What’s interesting about the column linked on Drudge this morning about Obama’s umpteenth gazillionth blaming of Bush is that it is in the Associated Press, the very beating heart of the mainstream media.
He says “the buck stops with me,” but nearly a year into office, President Barack Obama is still blaming a lot of the nation’s troubles — the economy, terrorism, health care — on George W. Bush.
Talk about rats and a sinking ship, slight though it may seem, this is in many ways the biggest sign we have seen yet of what significant trouble Obama is in. The AP is usually the president’s last line of defense, except perhaps for Olbermann and Matthews. But their White House correspondent Ben Feller doesn’t even rescue Obama, as is traditionally done, in the last graph. Instead he closes:
“The president himself, not surprisingly, may feel quite satisfied with accomplishments in his first year,” said Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. “But we don’t see signs that the American public is positive.”
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Whoa. Hold onto your seats. It’s only the beginning of January. Obama is in trouble in many directions – the economy, healthcare, national defense – forget cap and trade (that’s hopeless). And that he was such a public liar (as opposed to the normal political variety) hasn’t helped. The repeated airings of his tedious BS about putting the healthcare debate on CSPAN make him look like a monumental creep. My question is: why did they swallow the same thing when he lied so baldly about Reverend Wright? Well, that was another era.
“My question is: why did they swallow the same thing when he lied so baldly about Reverend Wright?”
Blame that one on John McCain. He adamantly refused to make Rev. Jeremiah Wright an issue. The MSM essentially went along with his wishes. McCain provided the journalistic community with a convenient excuse to ignore Obama’s questionable friends. McCain would have campaigned in an entirely different manner if Obama were not a “man of color.”
Obama is a narcissist. The world is supposed to revolve around him. It can never be his fault. Those who possess near miraculous powers should never be blamed. Obama is also a poorly educated man who has never done any serious reading. The responsibilities of the presidency overwhelm him. Obama may be the quintessential example of the Peter Principle. He should still be no more than an Illinois state senator.
I don’t expect AP or the rest of the MSM to remain critical of Obama for long. The default mode is adulation, making this article an outlier. What can’t be overemphasized is how a left mindset is securely in place in the MSM, and even if it weren’t the perception of a blazing brilliance on Obama’s part, not to mention his cool effortlessness (this might be deemed laziness in other circles) continues to blind them to his faults.
Many democrats, incredibly, actually believed that Obama’s puffed up speechifying would translate into real leadership. This of course included his cheerleaders at AP and Al-Reuters. The president is feckless and disconnected – uninterested, even – and they are finally seeing what was obvious to the opposition before the election.
Still, for every crack in the dam, the press will still protect him as much as they possibly can. The thought of a conservative/tea party takeover, and more specifically, a scenario where the dreaded Cuda (eleventy!1!1!1!) assumes the Presidency is simply too much for them to bear.
Charts like this one show why their worst fears may yet materialize:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=Y2FhOTVhMzJlOWE5NDkzN2NmZGExMDQwMGM2NmQ0ZTE=
“I don’t expect AP or the rest of the MSM to remain critical of Obama for long.”
It mostly depends on the poll numbers. The left-wingers are getting worried that Obama is taking them over the cliff. Few of them are hard-core ideologues. They worry about themselves, first, last, and foremost. A weak punch to the stomach is one thing—but Obama is probably setting them up for a serious butt kicking. Nancy Pelosi was willing to lose a handful of house seat on behalf of the cause. She is not willing to lose her powerful office as speaker. MSM journalists are getting increasingly concerned that Obama is not going to save their jobs.
I don’t know, Roger. I read that article and didn’t get the present sense impression that Ben Feller ought to be confused with Bob Feller…this was no high hard one under the chin.
It was basically the same softball that this administration always gets from the entrenched media, the first and last paragraphs aside, it was all about how “it could have been worse”, “it is being made better” and all that is being done is not appreciated.
I disagree respectfully with David T. because I believe that the hard left pull on this administration…AND…by the most vocal media…does not have an inherent “common sense” gene in their DNA.
They will left, lefter, leftist themselves into complete bankruptcy, financial, moral, ethical and journalistically.
Pelosi and Reid have hard left tendencies, the former …of the frothing at the mouth variety. Reid is slipping in his own state’s approval polls, but Pelosi could kill a busload of orphans…(as long as they were Southern white Christians)…and her district would send her back to Congress with a landslide.
The media has this administration’s back. There will be a little blowback from the hard left on the “tough talk” stuff, the 30,000 troops into Afghanistan, …the pull from his LEFT is still very, very, very hard.
They want blood and the will brook no compromise.
The legacy media in his pocket may rattle around a little, but their leg still tingles…even when he slaps them in the face…as with this C-Span rift.
