CBS: Still Lazy With Obama After All These Years

Townhall.com ^ | July 18, 2012 | Brent Bozell

[Kaslin]

Back in 2007 and 2008, it was remarkable watching Barack Obama treated to one puffball interview after another, courtesy of Steve Kroft on "60 Minutes." Kroft compared him to Abe Lincoln and oozed about his "political poetry." But it's simply irresponsible, after three and a half years of President Obama wrecking the economy, that CBS -- now with anchor Charlie Rose -- is still in puffery mode.

There's a certain level of contempt on the part of CBS. It could and should focus its attention on the plight of every family struggling with unemployment or a house that's underwater financially or facing its loss of religious liberties with a federal government drunk with power. CBS chose instead to waste most of the interview asking the Obamas about summer vacations, where they'd like to travel in the world and whether there's still mystery in their marriage.

This was not what they call in the business a "newsmaker interview," even though there is no greater newsmaker in this country than the president. This must have reminded Obama of his teenage years at Baskin-Robbins, because Rose seemed to be making him a triple-scoop sundae, with chocolate and sprinkles on top.

Anyone who tuned in to "Sunday Morning" for the hard news would have "questions" like these:

-- "It's not a bad place to live." (the White House) "Well, you got a basketball court; you got a tennis court. You have a fountain. You can see the Washington Monument."

-- "How are you going to spend your summer? ... What is summer vacation?"

-- "You didn't have all of these important things to do, and you could travel to anyplace in the world, where would you want to go? What would you want to see and experience?"

-- "Does this place change you?"

It seemed obvious to the audience that Charlie Rose was channeling his inner Barbara Walters. The "what kind of tree would you like to be?" question was on the tip of his tongue.

Then there was the marriage question to the president. "I read you though, this, that I found fascinating. You said, 'I trust her (Michelle) completely, but at the same time, she's also a complete mystery to me in some ways. It is that tension between familiarity and mystery that makes for something strong.' Is that even more so now, and in this place?"

Rose said the original quote came from 1996, but its American debut was a New Yorker magazine puff piece that coincided with the Obama inauguration in 2009. CBS is sitting down with the Obamas in 2012 and asking a repeat of a stale question used to promote the first family at their highest political summit. You can tell where CBS is happiest and where it wants to keep the Obamas. It is forever January 2009.

Rose read another passage of Obama to himself, as reported by liberal Washington Post reporter David Maraniss, author of a very long new Obama biography. Obama told Maraniss that his life was defined by building bridges and finding common ground:

"The only way my life makes sense is if, regardless of culture and race and religion, there's the commonality of these essential human truths and passions and hopes and moral precepts that are universal, and that we can reach out beyond our differences. If that is not the case, then it is pretty hard for me to make sense of my life."

Here's the funny part: Obama said this to Maraniss last November. Just consider for two seconds the way Obama passed Obamacare in 2010: refusing any input from Republicans, strong-arming pro-life Democrats with completely insincere promises about respecting the pro-life conscience, and passing the bill with almost nobody reading the whole thing through. The entire quote is beyond ludicrous. But to Charlie Rose, it's somehow profound.

This how Rose eventually turned to the most controversial topic embroiling this administration, Obamacare: "You had an enormously successful health care legislation (sic), because the Supreme Court did not declare it unconstitutional. That's your proudest achievement in the first four years?"

Then consider the unthinkable. Obama couldn't possibly say the economy is his proudest achievement. But he did. "You know, my proudest achievement is actually stabilizing the economy to avert a great depression, because if I don't do that, nothing else matters."

This is like claiming the car was stable after Obama drove it off the pier and into the water. CBS didn't leap for a follow-up question. They ended the interview after letting Obama's ludicrous answer drone on for half a minute.

The CBS approach to interviews is obviously defined by the "wisdom" of Les Moonves, chairman of CBS Inc., who exclaimed at an Obama fundraiser he attended in June that "partisanship is very much a part of journalism now."

[ETL]

“Back in 2007 and 2008, it was remarkable watching Barack Obama treated to one puffball interview after another”

CORRECTION: Back in 2007 and 2008, it was SICKENING watching Barack Obama treated to one puffball interview after another

[Bigg Red]

It could and should focus its attention on the plight of every family struggling with unemployment or a house that’s underwater financially...

&&&
Silly Bozell! That is what a real news organization would do; a propaganda ministry has a different mission.

[kitkat]

BUMPERONY!

[1raider1]

The media hacks will never confront the Dems, and especially their anointed one, from the right. Their complaints to the Dems are that they have not gone full tilt communist. The majority of the MSM believe in European socialism and see the left pols as the way to get there, but they must be pushed. To the MSM the libs are wrong only if they fail to enact socialist policies.

