Well, it is hard both to believe what he is saying — and to understand why a team as expert as this one at managing the media on the campaign trail can’t accomplish simple tasks like putting together a timeline on the AIG bonuses or compiling a list of ethics waivers.
The campaign media had bet every nickel on this candidate, after Hillary lost it. ‘Managing’ wasn’t necessary by Obama’s campaign, the media did it just fine on its own. And since the election, have they ever publicly demanded a timeline on the AIG bonuses, or a list of ethics waivers? I don’t think so. There is still overwhelming self-management, despite the surfacing flaws and stresses.
They assumed that since he was smart, articulate, and read all the right books and magazines (just like them!) he would be just swell at his job.
Oddly, his published reading list (after the election, of course) is pretty paltry, and includes very little on history or international diplomacy or the details of executive management or government. But the media just went ahead and assumed that he was one of the smart set, just like them indeed. Why not? He’s a Harvard boy.
Then it turns out he can’t find competent help, doesn’t take seriously his promises to root out earmarks or cut the deficit, hires a load of lobbyists and tax cheats, and seems about as transparent and bipartisan as his predecessor (i.e., not at all).
Objection, your Honor. His predecessor was about as bipartisan a President as we get. His successes in getting Congressional approvals for budgets and the Afghanistan and Iraq military operations, from both sides of the aisle, were pretty notable. And how could you forget No Child Left Behind? That was a Ted Kennedy bill, with Bush beaming approval. And Obama’s ‘promises’ to root out earmarks and cut the deficit? About as reliable as his bipartisanship, hey? Just because the MSM hid his radical-left past in Chicago, and his long collaboration with Bill Ayers, we should be surprised that his ‘community organizer’/ACORN past is still part of his present?
Having put their professional respect and independence in a lock box for a couple of years, it does seem time for the mainstream media to get back to the job of doing their job.
A ‘couple of years’? When the MSM ran an intense negative campaign against the Bush admin, and the Republicans with it, beginning about 2002, and included media creations named Cindy Sheehan and Barak Obama for use as weapons in that campaign? It’s been time for the mainstream media to ‘get back to their job’ for about 40 years, if you hadn’t noticed.
And most of all, it is essential to the functioning of a democratic society to have a competent, independent press. Perhaps we’re finally going to get one.
Agreed about the functioning of a democratic society. I’d like you to explain a little further how, in the current world of media/Hollywood/educational groupthink, we shall get a competent, independent press any time soon.