He has the joker in the deck. He can always call them racist if they stop supporting him. They won’t go to war with him…and the only “acceptable” critique must always come from his portside.
This administration is losing the independents…in droves. But the entrenched media never much cared about anyone who wasn’t substantially left of center. The “sell by” date on blaming Bush has long since passed, and independents aren’t buying this spoiled spilled milk.
Democrats strategy is to take out the sure losers from the campaign trail, push the Bush mush…on “we inherited” the problems (forgetting, of course…Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, FAnnie, Freddie…all Democrats deeply involved in the economic meltdown), and tout how “much” has been accomplished that is “unseen”, “unfelt”, “unrecognized” and “unappreciated”.
“New” Democrats will run in place of the sure losers. And the legacy media will attack their opponents, smear them, and puff the replacements. Book it.
The problem is Obama’s agenda. You do not find economic prosperity by focusing on social justice. The press knows this is a losing proposition.
Steve. one man’s “social justice” is another man’s theft of property.
Dressing up like Robin Hood doesn’t make one’s theft altruistic. Ambush legislation and stealth governance in the night’s darkest shadows for the purposes of taking from the “haves” and giving to the “may not have’s”…can be prettied up and tied with a populist bow and presented with flowery greeting card prose…but pickpocketing trillions of dollars requires that the press remain ever vigilant in their utter lack of vigilance. It cannot happen otherwise.
From the campaign trail, to the midnight trail to the vapor trail…we will be abandoned by our legacy media. The 7up of our information stream, the Un-Vetting of our leaders and their stealth legislation continues, …I’m not one banking on “hope” for “change” any time soon.
“My question is: why did they swallow the same thing when he lied so baldly about Reverend Wright? Well, that was another era.”
I think the question is backwards. We know very well why they buried the Rev. Wright stuff. The same reason they buried everything else about Obama. The question is why would they begin this (so far very modest) exposure of Obama’s emptiness now? Some say, because they are worried about going off the credibility cliff with Obama. Please. It is several years too late for the MSM to recover its credibility. Besides, where has their concern for their credibility been these past several years as their readerships and audiences have, well, gone off the cliff?
Perhaps cfbleachers’s point at #5 above, that the media will start to abandon obviously dead Dems so they can start supporting the next wave, has some merit. But it’s way too early to start abandoning Obama. I suspect this small portion of one AP piece is an outlier, not a harbinger. I highly doubt we will see any signifcant movement of the MSM to holding Obama accountable or being honest about him.
Tyranny by any means possible even if it means blaming Bush throughout his entire presidency as he and his thug-cronies ram more Marxist/Socialist B.S. down America’s throats with a smile.
Once ALL American people stop buying the ‘Bush-Did-It’ it will be too late. We will be entrenched in a full-throttle tyranny the likes of which we have never seen before.
God helps us all.
Roger simply made the point that when the AP, recognized as being among the most dedicated of champions of Obama, is bluntly critical of his performance, it provides the first evidence that doubt about the infallability of the Sun King – LeRoy Soulay – may be stirring in the ranks of the bedazzled media.
Combine this with similar evidence of doubt in the ranks of those Democrats facing re-election this fall. and the certainty that there must be Senators and Congressmen sufficiently principled to be dismayed at legislative decisions being made that exclude both the loyal opposition nd the fourth estate, with the approval of a President who made bi-partisanship and transparency key elements in his campaign.
This is the leak in the dike, and it is improbable that the leg-tinglers will be able to prevent it from going no matter how hard they jam their middle fingers into it. What is most likely is a growing sense of betrayal that will leave the fallen idol defended only by players of the race card.
Transparency is what will bring this administration. Obama’s steady revelation of his dishonesty, his lack of competence for governance, his disinterest in foreign relations, his limited intelligence, his poor judgment, obsession with a global single-party socialism in the Maoist mode, his total lack of self-reflection or acceptance of criticism, his nouveau riche reveling in the perquisites of power, his basically corrupt arrogance. The more we have to listen to him, the more apparent he makes it that has no intention of changing his Katy-bar-the-door course toward dismantling our economy, that he is a con-artist, the faster the slobbering sycophants will turn on him.
There won’t be many rats willing to go down with the ship.
It is good to recall, and Obama keeps providing the reminders, neo-neocon’s perfect nickname for our current president: Blame-Duck.
When we the people are against the majority of Obama’s Marxist plans, Obama has a problem; however, Obama lives in ObamaLand, a fantasy world while reality on intrudes ever so often. I expect ObamaLand start to crumble his second year as bad problems become worse. And the feather-in-the-cap of Porkulus & ObamaCare destroys Obama & the other Democrats while we the people are in full-on revolt. President Obama’s Bush obsession will continue as he mutters “Bush” directly or indirectly when he is in fact the cause. By Obama’s third year, his administration will be in a complete breakdown. Obama is not a leader, but an immature whiner.
