Politico has pushed it as TPM & Josh M "mocking" the president.
But that's not what it seems to say to me, however. Instead, this shows just how Obama did in 2009 EXACTLY what DK, FDL, TPM, etc. said he has NOT done ... He has gone out to town halls, pressers, spent his political capital to move Congress to get this done. It's all right there in your Jane Hamsher-esque video!
Yet somehow it all keeps coming back to Obama didn't lead and he wasn't forceful enough.
So if that is true, then where is video collection of Harry Reid & Nancy Pelosi putting their butts on the line like Obama did for HCR?
This is what Greg Sargent today referred to as Congressional leadership not leading, and putting the blame on the WH ... I wish TPM would not resort to that low-standard as well ...
]]>Now that the Republicans are deep in the minority, STILL there is no price to pay by the media or Dems for Republicans.
I could go on & on about their obstructionism in Congress. But truth is, Dems would like to have that power, too, when they are back in the minority 2-4 years from now.
But this sanctimonious garbage about jobs & the deficit that Republicans are using to score political points is infurriating. How can the press let Republican demogogue unemployment when they've voted or rallied hard AGAINST:
The Dems and the press made the Repubs pay NO PRICE for the Olympics. Instead, the press called it a bad move by Obama to even try to bring jobs to the country via the Olypmics.
Add to this voting AGAINST financial reform and you've got to wonder HOW Republicans are looking so good in 2010?
The press and the Dems are not making the Republicans pay for not solving our country's problems and instead letting them cheer America's failures.
]]>"What this pointed to is the fact there is a real distrust out in the country of this president," Politico's Allen said. "That it's not a 50-50 country. That it's not an Obama nation and that's what we saw bubbling up this summer with health care as the catalyst."
Politico is probably the most easily distracted news source of the Net when it comes to falling for Republican talking points and tactics. But that is really totally over the top.
Regardless of the horrible August that Obama & the Dems had and in spite of the largest most powerful news organization (News Corp) determined to bring him down, Obama stil holds a 50+ % approval throughout the country.
Taking those numbers, one must completely ignore national polling and instead do what the rest of the MSM has done these past few weeks: fall for the Republican gimick of being loud & obnoxious and then have these DC insider beltway pundits try to convince us that means that MOST Americans do not approve of Obama.
That is incredibly dishonest and a disservice for the 4th estate.
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Naturally, there was NO outrage by Republicans during the Bush years where there were actually MORE czars and most were not people who were confirmed by the Senate. Click this link to see the List of U.S. executive branch czars in our country's history.
But in typical GOP 2009 fashion, here is Cantor throwing a hissy fit over czars. Naturally, Cantor and the GOP leadership found nooooo problem with things like czars, deficits or bank bailouts under a Republican president.
We have a serious problem with the media in this country today. And Politico's egregiously incorrect stories are simply repeating falsehoods from GOP talking points memos (more czars than ever before & not confirmed by the Senate).
That is a lazy excuse for "journalism" and very dangerous.
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But that aside, behold our country's useless press and Republican national party:
And here is an example of GOP freakout over Obama czars.
And one more goody from Politico: Obama had WAAAAY more czars than Bush.
In actually, czars NOT confirmed by the Senate by Obama is 20, compared to 24 by Bush.
Idiots and sloppy, sloppy reporting.
]]>One interesting tidbit is that their conservative hero & savior, Saint Ronald Reagan, did the exact same thing. And Reagan's speech WAS political. In typical Karl Rove fashion, the right wing nuttery just assumes that a Democratic president will do the same thing.
Now, just as is the case for the healthcare debacle and "death panels", much of the fault of this bubbling up into a national stories lies at the feet of our MSM, subservient to the Right Wing.
It doesn't take very much research to realize that the GOP & conservatives have jumped the shark here. Yet it is treated like a straight news story RIGHT NOW on Politico.com, Yahoo! News & Google News.
This is shameful.
It makes the Republicans seem like they are tying to shield their children from a black man with power that they happen to hate.
So keep your kids from school that day. I would like to now request that my kids do not every have to site anywhere near yours in school, lest they dare pick-up any of your crazy germs ...
]]>Media Matters for America has some very good postings on this today including this one that highlights some of this nonsense perpetrated by Politico here.
Bottom line for the MSM is this: they simply allow the GOP and their conservative allies to push clearly misleading and false information and pose their nonsense back to the general public and Dems, thereby giving it credence and the "possibility" of being true.
Add to that, the fear that the MSM has at debunking conservative talking points because of the bullying tactics of Fox News, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, et. al. and they now end up outsourcing correcting these myths to PoliticiFact or FactCheck.org. What, the press does not have fact checkers or reporters that can think for themselves any longer?
Look, the hatred of Obama in right-wing circles (militias, if you will) started back at the Palin rallies in 2008 with shouts of "terrorist", "kill him", "Hitler", "soclialist", etc. And they are the same people waving the exact same banners against healthcare.
These people do not understand the actual debate because our media does not know how to handle a complex issue without focusing on simple drama and conflict.
No matter what the issue or the law being discussed, these same tea baggers will come out with YouTube and Fox News clips with the same anti-Obama message and signs.
It is the responsibility of the media to understand this and call it out.
