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Being Taken for a Ride,
and Loving It Part Four of Four By Dave Andrusko
John F. Harris and Jim VandeHei argue that the "media narrative" has changed remarkably in the three months since Democrats had "horrible mid-term elections," which many laid at the feet of Obama. Whereas "In early November, Barack Obama was one sad sack of a president--his agenda repudiated by midterm voters, his political judgment scorned by commentators, his future darkened by a growing belief he might be a one-time president," now in early February, Harris and VandeHei tell us, Obama is supposedly "master of the moment--his polls on the upswing, his political dexterity applauded by pundits, his status as Washington's dominant figure unchallenged even by Republicans." Assuming for the moment any of this true--and the first part is and most of the second part is not--why? Because, we're told, reporters love "deal-cutters" for cutting through what the Mainstream Media [MSM] believes "smacks of ideological zealotry" and "excessive partisanship," Harris and Vanderhei observe. "Governance, in the Washington media's ideal, should be a tidier and more rational process than it is." You have to shake your head. Do they actually believe that Obama has "take[n] a fast lane to the middle of the road?" Hard to know, but the point of the story is that it doesn't matter. Obama has "used" the MSM to reshape his presidency. The remainder of the story is what reportorial buttons Obama is pushing in order warrant a spate of gushy press coverage, loaded with lots of comparisons to John Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan, no less. Suffice it to say it's all hooey but the kind of style over substance offensive that convinces reporters who cover politics that Obama is "ideologically [a] centrist " who is "willing to profess devotion to Washington's oft-honored, rarely practiced civic religion of bipartisanship." (This includes an anything-but-sophisticated campaign to convince reporters that he is learning from and is in the mold of Clinton and Reagan. Of the latter, Harris and Vanderhei write "Obama was seen carrying a copy of Lou Cannon's Reagan biography under his arm on vacation. And his aides have happily played along with stories drawing links between the two--despite ocean-wide differences in ideology, temperament, intellectual habits, personal history and rhetorical style.") This supposed media preference for the "middle"--aka a "centrist bias"--is important for us to keep in mind as we go forward. While they will occasionally gently hit Obama upside the head, most MSM reporters obviously like Obama and, even more perhaps, the "comeback story" where, like Phoenix, Obama rises from the ashes of November 2. So no matter how middle-of-the-road our proposals are--cleansing ObamaCare of abortion and rationing components, for example--as soon as Obama insists that it already is free of both, the press will largely parrot the line that our efforts are an example of "ideological zealotry" and "excessive partisanship," to borrow from Harris and VanderHei. And that is Obama's genius (or exceedingly good luck)--for running a government that is anything but middle-of-the-road but being credited for being a "centrist." We just have to patiently educate the public about the truth: they are with us, not Barack Obama. Please send your comments to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha. |
The
headline in POLITICO.com this morning is "How Obama plays media
like a fiddle." It is a classic inside-the-beltway narrative in
which two reporters ostensibly mildly chide fellow reporters for
being such dupes at the same time they obviously admire the
skill of pro-abortion President Obama for putting one over on
them. The headline could have been, "Dupe me again, I love it!"