Posted by
Always To The Right on Tuesday, October 27, 2009 6:12:47 PM
Perhaps the American media has begun to awaken from their self-imposed trance over the election of Barack Obama. Politico’s Josh Gerstein
figures that moment cannot come too soon, although he also notes that
they have a great deal of self-interest in staying asleep. He asks
whether a series of actions by George Bush would have received the
collective yawn they got from the media when Obama took them, or a
feeding frenzy by journalists instead
Some of these we can answer. When the Bush administration —
specifically VP [Richard] Cheney — met with energy producers in confidential
advisory groups to promulgate their energy policy, both the media and
the Democrats went ballistic. In fact, the latter sued to get the
names of the attendees made public despite the fact that the
administration is ultimately responsible for their policies.
Some of them require more speculation. For instance, George Bush
never tried freezing out a network or publicly labeling it as an
illegitimate news organization. Had he done so, perhaps with MS-NBC,
the rest of the media industry would have risen in righteous
indignation to demand an end to it. In the present case, the broadcast
nets did finally push back against the White House, but only in one
specific instance, and for the most part have focused on whether Obama
and his team are right about their assessment of Fox than in the
chilling impact of having a President demand that other journalists
ignore Fox.
Had Bush snubbed the Dalai Lama, the media would have ripped him for
deprioritizing human rights and ignoring a man of peace. That would
have been an overreaction; the media probably got it more right than not with Obama’s postponement of their meeting, but it’s doubtful they would have given Bush that benefit of the doubt.
In other words, the press has a story line that they have to defend.
If Obama gets exposed as a flop, and worse as a typical Chicago pol,
then it makes their failure to properly vet Obama during the primaries
that much more clear. In a sense, they created Obama, and his collapse
would be their collapse as well.