Will the press ever turn on Obama…
…the way much of it has now turned on Weiner? That’s the question asked by a commenter at this post about The New Yorker’s new cover mocking Weiner.
My answer, in a nutshell, is no.
After all, there is no real cost to turning on Weiner. The election is not a national event. No one seemed to like Weiner all that much to begin with; perhaps the only people getting thrills up the leg about him might have been a few of his sext partners. Weiner’s misbehavior was sexual and simple to conceptualize, and most especially it was not political in nature (except for the over-arching issue of lying). Those who supported Weiner earlier and excused his personal failings—once—could rest easy in knowing that had shown them to be personally magnanimous. They had given him another chance, he blew it, and now by turning on him they’re showing they have morals and standards. Win/win.
And besides, his offenses had nothing to do with politics or policy. Abandoning Weiner now threatens no particular political or theoretical belief system of his previous supporters, and helps them look righteous and even-handed. And it doesn’t hurt that his activities lend themselves quite easily to mockery; the double-entendres just keep coming (oops!).
Nor is there any racial angle with Weiner; he’s Jewish, and therefore not of a protected group.
Obama is very different. For him, the press has compromised every ideal it professes to have. His sins are not personal, they are political abuses of power, and the abuses of power are for the most part in furtherance of the agenda of the left. For supporters and press to turn on him now would mean a re-organization of their much more basic belief system and perhaps even their politics. Even worse than that, it could mean saying the right was right about Obama all the time. That would be most threatening of all.
No, the only way the liberal press would ever really turn on Obama would be for not being leftist enough—for joining the conservative enemy, as it were. And although there were moments of that with Obama’s policies on Guantanamo, drones, and NSA spying (all of which involved him appearing, in the eyes of liberals and the left, to be too much like Bush in fighting Islamic terrorism—even though Obama refused to call it that), the Obama-dike of the MSM held.
It’s hard to imagine anything else that could ever threaten it.
Other than personal advancement, the only reason for ideologues to ever throw another ideologue under the buss is when the ideology is threatened. Weiner, engaging in his tawdry behavior six months after his prior ‘fall from grace’ threatens the ideology. It threatens the ideology’s advancement by threatening Hillary, the left’s foremost Presidential candidate for 2016.
The ‘bar’ for Obama is stratospheric but if he managed it, they’d throw him under the bus with a vengeance. Just as there’s no honor among thieves, there’s no real loyalty among ideologues. Ideology demands all from its worshipers.
“For supporters and press to turn on him now would mean a re-organization of their much more basic belief system and perhaps even their politics. Even worse than that, it could mean saying the right was right about Obama all the time.”
I wish — oh how I wish — we-all could separate political leanings from those personalities who represent and implement those leanings.
Lefties ought to be able to criticize the incumbent and still remain committed to their leftie ideals; that can be a debate for another day/millennium. Righties ought to be able to criticize, say, Sarah Palin, and Libertarians ought to be able to criticize, say, Ron Paul — you get the idea.
But when it comes to assessing the results of implementing the ideas — such as the laughably named Affordable Care Act — there is so much invested in the ideology that plain results (ever-rising premiums, ever-more part time jobs) get spun out of control, even regardless of “the” or “a” personality involved. People’s very self-concepts (and sometimes livelihoods) get in the way.
Woe is us.
The media has been in the tank with the democrats for as long as I can remember. They are like Jonestown cultists and they will support Obama no matter what.
What if they found him in bed with a dead girl..or a live boy?
Maybe if Obama became a political “changer”?
OK, you can all stop laughing now.
“What if they found him in bed with a dead girl..or a live boy?”
A live boy, or even a live dog would not be a problem. A dead girl might turn off 2% of the tingle mob.
“For supporters and press to turn on him now would mean a re-organization of their much more basic belief system and perhaps even their politics.”
That is the crucial point, changing as you have noted, is a process that requires honest self-reflection. Most people on the left or right lack the fortitude question their basic beliefs.
They don’t?
Quite an apropos comparison. Jim Jones was a communist, and a HUGE hit with the San Francisco left. His “church” was graced by Nancy Pelosi, and more. I believe even soon-to-be-president Jimmy Carter stopped there.
He went to South America to build a theocratic state, true, but one where the official faith was Marxism.