[jersey117]

To the MSM the libs are wrong only if they fail to enact socialist policies.

If the losers in the MSM and Hollywood somehow manage to re-elect this POS, may they be the first to lose their jobs, their wealth and their homes in the next 4.

[HIDEK6]

If “commonality” is in your vocabulary, you might be insufferable.

[ETL]

Their complaints to the Dems are that they have not gone full tilt communist.

Most of the media are more "useful idiot" (naive liberal fool) enablers, rather than outright communist. It's the demonRats themselves who are the commies, at least many of them.

[ETL]

And just to shut up any potential liberal lurkers who might be giggling over the assertion that Obama is a commie.

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek"-- BARACK OBAMA
_____________________________________________________

From the website of the Communist Party, USA...
(prior to the election)

"The Communist Party USA views the 2008 elections as a tremendous opportunity to defeat the policies of the right-wing Republicans and to move our country in a new progressive direction.

The record turnout in the Democratic Presidential primary races shows that millions of voters, including millions of new voters, are using this election to bring about real change. We wholeheartedly agree with them."

http://cpusa.org/cpusa-2008-electoral-policy/
_____________________________________________________

After the election....

A Landslide Mandate For Change

A breakthrough election
Congratulations on an extraordinary history making election!

We can think back with pride to decades of hard work toward our strategic goal of a big enough, broad enough and united enough labor and all-people’s movement that could overcome the ultra-right blockage to all progress. That all people’s movement has come to life, it is dynamic and it has the potential to keep growing.

The election of Barack Obama and a strengthened Congress creates new conditions in our country. There is now the possibility to shift gears and move forward. This new day requires us to further develop our tactics in order to continue to deepen and broaden labor and people’s unity.

There are thousands of experiences that we all have had in these momentous days, some large, some small, all of which express the enormity of change in thinking and readiness for involvement that is underway and that steels us for the battles ahead.

The tears of joy we all shared as crowds gathered to watch the election results here and throughout the world dramatize the new moment we are in.

http://cpusa.org/a-landslide-mandate-for-change-report-to-the-national-committee-meeting-11-15-08/
_____________________________________________________

July 1, 2009...

Change is Here, Change is Coming

Sam Webb, National Chair, Communist Party, USA:

Let me begin with a simple observation: If the last 30 years were an era of reaction, then the coming decade could turn into an era of reform, even radical reform. Six months into the Obama presidency, I would say without hesitation that the landscape, atmosphere, conversation, and agenda have strikingly changed compared to the previous eight years.

In this legislative session, we can envision winning a Medicare-like public option and then going further in the years ahead.

We can visualize passing tough regulatory reforms on the financial industry, which brought the economy to ruin.

We can imagine the troops coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan while U.S. representatives participate in a regional process that brings peace and stability to the entire region.

In the current political climate, the expansion of union rights becomes a real possibility.

Much the same can be said about winning a second stimulus bill, and we sure need one, given the still-rising rate, and likely long term persistence, of unemployment.

Isn’t it possible in the Obama era to create millions of green jobs in manufacturing and other sectors of the economy in tandem with an attack on global warming?

Can’t we envision taking new strides in the long journey for racial and gender equality in this new era, marked at its beginning by the election of the first African American to the presidency?

And isn’t the overhaul of the criminal justice and prison system – a system steeped in racism – no longer pie-in-the sky, but something that can be done in the foreseeable future?

All these things are within reach now!

http://cpusa.org/change-is-here-change-is-coming/
_____________________________________________________

"Barack Obama told supporters that
'change has come to America' as he
claimed victory in a historic presidential election."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/election.president/index.html

[ETL]

Obama State of the Union: He got the ball rolling:
http://cpusa.org/obama-state-of-the-union-he-got-the-ball-rolling

[ETL]

From the Washington Times, April 30, 2012:

New Obama slogan has long ties to Marxism, socialism

[snip]

Many Communist and radical publications and entities throughout the 19th and 20th centuries had the name "Forward!" or its foreign cognates. Wikipedia has [since deleted] an entire section called "Forward (generic name of socialist publications)."

"The name Forward carries a special meaning in socialist political terminology. It has been frequently used as a name for socialist, communist and other left-wing newspapers and publications," the online encyclopedia explains.

The slogan "Forward!" reflected the conviction of European Marxists and radicals that their movements reflected the march of history, which would move forward past capitalism and into socialism and communism.