]]>These are people that are not used to being in this position. Since 1980, the conservative movement has either owned the Congress or the WH or both, but never completely out of power like now.
They have watched liberals villify their heroes like Bush & Palin and are getting their revenge.
And most appropriate & important for the health care "debate" and "protests": polls show that most people want health care reform. They do not like Obama's handling of it very much and they do not want to add to the budget deficit. But there are 50M uninsured and people do see the need for change.
They are loud & obnoxious because they are now the minority, do not know how to act in this role and are being fed lies about govt takeover, socialism, euthenasia, nazis, so on and so on.
The fact of being in the minority is the pertinent point and I, for one, have a deep sense of sorrow and sympathy for these people. They must feel very, very scared and lonely right now with a president that does not chest-thump about patriotism, Christianity and eliminating taxes every day ...
]]>http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0609/Obama_calls_on_HuffPost_for_Iran_question.html
Read that blog posting above from Politico's Michael Calderone if you enjoy getting a good old fashioned belly laugh at the expense of our country's "media elite".
Read about how offended they are that the president dare to break protocol and ask a question of a HuffPo blogger between the AP & Reuters. Oh, I can hardly even think about the horror!
So they try to make this into a story to slam Obama. They "conspired" to ask a question about Iran! And from Nico Pitney, of all people!
Riiiiight ... And what else would the U.S.'s leading blogger about Iran ask about????
This is too funny ... or is too sad, that is, the state of our country's self-indulgent media?
]]>Prodded on by super-sensitive drama queen Sarah Palin, conservatives are gunning for Dave Letterman.
That's right. They'll defend their leading cheerleader, Rush Limbaugh, oracle of conservative ideals.
And whenever he make mysognistic comments or hateful rhetoric (basically, any day of the week), then he is excused as being an "entertainer".
But when the jokes are pointed at them ... UH-OH! They can't take a joke!
John McCain is not out defending his buddy Dave and, as well, where were the right-wing joke police when Lettermen had a segment about Sonia Sotamayor where he played on Latino stereotypes?
Ohh.... right ... the faux outrage is ALWAYS with a political purpose for Republicans ...
]]>Guess what ... it took less than 5 months for a Dem to be in office for the righ-wing lunatic fringe to strike.
Will McCain and McConnell now admit that they were wrong and DHS was correct in assessing these groups as dangerous, incited by hate radio and ready to strike?
]]>This single paragraph from the NYT article that DNI Blair wrote in a PRIVATE INTERNAL MEMO is the main story behind this:
"Admiral Blair's private memo was provided by a critic of Mr. Obama's policy. His assessment could bolster Bush administration veterans who argue that the interrogations were an important tool in the battle against al Qaeda."
Obama and Emanuel better wise up to this. The DHS leak last week about the right-wing extremists was leaked most probably by a Bush burrowed employee, who sent it to a right-wing blogger.
]]>And it has shown a glaring weakness in our incredibly uneducated mainstream media: they do not understand economics and budgets.
Take a look at this. This is a video from today's WH press conference that the AP, Tapper and Drudge are flogging today. Also be sure to take note of the AP reporter's snark: she asks a question about $100M in across the board dept cost savings as miniscule compared to the $1.3T deficit. Of course, Gibbs was laughing at her ridiculous question, not the deficit. But, hey, that was AWESOME gotcha "journalism" at its best!
They are very, very proud of it. Tapper is holding up on his blog as another example of how he is looking out for the people with his own brand of micro-level statement-parsing GOTCHA journalism.
The problem here is that budgets and basic economics are outside of the realm of understanding of Jake and the AP reporter. Teleprompters, handshakes, POTUS dog and bowing? No problem. The MSM has that covered.
So what is the big problem here? What Obama has done has across each dept for across the board cuts in COSTS. He's asking for short-term 90 day $100M in savings to be identified. These are operational and expense savings, not long-term capital INVESTMENTS that have return on those investments.
When you write a budget, you do not enforce limits in expense by cutting capital investments!! This is budgeting 101. You would think the press would have to have this sort of basic comprehension before even being allowed into the press room and to be allowed to ask a question of the WH.
Now, have a look here. This kind of drive-by shooting journalism earns you a headline link from Matt Drudge. Congrats, AP! But while you demean yourself by snarking at $100M in cost savings you have forgotten, once again, basics of budgets: there is no valid or comprehensible comparison of operational costs vs. a 5 or 10 year budget PLAN. Fox News picked up on this story and all flogged that $100M is 1/35,000 of the overall budget plan. Way to go, Einsteins!
This is embarrasing. But when you get noticed by Fox News & Drudge, then you will become the company you keep.
]]>NBC & CNS are making hey with the fact that the WH asked for their own backdrop instead of the crucifix at Georgetown during Obama's speech.
This is the coverage today: did the WH cover up Jesus??
Good grief. Everyone wants to be Matt Drudge!
Whatever happened to actually covering DETAILED ANALYSIS of the actual CONTENT of the president's speech?
I am so sick of this inane coverage of useless gossip and TMZ-style reporting of teleprompters, GOP off-the-charts quotes and Drudge-style misrepresentations of facts.
There was more in-depth research on Bo the new president's dog than the truth behind the stimulus, budget or Gitmo! It's all GOP talking points and lazy reporting EVERYWHERE!
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