Yeah, The Media Sure Is In The Tank For Obama
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Media, VideoHere’s his weekly address where he details all of the big things he’s been up to…
Lot’s to talk about there, right?
So what did the AP choose to lead with?
Here’s the title, “Obama: Crisis is time of ‘great opportunity’”:
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama on Saturday challenged his country to see its hard times as a chance to “discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis.”“That is what we can do and must do today. And I am absolutely confident that is what we will do,” Obama said in his weekly radio and video address, taped a day earlier at the White House.
Wanna know what he really said? Well, if you didn’t watch the video above, here’s a transcript…
Yes, this is a moment of challenge for our country. But we’ve experienced great trials before. And with each test, every generation has found the capacity to not only endure, but to prosper. To discover great opportunity in the midst of great crisis. That is what we can and must do today.
In that context it’s obvious that he’s saying previous generations have met the challenges and made this country better. But the AP’s wording is lazy and unclear and this gives Drudge all the excuse he needs…
Couple this with numerous stories in the past month like “Is bipartisanship dead?”, “Why isn’t Obama more upbeat?”, “The stock market doesn’t like these policies” and it’s pretty obvious that we’re seeing journalism that seeks to create conflict instead of talk about the real issues.
So here’s the deal. Let’s quit with the knee jerkism of claiming that the media isn’t asking Obama the tough questions. They may not be asking him the questions you’re thinking of, but they’re doing plenty to challenge and question, sometimes even needlessly so.
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March 7th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Justin, when the media starts routinely asking him some tough questions – indeed, treating him the way they treated Bush – there will be a credible post in claiming the media isn’t in the tank for Obama. But not until; picking and choosing headlines in a way that represents content accurately doesn’t suffice.
March 7th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Sigh…if you would care to show me where the media was hard on Bush before 2006, crap, 2007, I would seriously love to see it. Bush got away with what he did because the media was asleep and anyone who thinks differently just wasn’t paying attention.
Now, I will grant you that the media didn’t cheer for Bush, but they hardly treated him poorly until it was apparent after 6 years that he had ruined everything he touched.
Now, to be fair to your argument, I will say that Obama did received a euphoric welcome from many in the media, and thus far they have not been very critical–but there has been little to criticize given the time. That aside, the cheerleading has been minimal since he took office. Maybe you don’t like people giving him some space while he tries to sort out the mess made by his predecessor, but please give the whole “media was mean to Bush” screed a rest.
March 7th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Bush went to war under dubious pretenses. Obama has passed a stimulus bill and is trying to keep the economy from collapsing. If you’re expecting tough questions that are equivalent to the ones Bush got asked after Iraq, well, you’re not going to get them. If you think that proves the media is biased, well, seems to me to be a bit of self fulfilling prophecy.
March 7th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
Buyer’s remorse and opportunistic feeding, heterodyned with Egyptian river waters, a hefty dose of CPD, and dueling PDS. A lack of misrepresentation is exculpatory? ‘Cause yep, he said it. (Kinda reminds ya of the closing number in Life of Brian, doesn’t it?) But he says a lot of things. What counts, however, isn’t what he says but what he does.
Which apparently, besides speaking purty, is throw great parties.
March 7th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
Tully,
The anti-Obama screeds are getting really tiresome.
March 8th, 2009 at 7:06 am
Obama is creating a crisis out of a recession. In addition nations from around the world are coming to Yo Daddy to ask for handouts, while Obamalamadingdong sends Clinton to China to ask for a handouts of our own to pay for the communistic take over of our society.
In the meantime the press is talking about Rush Limbaugh and how he is in charge of the defunct GOP while Obama makes a mockery of 250 years of American history.
March 8th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Folks, get back with me in a couple years. At that time we’ll have a much clearer picture of where we are, how the media has acted, etc. But right now all this talk about biased media, buyer’s remorse, destruction of the economy etc., is absolutely nonsensical.
March 8th, 2009 at 11:38 am
I don’t know if it is non-sensical Justin, but I agree it is not productive. Obviously, I don’t think that Obama’s policies are very good economics, but ultimately our problem is that the country (“we the people”) have 1)consumed more that we have produced and 2) have fueled our life-styles on debt. Everything old Ben Franklin warned us about. We need a cultural change — a good Calvanist enema.
This is my major issue with: GDP. An incredible amount of GDP reflects debt/credit. Going to the mall and buying clothes on the credit card is not economic growth or wealth creation — it is in fact, wealth destruction. Forgetting about Obama’s policies which I only hope will not plummet us into a death spiral, I hope that this crisis breeds a new personal financial consciousness for people and they go back to basic concepts of hard-work, thrift and savings. I certainly hope that it doesn’t have the opposite effect and the majority of people make the economic decision that it is better just be a ward of the state.
We shall see…
March 8th, 2009 at 5:36 pm
I don’t see the issue as the AP being pro-Obama or anti-Obama or even lazy. Their headline and lead were perfectly fine, accurate and captured what the man said. It’s hardly controversial to say opportunity can come out of crisis.
That Drudge would do what Drudge does is also not surprising. Obviously, he saw the story as driving the notion — made popular by the quote attributed to Rahn Emmanuel — that Obama and company approach the financial crisis as political opportunityt for them.
Whether or not they do, 99% of the people reading the AP story (everyone not consumed by politics blogs) would not see it that way — and 95% have no idea there is a controversy over Rahm’s statement.
Therefore, AP did a nice job and no bias one way or the other can be read into their story.
March 9th, 2009 at 9:54 am
This site is absolutley hysterical</em. It’s a classic liberal head-fake, purporting to an entirely centrist, objective political blog, but without a single instance of selling the liberal position.
The media’s too hard on Oabma? And they went too easy on George Bush? Jesus Christ, do you actually expect people to buy that nonesense?
March 9th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
I’ll go along with the calvinist enema policy. IMO it’s well underway.
I don’t expect people to ask for it or to vote for it. But like House says, people don’t get what they want. They get what they get.
Pain for all. Weak knees. Straining stomach muscles. A giant sh!tstorm. A renewed appreciation for simple pleasures like functioning bowels, food on the table, a roof overhead. A better understanding of the distinction between needs and wants.
Credit for the creditworthy. Living within your means as a mandatory feature, because we showed that when it was optional, not enough people picked it. Sounds about right.
March 9th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
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