After he murdered all his followers, it was necessary to erase his politics from the public consciousness. And so it was done. By many of the same reporters swilling Obama’s Flavor-Aid.
Let’s not let the day pass without noting that Weiner spoke at a small business forum on Dyckman Street.
Rob Crawford:
Please see my piece about Jonestown, including the influence of leftist thought and sympathies on the cult.
In the Seattle area, our journalists routinely protect Democratic politicians from criticism — if those politicians might face serious Republican opponents.
So, for example, they protect our senior senator, Patty Murray, but not the current gaggle of “progressives” — I would call most of them reactionaries — running for Seattle mayor.
This often results in some truly odd articles, columns, and editorials. The journalists will admit that mistakes were made — but never tell us exactly who made those mistakes.
The boy has a sham marriage — and is sexually starved.
The sexting is balance for his inner toddler.
The press will turn on Obama if they think it is a matter of self preservation (however they define it). Another incident of bugging a reporter would probably do it.
If you look at the unemployment and wealth destruction among blacks since Obama was elected which is largely ignored by blacks themselves you can see the commitment to a personality. Regardless of what is happening in the country at any point in time, Obama’s poll ratings barely move. The MSM are locked into the guy’s success. It’s hard to imagine a scenario which would cause a fall from grace.
Rick Caird:
I doubt it. They’d probably throw that reporter under the bus.
“First they came for John Doe, but I was not John Doe, so screw him.”
I don’t think the media realizes just how deeply they are hated by normal (non-leftist) Americans. I wouldn’t bat an eye if they were rounded up and executed by the regime.
If they think they will get sympathy and support, they are in for a very unpleasant surprise.
Will the press turn on O’bama? Maybe. But he will have to screw up even more epically, and on camera and in front of a large audience (to include a large party of news-ghouls) and in such a manner that arouses the ire of a large part of the body politic … at which the news media will decide that discretion is the better part of valorous news-creation, and if they don’t want to be hung out to dry next to him, maybe they’d just best post a mea-culpa such as did a local San Diego reporter did … utterly baffled as to how all of their tight little in-group knew of how awful Filthy Filner was, and yet they failed in their duty as news professionals to ever mention it. Over the course of 20 years they failed to mention it.
The wriggling to avoid blame for serving as the White House public affairs office will be strenuous and epic. Probably successful too, among the low-information voters. The rest of us will be a whole lot less understanding and forgiving.
Amusing speculation as to how far O’bama might have to go for the press to stop serving as presidential lapdogs here – from The Onion;
http://www.theonion.com/articles/media-having-trouble-finding-right-angle-on-obamas,2703/
It turned up on the first page of a google search for it, which may indicate the google may be sensing a certain bloom being subtracted from the rose.
Hey, that describes some of the polls that my home state of Massachusetts has sent to congress.(Obviously Kennedy is one, Gary Studds is the other.)
Rob Crawford, 4:56 pm, quoting M J R: “Righties ought to be able to criticize, say, Sarah Palin . . . ”
“They don’t?”
Some do.
But note that I wrote “Lefties ought to be able to criticize the incumbent . . . Righties ought to be able to criticize, say, Sarah Palin [etc.].” Righties ought to be able to, and some do.
And there actually are also lefties who do criticize the incumbent-in-chief, albeit often from the left.
My point was that those of us who are committed to this or that principle of governing need to be free to criticize the human exponent of that principle, recognizing that s/he is human and won’t represent that principle as I or you would (even if s/he *were* perfect).
And we need to be free to criticize the fallible person and “still remain committed to [our] ideals.” We can debate the ideals separately, *except* inasmuch as the person is embodying the logical outcome of implementing those ideals/principles.
Neo states “For supporters and press to turn on him now would mean a re-organization of their much more basic belief system and perhaps even their politics.”
There’s really nothing else besides politics in their basic belief system.
Consider Mr. Thrill himself, Chris Matthews: Just give us our marching orders.
We expect it now; we have become inured to media complicity. We are the majority. As soon as we really know that, things will change.
“We are the majority. As soon as we really know that, things will change.”
Long a glass is half full advocate, I am now a blood must flow pessimist. It will all have to come crashing down and the next war of independence will water the tree. Stay cocked and locked and ever vigilant.
I do not consider them as “press”. It’s been years since I stopped pretending they are someting they are not.
