A swing and a miss from Politico
You’d think reporters John F Harris and Jim Vandehei were really on to something, when they write about President Obama’s apparent political resurrection:
This three-month metamorphosis says something about Obama’s survival skills, but the turnabout says even more about the mainstream media: Obama is playing the press like a fiddle.
But then you get to the very next graf:
He is doing it by exploiting some of the most long-standing traits among reporters who cover politics and government — their favoritism for politicians perceived as ideologically centrist and willing to profess devotion to Washington’s oft-honored, rarely practiced civic religion of bipartisanship.
On the other hand, maybe they’re right — “centrist” is relative. And for most of the Washington press corpse [I'm letting your typo stand -ed.], the left-left-left-of-center is, well, the center.
I used the word “apparent” above because, for now, the President’s increased stature is more apparent than real. Obama has pleased the middle of the country by accepting (if not embracing) the Bush-era tax rates and by appearing to hold the line on spending. But the real battles with the new Congress have yet to begin, and the GOP will have many opportunities to repaint Obama has the leftist he truly is.
Let’s hope they don’t blow their chances.
Is anyone buying this new centrism? As with his recent statements of the importance of his faith, it just rings hollow. (If your faith is really as important to you as Obama says it is to him, wouldn’t one of the bazillions of photographers who’ve been following him for the past four years have taken just ONE picture of him bowing his head in prayer? And does someone who deeply believes in Christ refer to people who disagree with him politically as “enemies,” people you have to punch “twice as hard”? The way he speaks of those who disagree with him speaks volumes about his alleged faith… mainly, that it’s something he talks about, but doesn’t live.)
And somehow I doubt that is lost on anyone, even if they can’t articulate the point very well…
During the campaign two years ago, the complicit media was painting Obama has FDR and Lincoln II. Now they’re making out that he’s post-triangulation Clinton, Reagan, and Washington.
The trouble for them is, while hardly anyone living currently even remembers FDR first-hand, anyone who’s contemporary to Obama certainly remembers Reagan. So is anyone fooled by the comparison?
To me, it seems not only desperate but utterly ridiculous… And certainly, Obama suffers from the comparison, in any case.
Anyone who’s old enough to remember Reagan at all knows the comparison is dumb. And anyone who isn’t old enough isn’t moved by the comparison (because it’s not like Reagan is being held up in the schools as one of our greatest presidents, whether he was or not)… So who’s going to nod their heads and agree with this silly new comparison the MSM is making between Reagan and Obama? Who’s buying it, other than the same toadies who’ve convinced themselves that Our Lady of the Perpetual Boob Belt is a fashion icon?