The Obama campaign released its new campaign slogan Monday in a 7-minute video. The title card has simply the word "Forward" with the "O" having the familiar Obama logo from 2008. It will be played at rallies this weekend that mark the Obama re-election campaign's official beginning. ..."

http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2012/apr/30/new-obama-slogan-has-long-ties-marxism-socialism/

[ETL]

The Real Story Behind Rev. Wright's Controversial Black Liberation Theology Doctrine
Monday , May 5, 2008
FoxNews/Hannity's America
[special Friday night edition--original airdate May 2, 2008]

(some key excerpts)

["(Jose) Diaz-Balart is the son of Rafael Diaz-Balart y Guitierrez (a former Cuban politician). He has three bothers, Rafael Diaz-Balart (a banker), Mario Diaz-Balart (a US Congressman) and Lincoln Diaz-Balart (also a US Congressman). His aunt, Mirta Diaz-Balart, was Fidel Castro's first wife."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jose_Diaz-Balart]

JOSE DIAZ-BALART, TELEMUNDO NETWORK: "Liberation theology in Nicaragua in the mid-1980's was a pro-Sandinista, pro-Marxist, anti-U.S., anti-Catholic Church movement. That's it. No ifs, ands, or buts. His church apparently supported, in the mid-'80s in Nicaragua, groups that supported the Sandinista dictatorships and that were opposed to the Contras whose reason for being was calling for elections. That's all I know. I was there.

I saw the churches in Nicaragua that he spoke of, and the churches were churches that talked about the need for violent revolution and I remember clearly one of the major churches in Managua where the Jesus Christ on the altar was not Jesus Christ, he was a Sandinista soldier, and the priests talked about the corruption of the West, talked about the need for revolution everywhere, and talked about 'the evil empire' which was the United States of America."

REV. BOB SCHENCK, NATIONAL CLERGY COUNCIL: "it's based in Marxism. At the core of his [Wright's] theology is really an anti-Christian understanding of God, and as part of a long history of individuals who actually advocate using violence in overthrowing those they perceive to be oppressing them, even acts of murder have been defended by followers of liberation theology. That's very, very dangerous."

SCHENCK: "I was actually the only person escorted to Dr. Wright. He asked to see me, and I simply welcomed him to Washington, and then I said Dr. Wright, I want to bring you a warning: your embrace of Marxist liberation theology. It is contrary to the Gospel, and you need, sir, to abandon it. And at that he dropped the handshake and made it clear that he was not in the mood to dialogue on that point."

Source: The Real Story Behind Rev. Wright's Controversial Black Liberation Theology Doctrine:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,354158,00.html
_______________________________________________________

Obama's Church: Gospel of Hate
Kathy Shaidle, FrontPageMag.com
Monday, April 07, 2008

In March of 2007, FOX News host Sean Hannity had engaged Obama’s pastor in a heated interview about his Church’s teachings. For many viewers, the ensuing shouting match was their first exposure to "Black Liberation Theology"...

Like the pro-communist Liberation Theology that swept Central America in the 1980s and was repeatedly condemned by Pope John Paul II, Black Liberation Theology combines warmed-over 1960s vintage Marxism with carefully distorted biblical passages. However, in contrast to traditional Marxism, it emphasizes race rather than class. The Christian notion of "salvation" in the afterlife is superseded by "liberation" on earth, courtesy of the establishment of a socialist utopia.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=30CD9E14-B0C9-4F8C-A0A6-A896F0F44F02
_______________________________________________________

Catholics for Marx [Liberation Theology]
By Fr. Robert Sirico
FrontPageMagazine.com | Thursday, June 03, 2004

In the days when the Superpowers were locked in a Cold War, Latin America seethed with revolution, and millions lived behind an iron curtain, a group of theologians concocted a novel idea within the history of Christianity. They proposed to combine the teachings of Jesus with the teachings of Marx as a way of justifying violent revolution to overthrow the economics of capitalism.

The Gospels were re-rendered not as doctrine impacting on the human soul but rather as windows into the historical dialectic of class struggle. These "liberation theologians" saw every biblical criticism of the rich as a mandate to expropriate the expropriating owners of capital, and every expression of compassion for the poor as a call for an uprising by the proletarian class of peasants and workers.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=460782B7-35CC-4C9E-A2C5-93832067C7CD

[ETL]

"Their founding document [the Weather Underground's] called for the establishment of a "white fighting force" to be allied with the Black Liberation Movement" and other "anti-colonial" movements[1] to achieve "the destruction of US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism."..."-Berger, Dan (2006). Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity. AK Press, 95.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weatherman_Underground#cite_ref-Berger_0-0

Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity (Paperback) by Dan Berger
http://www.amazon.com/Outlaws-America-Underground-Politics-Solidarity/dp/1904859410
____________________________________________

From the New York Times, August 24, 2003

"they [the Weather Underground] employed revolutionary jargon, advocated armed struggle and black liberation and began bombing buildings, taking responsibility for at least 20 attacks. Estimates of their number ranged at times from several dozen to several hundred."

