The Dems "Politicize" Sandy Already

We know the Washington Post and the New York Times are in the tank for Obama.   We know they will print what amount to press releases from the Obama campaign.   It's Tuesday, literally the morning after Hurricane Sandy hit.   Which means that the editorials in this morning's Post and Times were written last night.   Which means that the talking points that they reflect were crafted yesterday... before the storm hit!

If they aren't cribbing Democratic talking points, how do you explain these paragraphs' similarities?

New York Times:

Disaster coordination is one of the most vital functions of “big government,” which is why Mitt Romney wants to eliminate it. At a Republican primary debate last year, Mr. Romney was asked whether emergency management was a function that should be returned to the states. He not only agreed, he went further.

“Absolutely,” he said. “Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.” Mr. Romney not only believes that states acting independently can handle the response to a vast East Coast storm better than Washington, but that profit-making companies can do an even better job. He said it was “immoral” for the federal government to do all these things if it means increasing the debt.

It’s an absurd notion, but it’s fully in line with decades of Republican resistance to federal emergency planning.

Washington Post:

Back when he was being “severely conservative,” Mitt Romney suggested that responsibility for disaster relief should be taken from the big, bad federal government and given to the states, or perhaps even privatized. Hurricane Sandy would like to know if he’d care to reconsider.

The absurd, and dangerous, policy prescription came in a GOP primary debate in June. Moderator John King said he had recently visited communities affected by severe weather and noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency “is about to run out of money.”

“There are some people . . . who say, you know, maybe we’re learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role,” King said. “How do you deal with something like that?”

Romney replied: “Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.”

Romney went on to express the general principle that, given the crushing national debt, “we should take all of what we’re doing at the federal level and say, ‘What are the things we’re doing that we don’t have to do?’ ”

King gave him a chance to back off: “Including disaster relief, though?”

Romney didn’t blink. “We cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids,” he said, adding that “it is simply immoral . . . to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids.”

Both articles cite the same quotes from the same debate, both characterizing the issue as a choice between "big government" and the "absurd" notion that state governments should handle disaster relief.   This is not an accident, but supposedly independent journalists serving as the puppets for Democratic Party arguments.   Does anyone really believe that the Times editorial board or the Post's Eugene Robinson didn't get emailed the gist of these stories yesterday before the hurricane hit?  

Would anyone at either paper answer questions for a news story about how news stories get manufactured?   In a world where our reality is increasingly mediated by unelected "journalists," doesn't it matter that there is an organized propaganda machine from one party that can reach into the highest editorial rooms of the country's leading newspapers and shape narratives?