Posted on 07/18/2012 5:12:23 AM PDT by 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."
Baba Wawa was squirm-inducingly blunt about how sexy she found Comrade Fidel. I'd never thought of her as a power slut, but she forced me to recalibrate.
1.The media
2.Education
3.The churches
4.The family
check, check, check, and check.
bttt
Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35 January 10, 1963
Current Communist Goals [1963]:
(as per "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen)
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.
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