Barack Obama has been President for three months -- strike that -- Barack Obama will become President in 8 days and the Beltway Press Corps has already declared his administration in trouble. Actually, the Pundits advise that the Democrats have already turned him into Jimmy Carter. Buckle up friends, this is going to be a very bumpy ride.
Imagine my "surprise" when the "National Politico Enquirer" suggested this morning that the New York Times is warning of Obama's one-term presidency. The title of their article was "NYT Reporter Warns of One-Term Obama."
The article quotes the august Jeff Zeleny and the less august Peter Baker:
If his stimulus plan "doesn’t work out, he may very well be a one-term president," said Jeff Zeleny, who covered Obama’s campaign. "It’s hard to imagine that he could be reelected if the economy’s in the exact same position four years from now."
"A lot of the things he said on the campaign trail you can now dispense with," said correspondent Peter Baker. "For the moment he has to focus on the economy."
Apparently, the New York Times is now in the business of reporting the outcome of elections four years in advance. They did so well in 2005 predicting that Hillary Clinton would be the inevitable Democratic nominee and have decided to wade into that water again. I must be honest and say that once I read this, I felt a strange sense of exhiliration. The traditional media doesn't get it and it never will.
Peter Baker fairly drips with contempt as he says at a panel convened on Saturday:
And for all of his campaign trail talk about collective sacrifice, Baker observed, Obama has seemed reluctant to call for austerity in a challenging economic moment.
"He hasn’t asked anybody for sacrifice," Baker said. "His whole economic package is about giving things to people."
Well Mr. Baker, those of us who are unemployed and rely on Medicaid for health insurance, sure as hell don't see an extension of those benefits as a "giveaway" but as a matter of social justice.... What a low-rent, obnoxious, snobby, comment on his part!! What the "F" is Peter Baker giving up for the country?
Then at the end of the article, we get to the heart of the matter.
Assistant managing editor Rick Berke, who moderated the panel, noted that Obama had already departed from Bush’s precedent in one important respect: He hasn’t sat for a post-election interview with the Times.
"When the current president was elected, one of the first things he did was sit down with The New York Times and a battery of reporters," Berke said. "This president has not sat down with our New York Times press corps in a very long time, as even Bush did."
So it turns out that the Times is pissed off that Barack Obama hasn't yet come by the kiss their rings. As such, it is clear that he doomed to failure as a one-term President.
Joe Klein of Time Magazine struck the right note yesterday in his blog post on Swampland. He points out that some in the media (who is must be said are rooting for Obama's failure) have taken to treating EVERYTHING as a "CRISIS" for the still-not-in office Obama administration.
You've got to wonder what planet Jennifer Rubin is living on. These terrible troubles that she describes as buffeting Obama seem pretty small potatoes to me. This is irresponsible press strategy 101: Anytime anyone raises an objection--Dianne Feinstein on Leon Panetta's CIA appointment--it is described as a "crisis". (Some crisis: Feinstein was supporting Panetta within 24 hours.) Rubin is a right-wing propagandist, so she has a stake in Obama's failure, but I've seen plenty of similar behavior among more mainstream journalists desperate to gin up a story. Remember when the Blagojevich scandal was the first "crisis" of his transition? For those of us who lived through Bill Clinton's truly disastrous transition, Obama's has been remarkably well run. (I suspect that Bill Richardson's perfidy during the vetting process won't even be a footnote in history.)
I completely agree with Klein here. The traditional media is DESPERATE for ANY OBAMA news. They are running features on the dog, clothes, memorabilia, the grandmother moving in... ANYTHING OBAMA! It obviously brings them ratings. They are also DESPERATE to "create" fake controversy. I find this behavior REPREHENSIBLE and plain STUPID.
Klein goes on to write:
There will be crises ahead, real ones. Obama will screw up from time to time; no doubt, he'll screw up big time on something or other. I can't think of a President who didn't. (This in contrast to George W. Bush who screwed up big time on practically everything.) But he hasn't made any telling mistakes yet. Indeed, Obama's palliative response to the mild skepticism of a few legislators this week regarding the stimulus package seems an excellent indicator that he knows how the sausage-making will work. A fearless prediction: Obama will get his massive stimulus through Congress within a month or so. Another fearless prediction: The Pajamas Media brigades, led by Ms. Rubin, will locate an Obama crisis every three days in perpetuity. One hopes that cooler media heads will prevail. Given the enormous problems facing the country, it's time for people on my side of the notepad to focus on the steak, not the sizzle.
Klein hopes that "cooler" media heads will prevail. I say... DON'T COUNT ON IT! I think that it is an important point that ALL OF US in this country had better focus on the substance rather than on the rhetoric and the style of governing. I for one am GLAD that Senators are pushing back on the stimulus package. I know that Barack doesn't mind this as long as it comes with CONSTRUCTIVE suggestions for improvement and happens in a timely fashion. The press should STFU and report on actual NEWS.
If hyterical press mavens like David Broder continue writing columns titled "An Early Drubbing for Obama," then they risk losing credibility. Oh wait, Broder and his brethren in the Washington Elite Press and Pundit class HAVE NO GODDAMN CREDIBILITY. Read his column here and weep:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
One just has to laugh at this silliness and hope that Axelrod, Jarrett, Rouse, et. al. don't get consumed by the bubble. I'll say a prayer on their behalf.