You only give them power by dignifying them with the term “press”.
They are mere shills and propagandists for Fascist/Marxist Liberalism. There is nothing good about them; nothing decent about them.
Far from dignified they are monsters of the same sort as Hermann Goring, Tokyo Rose, Pravda and every Tyrannical Press there has ever been.
There is not one person in the MSM who deserves anything more than contempt and derision.
“You only give them power by dignifying them with the term “press”.”
I prefer the terms whores and thieves to describe 99% in the MSM and inside the Beltway. F*em. They know not what sleeping giant they are nudging awake. It only takes 3% it defeat all their imagined police and federal alphabet soup zombies. When it all comes down to dust, burn their homes down to embers and ashes.
Mike Says:
July 30th, 2013 at 9:32 pm
They are as evil as any human being I can imagine. Their crimes against America are utterly unforgivable.
When the Civil War breaks out, may God have mercy on their souls, for I will have none.
“For supporters and press to turn on him now would mean a re-organization of their much more basic belief system and perhaps even their politics.”
We all know that the MSM has the highest regard for their profession and their colleagues (other than Fox, etc.), and yet they have sides with Obama over their own several times, with the AP and James Rosen subpoenas, and more surprisingly, putting their long-time hero Bob Woodward to pasture for daring to challenge Obama’s characterization of how the Sequester came to be.
Sgt. Mom…
Your link is inaccurate. The Wan has the blood of at LEAST four Americans on his hands — to include his own ambassadorial selection.
Fictive scandals can’t maintain the tempo of Mugabe on the Potomac.
A lot of the Left’s rhetoric about assault weapons were something I had no previous reference to, propaganda wise. Until I read the reports on WACO.
Then it all made sense. The Leftist obsession with “right wing nuts and militias”. The Leftist obsession with “assault rifles” and talking about how handguns won’t help you when the government brings tanks and apcs to your door. The Leftist Democrats did it! They know they did. They know how to beat assault rifles, by bring a Bigger Gun. Even Obama knows to bring a gun when his enemy brings a knife.
It also explains some of the Left’s pathological fear of Christians and how “fundamentalist” they are. But it’s not the actual theology or polices they abhor, since Islam has similar concepts about marriage and fate but they don’t dare mock Islam. It’s just the white Christians they hate and seek to destroy.
I’m sure Obama doesn’t treat Benghazi seriously because he saw Bill Clinton kill a lot more than that and nobody said much about it that did much of anything against the political career of the guy. Obama allowed 4 to die. Clinton ordered the termination of dozens, including various children, non Americans, and so forth using semi legal methods. I’m sure Obama, fully aware of the Left’s recent history, considers himself a saint, and a genius, bored, one at that.
Democrats always kept telling us that if they were in charge, 2003-2006 Iraq and Afghanistan would be some kind of golden age, with no violence and no “freedom fighting” insurgents around to kill school kids.
Something like that.
Now look at what’s going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, how many American casualties are being produced merely to entertain Obama and think about this. This is what they wanted all along. This is their “best Commander in Chief performance”. This is their goal and their utopia, their grace and their religious purity.
This is the Left.
Parts of the media will turn on Obama once it no longer matters. Probably not until after the 2014 midterms at the earliest, or after 2016. If a Republican wins in 2016, some knives will certainly come out, and some real investigative reporting might happen.
Reporters have always been excoriated. Here’s Gen. Sherman’s take on them:
“I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast.”
And here are some Thomas Jefferson gems. Man, he Really Hated Newspapermen.
1. “I deplore… the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them…
These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food.
As vehicles of information and a curb on our functionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief…
This has, in a great degree, been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit.” ~Thomas Jefferson to Walter Jones, 1814. ME 14:46
2. “The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors. He who reads nothing will still learn the great facts, and the details are all false.” ~Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell, 1807. ME 11:225
3. “As for what is not true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers.” Thomas Jefferson to Barnabas Bidwell, 1806. ME 11:118
4.”Advertisements… contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.” ~Thomas Jefferson to Nathaniel Macon, 1819. ME 15:179
5. “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.”
Very good Beverly but there’s something that makes it even worse.
In Jefferson’s day newspapers were frankly and openly partisan.
Today they pretend to be objective.