Article: Quieter Lives for 60's Militants, but Intensity of Beliefs Hasn't Faded
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E4DE1539F937A1575BC0A9659C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2
____________________________________________

Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright and Dr. William Ayers
are greeted by Rebekah Levin with the Committee
for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine.
(Chuck Berman/Chicago Tribune / May 17, 2009)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-ayers_wrightmay18,0,6689521.story

[1raider1]

I respectfully disagree. One thing the Communists sought and have achieved is the takeover of the media.

[ETL]

_____________________________________________________

"It was at the Chicago home of [Bill] Ayers and [Bernardine] Dohrn that Obama, then an up-and-coming 'community organizer,' had his political coming out party in 1995. Not content with this rite of passage in Lefty World — where unrepentant terrorists are regarded as progressive luminaries, still working 'only to educate' — both Obamas tended to the relationship with the Ayers."
Article: The Company He Keeps:
Meet Obama’s circle: The same old America-hating Left
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YThjYTU1ZDBjNmQ2YzcwNzU1MmYwN2JiMWY0ZGI0NDA=&w=MA==
_____________________________________________________

"Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at"
--Bill Ayers (1970), quoted in New York Times, September 11, 2001:

Article: "No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen"
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02E1DE1438F932A2575AC0A9679C8B63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1>
_____________________________________________________

"Dig It. First they killed those pigs [ie, rich people], then they ate dinner in the same room with them, they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach! Wild!"
-Weather Underground leader and wife of Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, referring to the Manson murders

Article: Allies in War -by David Horowitz
FrontPageMagazine.com | Monday, September 17, 2001
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=63512670-BF7C-42A0-B41D-5D0FB9E09C09
_____________________________________________________

From American Thinker, September 16, 2008
Article: Obama's Foul Weather Friends
By Scott Swett and Roger Canfield

"As a gesture of solidarity, the Vietnamese who [Bernardine] Dohrn met in Budapest presented her with a ring made from an American aircraft shot down over North Vietnam. Bill Ayers would receive a similar ring while meeting with Vietnamese communists in Toronto. He later recalled being so moved by the gesture that he 'left the room to cry.' "

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/obamas_foul_weather_friends.html
_____________________________________________________

Undercover agent Larry Grathwohl discusses the Weather Underground's post-revolution governing plans for the United States:

Larry Grathwohl:

"I asked, 'well what is going to happen to those people we can't reeducate, that are diehard capitalists?' and the reply was that they'd have to be eliminated. And when I pursued this further, they estimated they would have to eliminate 25 million people in these reeducation centers. And when I say 'eliminate,' I mean 'kill.' Twenty-five million people. I want you to imagine sitting in a room with 25 people, most of which have graduate degrees, from Columbia and other well-known educational centers, and hear them figuring out the logistics for the elimination of 25 million people. And they were dead serious."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWMIwziGrAQ

[driftless2]

The hysteria over Romney and Bain capital is just the latest (but most certainly not the last) example of liberal media hypocrisy. Even mainstream lib rags have finally concluded that Romney was not directing Bain at the time questioned, but so what? Bain did nothing illegal. Romney should be attacking Obama and the lib media for smearing him and letting Obama’s, almost totally unbroadcast by Big Media, past ignored. The fact that Big Media finds almost nothing curious about Obama’s past and tries to smear Romney over a nothing incident speaks volumes.

[ETL]

Communists sought and have achieved is the takeover of the media.

Some definitely lean more commie left than others.

CBS's Dan Rather with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro (my caption)

[popdonnelly]

If CBS wants to be a bunch of Obama partisans, I have no reason to watch CBS.

[ETL]

One thing the Communists sought and have achieved is the takeover of the media.

Communists sought and have achieved the takeover of the White House and Congress, as well as key portions of the media and the school system.

[lentulusgracchus]

“Back in 2007 and 2008, it was remarkable watching Barack Obama treated to one puffball interview after another”

But you should have seen Charlie Rose tigering Tim Pawlenty this morning over the damned income-tax returns. America needs those papers!!! (Correction: CBS and Charlie need for Mittens to footdrag some more so they can do Bozo's work of screaming "the returns! the returns! he's hiding something !!")

To his credit, Pawlenty managed at least to insert a reference to Obozo's suppressed college records into his hectored and crowded and browbeaten reply.

I'd have crushed Rose on the spot by charging him flatly with indolence in 2008 and refusal to do his job, by failing to vet the most openly Communist candidate for the Presidency since Henry Wallace.