The MSM should resign over Obama's failure

According to Politico and PJM’s own Jennifer Rubin, barely two months after the inauguration, the mainstream media has its proverbial knickers in a twist over Obama’s ineptitude in office. Even Thomas Friedman – that most conventional of all purveyors of the conventional (except David Gergen – and he’s been straying off the reservation too) – is now complaining the onetime Messiah is not taking the financial crisis seriously enough, “getting in trouble cracking jokes on Jay Leno comparing his bowling skills to a Special Olympian.” Meanwhile, CNN is appalled the President pushed through a skillion page skillion dollar stimulus bill no one seems to have read.

Hello, children, you elected this guy. Take some responsibility!

No, don’t go complaining the people did that. You did it. Obama is your man, your hero. You never vetted, never examined him in any depth at all, even though the candidate had hardly any experience other than running for office. (Oh, yes, he was a “community organizer.” So was I, in a sense. You want to elect me?)

So now we are going to hear that Timothy Geithner or Press Secretary Gibbs or whoever should be thrown under the bus. No, sorry, it is the MSM that should be going under that now overused vehicle, committing hari-kari before the public does what it should – disenfranchise them completely. [Must be getting pretty crowded under that bus.-ed. Like the stateroom scene from “Night at the Opera.”] The election of Barack Obama was orchestrated by our mainstream media. They anointed him. They should suffer the consequences.

But what we have instead is an orgy of finger-pointing. The four New York Times columnists referenced in the Politico article above are simultaneously ganging up on the man they thought, only eight weeks ago, was a combination of the cat’s meow and the bee’s knees. Nary a word of self criticism in their attacks. No surprise there – and don’t expect it in the future, any more than you will get an honest apologia from Messrs Frank and Dodd over Fannie and Freddie. Just like the politicians, these columnists are men and women (Dowd) who are concerned first and foremost about their jobs and power. They won’t do anything to jeopardize that. They’ve had that power for a long time, thinking it was permanent; but now that they see it might not be, they are holding on to it for dear life. Their jumping off the Obama bandwagon so early is a sign of what deep trouble he is in. And they desperately don’t want to be blamed for it.

But they will be blamed – by us and by other people. They deserve to be. Their day is over. While pretending to be the friends of democracy, they have been the enemies of it. Their views have been so monolithic serious debate nearly vanished in this country. Only now, in the ferment of a still relatively tiny Tea Party movement, do you see the stirrings of bona fide discussion. Let’s hope there is more to come. And that the mainstream media, even if they don’t resign, will no longer be the gatekeepers.