Posted on 11/22/2013 6:40:40 AM PST by SJackson
I didn’t call my book A Slobbering Love Affair for nothing. And the sub-title was no accident either: The True (and Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media.
Journalists fell head over heels for Barack Obama early on. Chris Matthews wasn’t the only one who got a thrill up his leg when Mr. Obama spoke. A lot of them were swooning. They just weren’t as shamelessly blunt as Matthews. After all, Barack Obama was everything they had been waiting for. He was young and cool and liberal and black. He was The One who represented a moment in history, and they weren’t going to let his inexperience or any other inconvenient reality stand in his way, or theirs. When the National Journal said Barack Obama was the most liberal member of the Senate, instead of contemplating the implications, the national press corps yawned.
That’s why they ignored his relationship of several decades with a bigoted minister for as long as they could. When those tapes came out, they had to report it. But they didn’t have to dwell on it. And they didn’t.
They played down his relationship with a one-time terrorist, a man who wanted to bring down the American government with bombs.
Later, when he and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid spent nearly a trillion dollars to stimulate the economy, the mainstream media didn’t spend a lot of time on the fact that all that money pretty much went down the drain with precious little to show for it.
And when the economy remained sluggish year after year, they reported what they had to and not much more, often treating the president as an innocent bystander in the whole thing.
When four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, were murdered in Benghazi, they played the role of stenographer again and wrote down that the president said that those who were responsible would be punished. They weren’t. And the so-called mainstream media moved on to other things.
When he said he would not tolerate agents of the IRS targeting conservatives, they wrote that down too. And when the president wanted the story to go away, his loyal supporters in the media coincidentally also lost interest.
They were all “phony scandals,” the president said. And his admirers in the press nodded in agreement.
And throughout the lead up to the president’s single most important piece of legislation, the Affordable Care Act, they reported what he said, despite the fact that what he said wasn’t true. A few journalists noted that the president’s promise – If you like your healthcare plan you can keep it, period – wouldn’t hold up. But almost every major news organization in America simply accepted the president’s word, confusing their loyalty to him with their responsibility to the American people.
But now, something has changed. Now, they’re hammering the president with tough questions along the lines of, “What did he know and when he did he know it.” They’re questioning his honesty. Journalists are finally doing their job. So let’s give them one cheer, but only one. Journalists, you see, like Mr. Obama’s fellow Democrats, have made a decision: They’re not going down for the count, not for his blunders, no matter how much they like this president. But that may very well change.
Those Democrats, who like zombies parroted the president’s promises about how we all could keep our insurance plan and our doctor and all that, now are saying, the American people deserve better. The president misled the folks, these Democrats are saying, and they want everyone to know that they’re hopping off the Obama Express. They have decided, they want us to believe, that they’re looking out for the American people. Well not all the American people; just the ones in their state who might not vote to re-elect them in 2014 because of ObamaCare.
Self-preservation is a powerful force; it goes back to our earliest days in the cave. And self-preservation is why journalists have finally found their voice after all these years. ObamaCare is such a disaster that now, even they understand that they can no longer cover for this president. Their standing with the American people is already on par with funeral home directors and used car salesmen. If their credibility drops any lower they’ll be on par with members of Congress.
Looking back, you can’t help but conclude that Barack Obama was such a narcissist that he thought he could get away with anything, simply because he was Barack Obama. Like his friends in the media, he also knew he was young and cool and liberal and black. That was his ticket. His get out of jail card to free him from the kind of bad press a Republican would have received over the Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers and the economy and Benghazi and the IRS.
A few weeks ago, I told Bill O’Reilly on his TV show that I have a lot of admiration for magic, which is what Barack Obama has been using to mesmerize a good portion of the American people. Whether you like him or not, an honest evaluation would conclude that he has that certain something – something W never had, and most politicians don’t have. So even when the American people didn’t especially like his policies, plenty of them still liked him. But, as I also told O’Reilly, things are obviously changing. The magic is wearing thin, mainly because ObamaCare affects people in a way that Benghazi or the IRS never did. I also said the media seemed to be falling out of love with him. Lose the American people and the media, I said, and for the first time Barack Obama might be in some real hot water.
Sooner or later, reality matters. And when it does, magic fades. Mr. Obama is figuring that out. I’m still not sure about journalists. They’re hammering him today. But they have a lot invested in him. They were supposed to chronicle history. Instead, they opted for helping shape history. Barack Obama was their guy. Before this ends, he may be again. It’s not easy to fall out of love. Especially when it’s been a slobbering love affair.
Miss Romney yet??????
Bernard Goldberg can go pound TEA!
