April 29, 2009

A Hundred Days of Love

There’s something very curious – even laughable – about watching the media assemble to offer President Obama a grade after the first 100 days. They weren’t exactly a team of dispassionate scientists in a lab. They continue to be what they’ve been all along – a rolling gaggle of Obama cheerleaders – only before it was a campaign, and now it’s an administration. So now they’re assessing whether their awe-inspiring historic candidate still glows with the luster of victory. Hmm … let’s see. They applied the luster, they boasted of the luster, and you can bet your bottom dollar they’ll continue doing both.

Remember Chris Matthews, and apply his pre-inauguration pledge across the media: “I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work.”

Three months have made zero difference in the major media’s ardor. They were head over heels in love on Jan. 20, and they’re still head over heels in love on April 29. Just as before, Obama is automatically destined for historical greatness: “Obama’s start has been the most impressive of any president since FDR,” crowed Time magazine. One can also say, “Obama has been the most socialist since FDR.”

Time ran a long column of puffery from Joe Klein, who adored Obama’s radical change from government-asphyxiating Reaganism and his long view of the sweep of history, as opposed to our “quick-fix, sugar-rush, attention-deficit society of the postmodern age.” Klein declared, “The legislative achievements have been stupendous – the $789-stimulus bill, the budget plan that is still being hammered out (and may, ultimately, include the next landmark safety-net program, universal health insurance).”

“Stupendous.” That’s what socialists think. Conservatives call it horrendous. You can quickly see whose side the media favor – the multiplication of “landmark safety nets” of socialism, from the government takeover of health care to the imposition of onerous global-warming taxes.

It doesn’t matter to the media if the Democrats impose them with the “nuclear option” of a reconciliation procedure that requires only 51 votes in the Senate, not 60. Yes, they savaged Bush for even thinking about using it. But it doesn’t matter if Obama is a bare-fanged partisan that rams through massive new government intervention with little time for debate. It doesn’t matter that no one read the biggest “stimulus” bill in history before voting on it. Results are all that count.

Republicans barely exist in this narrative, but when they surface, it’s only so they can be severely beaten. Klein’s Obama action movie portrayed our president/hero as leading “a triumph of vision over substance,” complete with the usual spin that Obama is “lucky” to have Republican enemies/villains snidely unleashing “gimmicks and hissy fits,” whose rants “seem both ungracious and unhinged.”

The long Klein hymn of praise was only the beginning. They paired the four-page column with 10 pages of adoring photographs on his “historic start,” including such supposedly historic photos as “Obama plays with a football,” “Obama congratulates his daughter [Sasha] on her ability to navigate the building,” “Obama … greets his daughter [Malia] as she talks about her school day,” and a photo of an “intimate moment” of Barack dancing with Michelle as “Earth, Wind and Fire serenades them.”

You can see their heartfelt investment in Team Obama simply in the effort they’re putting out. Remember Time magazine’s cover package on Bush’s first 100 days in 2001? No. Maybe that’s because there wasn’t one.

A Media Research Center study of all 852 stories about the Obama administration on ABC’s “World News,” “CBS Evening News” and “NBC Nightly News” from Jan. 20 through April 15 found most of the coverage tilted in favor of Obama’s liberal agenda, with conservative spokesmen and experts virtually shut out of the debate.

None of the three broadcast networks aired a single story on whether the new president’s economic policies were driving America toward European-style socialism. Not a single network news reporter used the term “socialist” to describe how his policies are shifting economic authority to the federal government. On only four occasions was the word “socialist” used on camera at all – all by outside sources.

Network reporters never called Obama or his agenda even “liberal.” NBC and CBS never used the word, and ABC only aired the term twice, citing Republicans using the word “liberal” to describe White House policies. On three of these major economic policies – his banking bailout, his auto bailout and his plans for socialized medicine – the networks never had a single soundbite from a conservative expert. After 100 days, the media still look more like the president’s advertising team than the people’s watchdog.

COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.