read it."
Now, because he wants to be vice president and is under the harsh light of the media, Ryan is trying to partially distance himself from Rand. "I reject her philosophy," he told National Review recently. "It's an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview."
Walsh's unsubstantiated claims and selective quoting in the service of pushing the "liberal media bias" meme would make him an ideal employee at the Media Research Center.
An Aug. 24 CNSNews.com article by Penny Starr promotes a lawsuit by sseveral Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers against the Obama administration to halt a directive that delays deportation of illegal immigrants who came to the United States as children.
In noting that Kris Kobach is the ICE agents' attorney, Starr writes that "Kobach also serves as Secretary of State in Kansas and he is the author of SB 1070, the Arizona immigration law that was partially upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year." Starr fails to mention, though, that Kobach is also an adviser to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, raising the specter of a partisan political motive behind the lawsuit.
That seems like something significant to report, but Starr ignored it.
MRC Claims It's Irrelevant That Akin, Ryan Voted The Same on Anti-Abortion Bills Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center's Clay Waters is desperately trying to ignore reality on the Todd Akin controversy.
In an Aug. 23 MRC TimesWatch item, Waters complains that the New York Times is "trying to change the subject from the bad economy to social issues, for Obama's sake" by trying to "tie controversial comments by Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin to Mitt Romney's running mate Paul Ryan."
How far in denial is Waters? He huffs that the Times "irrelevantly noted that Paul Ryan and Todd Akin voted the same way" on several anti-abortion bills. How is that irrelevant? Waters never explains. Inconvenient to Waters' right-wing agenda? Sure. But hardly irrelevant.
This appears to be another example of the MRC violating its own "Tell the Truth" mantra by attacking anyone who dares to do so about conservatives.
Joseph Farah's Pretense to Christianity Topic: WorldNetDaily
Joseph Farah's Aug. 23 column is devoted to denigrating President Obama's Christian faith -- he insists that "Barack Obama is simply not a Christian, as he claims" because "He will say anything and do anything to attain his radical, transformative objectives."
Farah ridicules the way Obama came to his faith:
Here’s the way Obama used it most famously, explaining his claimed conversion to Christianity: “I’m a Christian by choice. My family didn’t – frankly, they weren’t folks who went to church every week. And my mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew, but she didn’t raise me in the church. So I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead – being my brothers’ and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me.”
So what’s my problem with that statement?
For starters, Jesus never used the phrase about being my brother’s keeper. Even a third-grade Sunday school child would recognize it from the Bible. But the words never came out of Jesus’ mouth. The only person who ever said anything like that in the Bible, of course, was Cain, after murdering his brother, Abel.
Genesis 4:9: “And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Obama is not his brother’s keeper any more than Cain was – as he has proved by his lack of compassion for those he claims as family members.
Is this one of the key biblical phrases that inspired Barack Obama’s alleged conversion to Christianity?
Is Farah really saying that being your brother's keeper is not a key tenet of Christianity? What Bible is he reading?
Which brings up a larger question. Farah delcares himself to be a Christian in this column, but he fails in the same way he accuses Obama of failing.
It's abundantly clear that Farah will say anything and do anything to attain his objective of destroying Obama, for which WND is his primary vehicle. That includes tellingnumerouslies, hiding information from his readers and publishing the most hate-filledcolumnists who hurl lie upon lie and libel upon libel at the president.
Is that Christian behavior? Most Christians would not recognize it as such.
If Farah is truly the Christian he claims he is, he should pray to God for forgiveness over his using WND as a vehicle for hate and destruction, and for deliverance from the bile in his heart.
Newsmax's Kessler Fawn's Over Romney Staffer's Looks Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax's Ronald Kessler keeps up his trademarkRomney-fluffing in an Aug. 23 column devoted to portraying a meeting between Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan prior to Romney naming Ryan as his vice presidential candidate as having been conducted with CIA-level secrecy. It's also a profile of Romney staffer Kelli Harrison, and Kessler brings a little borderline-creepy attention to her looks and athleticism:
A blonde who has a self-deprecating manner, Harrison looks like a volleyball star, which she once was on the Tufts team. She keeps a red, white, and blue volleyball on the floor beside her desk at campaign headquarters on Commercial Street in Boston. During conference calls, she tosses the ball against a wall.
According to what her Tufts volleyball captain Lindsey Moses told the Tufts Daily, on the court Harrison “plays hard, dives for balls, and is never afraid to use her kneepads and leave some sweat on the floor."
Kessler has done this sort of thing before -- he once wrote that Romney's wife "has the look of an outdoors woman bred to be an equestrian, which she is — good carriage, rosy complexion, square jaw, and blond mane. ... She is unpretentious, but she isn’t shy. She lowers her eyes, thinking, and then looks up directly at her interviewer and dazzles him with that smile."
