Media Should Be Prodding Romney On His "47 %" Remarks

Many people, by now, have heard about Mitt Romney's disturbingly revealing remarks he made about the "47 percent" of the country who depended on the federal government.
Romney made the remarks at a private fundraising event in May in Boca Raton, Florida that someone videotaped surreptitiously - before it became public.
That Romney made the later-publicized remarks, quickly labled one of the most unusual, enormous campaign mistakes in history, drew initial heat and and controversy.  Then, the Obama campaign used the remarks in paid television commercials.
But, in recent weeks, the story of the "47 percent" incident has been largely absent from campaign coverage.  Obama certainly could have mentioned it more in the first debate! 
But, where has the media been on this?  Given the extent to which Romney's remarks revealed his actual outook on the "haves" and "have-nots" in our society, at least in terms of taxation, the political media should have persistently asked Romney about this.  Instead, Romney was pressed on it only the night that it became public and then, in an interview with his friendly media organization, FOX News.
His remarks, in my view, are repugnant enough and harmful enough to be considered - at face value - "disqualifying" to Romney.
Let's revisit the "meat" of Romney's remarks, which came in reply to someone in attendance:
"...Well, there are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what," he said, according to Maureen Dowd's Sept. 19th, NY Times column.  "All right?There are 47 percent who are with him.  Who are dependent on government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they're entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it....These are people who pay no imcome tax.  So my job is not to worry about those people," "I'll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives...."

To me, any presidential candidate who utters these words, deserves, at a minimum, to be questioned vigorously and thoroughly to determine if he or she should be taken seriously as a candidate from that point on.  My view is that Romney's remarks were, in fact, virtually "disqualifying" on their own.   Then, when Romney was first asked about it and he didn't deny the substance and said only they were "inelegant," that response did further damage to Romney because he had really "owned" the substance.

Romney did not disavow the remarks for quite a few days, then, he began a different pitch about how he cares about "100 percent" of the American people and he has made little attempts to un-do the damage.

Again, where is the media? If reporters had a chance to press Romney about his feelings of those dependent on goverment - and he was prodded, maybe he'd be led to tell more of the truth - about his viewpoint.  Of course, if he commented candidly, he might further damage his chances to be President of the United States!

I've observed how the media covers presidential campaigns for my entire adult life and I've identified hundreds of instances when the media fails to ask questions, fails to follow up, fails to investigate, fails to ask how or why, but this particular media failure to press Romney for an explanation of his "47 percent" remarks has been one of the worst.  The task is easy.  The material has been gathered.  All news organizations have to do is decide it's a priority to keep asking Romney about it and instruct their reporters to do so.
So far, this has NOT happened and Romney has controlled his handling of the matter - like it's all up to him.   He's been questioned directly on it only a few times by my count.
This is not a healthy democracy if the media can't get the voters prod and pry for better answers than that -- especially when Romney's initial comment was to not take the remarks back.  If he meant them, he owes of all us a much better explanation how he can own them and believe, at the same time, that he possesses an outlook that qualifies him to be President.