I think it has to do with common sense. Take away Bush and OBama believes he would not have had so many nightmarish problems to face. The question is…if America had not had so many horrible problems in the first decade of the 21st century, would OBama have been elected in the first place?… He is the President now, so he can no longer afford to keep pointing fingers, except at the mirror.
Roger simply made the point that when the AP, recognized as being among the most dedicated of champions of Obama, is bluntly critical of his performance, it provides the first evidence that doubt about the infallability of the Sun King – LeRoy Soulay – may be stirring in the ranks of the bedazzled media.
True enough, Stuart. And since I hold Roger in high esteem, I hesitate to disagree with his read on the article. I have gone back and read it through more than once.
I simply don’t see “blunt criticism” anywhere in the article. In fact, it reminds me of a stump speech during the campaign by this administration. It was a bit of a Rorschach test, you can see things in it, if you look hard enough…to satisfy any craving.
The whole meme to me was “the public is too stupid, un-nuanced, easily misled and impatient to comprehend all the good that is currently being benevolently bequeathed to them from on high…and the legacy media isn’t genuflecting ENOUGH to overcome this…this…impertinence of the great unwashed.
Please feel free to quote me anything that even remotely resembles “blunt criticism”…but please also then quote all the whitewashing elements of the article that overwhelm the tone of it…in the direction of blameshifting back to Bush.
Bush did it…for Obama.
Drives him crazy.
14. You don’t get it. It doesn’t matter what Obama inherited when he is making things worse. If you want to believe that Obama has America’s best interests at heart, then you have to concede that he is grossly incompetent because he has not had any success thus far. The man has been Commander in Chief for nigh a year, but he still does not know the first thing about being Commander in Chief. He doesn’t know how to be in command; he only knows how to campaign.
There is much opposition to the president and his policies, although there is also considerable evidence to the contrary. But then, why weigh evidence when you have a narrative to maintain, eh Rog?
http://tinyurl.com/cy4vv9
This poll…
http://tinyurl.com/yfcf5ms
…also has more positive news than you and the vast majority of your commenters would care to see, including strong support for a “public option.”
In another time, Rog & Co. called a willingness to overlook facts that might challenge an ideology “Derangement Syndrome.”
What will bring down Obama is economics. We face a traumatic debt crisis as bad as the one America faced in 1929 and the root causes have not even begun to be addressed. Dante’s “Abandon Ye all hope who enter here” at the gates of Hell aptly applies to the situation facing America – and Europe – as we enter 2010.
Western economies have to be recalibrated to a much lower level of output that is sustainable and not pie-in-the-sky. Keynesian remedies of government spending (financed by raising even more debt or printing money) are dead, finished, over. Those who created this crisis, who were blind to it, and even now like Bernanke seek to excuse their calumny, are still in charge. That absolutely guarantees failure.
Obama is just a puppet on a string. Whatever he might know about constitutional law he has not a shred of knowhow about business, profits, risk and uncertainty. These words and concepts are like saying “differential equations” to a 5-year old.
As the pool of unemployed, those registered, those who have dropped off the list in despair, moves steadily towards 20 million and then edges beyond, the tone of the Obama Administration will become increasingly shrill, its attacks on critics increasingly vindicative, its plans for recovery increasingly irrational, and in all its whole posture increasingly comic – if it were not so tragic.
” In another time, Rog & Co. called a willingness to overlook facts that might challenge an ideology “Derangement Syndrome.” ”
Help us, Northcove, for we are the deranged ones! BDS was just a figment of our fevered imagination – Zombie staged all the photos of those poor, misunderstood true patriots marching in SF with signs depicting decapitated Bush-Hitlers and war criminal Cheneys. Poof – it never happened.
The only polls that really matter are elections – “I won”, remember? Well, beginning with Brown v. Coakley next week, it’s on. Whether or not Brown wins, November is sure to leave The Once reeling. Three more years of hard left policy and economic stupidity and he will be One and done.
Oh come on, the media went along with McCain’s desire not to make Reverend Wright an issue? Wright was old news by the time McCain won the nomination and the American people obviously did not care about it, not that much anyway. They should have, but blaming McCain is just ridiculous.
Even the responses on this site are written by great writers, with a gift for the language! As for this article, I surely do hope that the worm is turning. I’ve met a few Obama koolaid drinkers who exhibit buyers’ remorse, but not yet an avalanche. As polls suggest, most citizens simply don’t track politics, they get caught up in fads like the “historic opportunity” to elect a snobby but slick enigmatic mulato to send a message… and they tuned back out after the sappy inauguration event.
I suppose the shift will come only when THEIR wallet gets lightened or their job disappears.