It’s rare that a journalist gets it so spectacularly wrong in the first 50 words of his article, but in the Financial Times yesterday titled “A farewell to trust: Obama’s Germany syndrome,” British journalist Henry Luce augers the plane deeply into the ground without even leaving the runway:
What did the president know, and when did he know it? Such was demanded of Richard Nixon, who resigned 40 years ago next month. In no sense can President Barack Obama be morally compared with the man who brought us Watergate. He is neither a crook nor a liar.
Well other than the greatest generational wealth theft in American history, the IRS and Fast & Furious scandals, and the greatest example of serial lying by a president ever. Even leftwing house organ, the Orwellian-named “Politifact” heaved a big Al Gore-level sigh and reluctantly awarded Mr. Obama The Lie of the Year at the end of 2013:
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Which may explain the 180 that Luce does in his next paragraph:
But Mr Obama shares one problem that could cripple what remains of his presidency – most people no longer trust him. The sentiment spans foreign allies as well as domestic critics. When trust goes, respect is seldom far behind.
Unexpectedly, as the president’s defenders at Bloomberg.com would reflexively say. The same goes for journalism as well, particularly those who still write such naive material about a president who has spun so dramatically out of control.
But then, as Wikipedia notes in Luce’s biography:
His first job was as a correspondent for The Guardian in Geneva. He first joined the Financial Times in 1995 and reported for the FT from the Philippines, after which he took one year sabbatical working in Washington, DC as the speech writer to Lawrence Summers, then US treasury secretary (1999–2001) during the Clinton administration.
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