Well, it's too little and too late. If their doubt and condemnation would be as vigorous and unconditional as their abjectly servile adulation of the ‘campaigning Obama’ or the ‘Presidential Obama’, then I would have to applaud them.
As it is, the recent MSM ‘challenge’ to the ACA failure, etc... is TOO pathetically lukewarm and grudging to qualify as REAL JOURNALISM...!!
For me, the MSM can never recover their integrity or their status as the watchdog of the Public Interest.
If they cannot/will not be as inimical to the flaws and failures of ONE PARTY as they are of THE OTHER, then they have forfeited their status. PERIOD!
I believe the charisma Obama possesses is in the fact that although he is of mixed race, he appears black, doesn't have a drawl, dresses well and is semi-articulate at times. His extreme, radical leftist views and clear antipathy toward America and it's traditions makes Barack Obama the epitome of a leftist the media could get behind, and so they did.
Obama's charisma is completely in the minds of his media acolytes and far more apparent than real.
Reading this article REALLY reminds me about Ty and his buddies running to the sound of the gunfire that night like patriots have done in America for over 200 years.
And when I am reflecting on Ty and what he and others like him did that night my mind simultaneously recalls that we don ‘t even know where the guy that all these Obama voters that are now losing their insurance voted for was that night. When we ask, effectively, the press shoots us the finger with a smile.
So, the writer points out that all these Obama lovers and presstitutes didn’t care about Benghazi but do care about the rising cost of their gd insurance!
To that “truism”, I say to all of them, FY, your low life’s for not giving a damn about Ty that night and allowing BO and his marxists buds in the press and in his administration to cover his actions up that night so you are getting what you so richly deserve! May it get even worse, for all of you!
Bernie doesn’t realize a lot of the people that buy his books are Tea Partiers.
Duh!
They are only “hammering “ the president now because it’s between election cycles. Rest assured, the second democrats and republicans are up for election, the media will be back to slobbering all over the democrats.
The media supports the Left, as sure as the sunrise.
Precisely.
I’ve lost my respect for him. To me, Bernie is now a Slobbering moderate old man with no backbone.
Agree with your post.
With Caliph Baraq safely ensconced for 3 more years, the MSM can take some shots to buff their “impartiality” cred.
Then it’s on to the Hillary campaign. “Baraq’s ideas were good but he lacked management experience. Hillary has what we need to bring them to fruition.”
Too true.
As I say, the MSM will never be able to recover its integrity.
There have been (continue to be) too many missed and positively ideal opportunites for them to demonstrate an unbiased and professionally ethical character, IF professional ethics and a lack of bias matter at all to them.
They DON’T!
There is nothing in it for them to be professional. NOTHING.
Once journalists became entertainers and ‘personalities’ wholly involved WITH events, instead of being detached and objectively observing OF events, their position was assured and their credibility became just so much incidental ... and frankly, inconvenient... baggage.
In the build up he even got a nobel price for what everyone knew he would be able to accomplish later.
It isn’t that the fawning media is angry with obama for his lies or evenfor the higher cost of demcare, fewer choices, people losing their prefered doctor, etc. They’re really just upset their complicity in destroying America with their putrid and extreme marxist ideology is being exposed for all to see.
Knowing the American voter, I think it will be much, much “later”, not sooner.
We have never had an unbias “press” in this country.
What we had for over two hundred years was a balance between biases. There were few places in this nation that did not have at least two newspapers, and there was no doubt about their bias as they had either “Republican” or “Democrat” in their names.
The people had choices on where they got their “news”. The American people began to lose their choices as television began to become the major source of information for the average American. As television began to drain advertisement money away from printed media they began the decline they are still facing today.
In time bigger and financially stronger newspapers began to buy out their competition until most big cities only have one newspaper (and in this competition, conservatives lost).
Liberals became the gatekeeper of the “news”, almost everything the American people knew about any subject was first filter through the liberal’s lens. If they liked something, they supported it. If they did not like something they destroyed it.
The news media is nothing but the propaganda arm of the left. There is little balance left.
The internet is more like resistance fighters with their mimeograph “newspapers” passed along the underground to share information not filtered by the authorities.
My hope for our nations lies in the fact that the USSR collapsed on itself. The Soviet Leaders had complete control over that nation, yet they could not stand against the tide of their own people saying they have had enough.
Unlike the Soviet citizens that had a history of serfdom, the American people have a long history of being independent and fighters. If the Soviet citizens can change the path of their government even with all the power being held by the state, then the American people can certainly change the path we are on today.
the mainstream media didn’t spend a lot of time on the fact that all that money pretty much went down the drain with precious little to show for it.
Down the drain??
Why, that money went into democrat coffers so it
certainly wasn’t wasted. Now it’s being used against
us and 200+ years of history.
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