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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (72345)	6/11/2009 12:46:26 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

The MSM has made media malpractice an art form. And unlike Pravda under communism, they aren't being forced into it.

To: TimF who wrote (72345)	6/11/2009 1:20:01 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Even some in the media are getting nauseated Betsy's Page Phil Bronstein, no right-winger, is a bit fed up with the media's obsequious hero worship of The One. He begs the media to just "get a room." <<< You can't blame powerful people for wanting to play the press to peddle self-perpetuating mythology. But you can blame the press, already suffocating under a massive pile of blame, guilt, heavy debt and sinking fortunes, for being played. Some of the time, it seems we're even enthusiastically jumping into the pond without even being pushed. Is there an actual limit to the number of instances you can be the cover of Newsweek? >>> Actually, there is no limit to Newsweek's fawning - not when Newsweek editor Evan Thomas claims that Obama is "sort of God" in how he stands above the world rather than coming down on the side of the country he leads. Maybe that is what the media likes so much about him - he doesn't spout all that nasty patriotic rhetoric that makes liberals so uncomfortable. Peter Wehner notes this quote from Thomas's paean to Obama. <<< Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn’t felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task. We’re seen too often as the bad guys. And he — he has a very different job from — Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is “we are above that now.” We’re not just parochial, we’re not just chauvinistic, we’re not just provincial. >>> As Wehner notes, this is a rewriting of history. Those of us who remember the 1980s remember the liberal derision for what they considered Reagan'a jingoism and Hollywood-soaked patriotism. <<< A third important thing to take away from Thomas’s comments is why Obama is so beloved by some reporters and commentators. Reagan, Thomas says, was “all about America.” But Obama is “above that now.” He is “standing above the country” he was elected to represent. And in doing so, we’re not just “parochial, we’re not just chauvinistic, we’re not just provincial.” That is an extremely and probably unintentionally revealing set of comments by Mr. Thomas. For the president to speak on behalf of his nation as Reagan spoke up for America is viewed as unsophisticated, narrow-minded, and bigoted. Obama, in the eyes of his supporters, has transcended such things. According to the logic of Thomas, Obama deserves to be praised precisely because he does not, in the first instance, represent America. At his best, Obama is a “citizen of the world,” standing “above the country.” >>> Maybe liberals in the media adore a president who transcends his own country and finds as much to criticize in our nation's history as he does in the violence perpetrated in the Middle East, but I wonder how many average voters are looking for a leader who is not "of" this country, but "above" it. As Wehner notes, the media's love affair with Obama is practically beyond mocking. And even some members of the media like Phil Bronstein, editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, are getting a tad bit exasperated with their peers. betsyspage.blogspot.com