Jefferson had to start up his own propaganda newspaper mill, perhaps to counter that which he hated. Which is a perfectly object lesson on fighting propaganda wars. Can’t beat them? Join them, then beat them.
The world is really upside down when you can’t trust a fluffy little dog.
http://atlanta.cbslocal.com/2013/07/30/dog-eats-paralyzed-mans-testicle-as-he-sleeps/
Summary of the 21st century:
Men lose women, become paralyzed, seek other campionship but have balls eaten off by dogs. Media happily reports the demise of patriarchy.
It depends on how hapless, incompetent, and corrupt he reveals himself to be. As he devolves eventually there’s a point of no return he’ll pass where even the sycophantic press will leave him behind, even distance themselves from him, probably in favor of the next Dem presidential hopeful they want to cast as inevitable.
I remember in high school, many decades ago, in more innocent and less cynical times, studying Journalism and how to be a reporter. Studying about the who, what, why, how, and when of it, and being taught about the high ethics and duty of being a Reporter, about how a “Reporter” was supposed to try his best to tirelessly search out the truth– if possible in its entirely–and to report it fully, without fear or favor; an image of reporters as tough, honest, and unafraid reinforced by the movies of the day.
Obviously, those idealistic standards–if ever they were actually lived out in practice–are long gone and, with their crucial support and covering for Obama, today’s “Press” has–to a greater extent that I have ever observed before over these last, almost 70 years–betrayed its fundamental role in our country and society, and its duty to us as citizens.
Remember, the Founders saw the role of the Press as the crucial one in a Republic/Democracy, one of thoroughly and truthfully informing the people about what was going on throughout our country, in our economic, cultural, and political life, and in the world at large, so that citizens and voters could, in turn, make informed and wise decisions about policies and leaders.
In the case of Obama the vast majority of the members of the Press have very thoroughly violated each and every cannon of their supposed “profession,” very consciously electing, instead of actually finding the truth and reporting it, to create a false Reality, a “narrative,” an enormous, thoroughgoing, all encompassing “Big Lie” about Obama–his origins, history, family, activities and associates, about his “accomplishments,” inclinations, and attitudes, about his basic orientation and philosophy, about his statements, plans and policies and, once Obama was elected, about their effects.
At every turn they have lied, mislead, deliberately ignored, fabricated, covered up, and/or deliberately misinterpreted virtually every aspect of Obama & Co. and on the ground Reality in order to make and keep Obama a viable candidate, and to prop him up once elected.
So, they were and are the absolutely essential co-conspirators, without whom Obama could never have been elected and then reelected, co-conspirators without whom his policies would have been seen for the pernicious, country wrecking schemes they were, and his appointments for the hacks, ideologues, and ignoramuses they have turned out to be. By now, in the absence of their essential, continuing, 24/7 efforts–even if Obama had somehow been elected–public outrage and pressure would have forced Obama’s resignation, or he would have been Impeached.
So, would the “Press” turn on Obama?
I think not, for to do so would expose their role in his creation, making their role plain–I expect–even to some of the “low information voters” who seem to be the majority of his supporters. If the Press thoroughly discredits Obama they are, thereby, thoroughly discrediting themselves.
The “Press,” according to the polls, is suffering from ever falling confidence and belief in their reporting, and increasing numbers of people hold them in contempt and disdain but, my guess is that they are willing to take that punishment, and that they will, “stand by their man.”
Check out this article from today, analyzing how GDP results are being reported and interpreted, as an illustration of my thesis above about the Press and its fabricated “Reality” (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/07/31/Four-Things-the-media-arent-telling-you-about-the-GDP) .
The press is not a class. Similar to how the people are not just some state organized militia in the 2nd Amendment. The people are just the people, all of them combined even.
The press is thus anyone who has the ability to press words into paper, that can publish and distribute the written word. Which, given the internet, is beyond the super majority of the people now.
The press as a “class” status is used to limit people back in a day when not everyone could read or write. Thus they couldn’t publish much of anything either. If it is used now… perhaps that’s because as a class status, it still has some value to certain people.
Excellent beat ! I would like to apprentice at the same time
as you amend your site, how can i subscribe for a weblog website?
The account helped me a applicable deal. I had been tiny bit familiar of this your broadcast offered bright
transparent idea
Feel free to visit my web site – castle clash cheats hack tool