Two of the biggies at Politico have a lead article today, Obama, the puppet master (emphasis mine):
President Barack Obama is a master at limiting, shaping and manipulating media coverage of himself and his White House.
Not for the reason that conservatives suspect: namely, that a liberal press willingly and eagerly allows itself to get manipulated. Instead, the mastery mostly flows from a White House that has taken old tricks for shaping coverage (staged leaks, friendly interviews) and put them on steroids using new ones (social media, content creation, precision targeting). And it’s an equal opportunity strategy: Media across the ideological spectrum are left scrambling for access.
I’m calling nonsense to this.
It certainly is true that Obama is good at manipulating the media, but I’m taking Obama’s side on this one. The media has proven itself willing subjects, with tingles and oohs and ahhs running wild since before Obama was elected the first time.
Obama didn’t force the media to run wild for days against Romney over Benghazi while covering up the cover up. Obama didn’t force the media to collude at Romney’s Benghazi press conference to make sure an appropriate gotcha question was asked. Obama didn’t force the media to proclaim Paul Ryan a liar, or to perpetuate the falsehood that Republicans are racist. Obama didn’t force Politico to turn practically its entire home page over to going after Herman Cain.
Don’t blame Obama for your own failings.
Look in the mirror and ask why you are such a bunch of hypocritical sycophants who abandoned all pretense of journalistic integrity in order to get Obama elected twice.
Yes, you are puppets. At least you got that right.
Update: Via SoccerDad —
Leg-humping poodles express ‘frustration’ over lack of access to leg thehill.com/blogs/blog-bri…
— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) February 19, 2013
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
“Not for the reason that conservatives suspect: namely, that a liberal press willingly and eagerly allows itself to get manipulated.”
Oh, nooooo… Heaven fore-fend!!! Why, THAT could NEVER be.
“Media across the ideological spectrum are left scrambling for access.”
Really? I’ve noticed that Steve Croft and Brian Williams have no problem with “access” to apply their lips to the Presidential rump.
What a load.
Darn it! I was gonna say “What a load!” and you beat me to it! 🙂
I’ll just second that it’s a big stinking crock that’s been steaming all day!
What a bunch of “rubes”
Note to POLITICO: the “Jedi Mind Trick” only works on the “weak-minded”
Obama played them so well that even when they are complaining about being played, they are being played.
I have no patience for the inept
Old media have become the poprazzi – political paparazzi & Obama is our Celebrity President.
I say we go with this. Swooning reporters just like girls screaming in the stands for the Beatles.
Polls that I see suggest people like and voted for Obama but dislike his policies.
Obama thinks he can rule by fiat but interestingly, he fails to realize that the low-information voter just want a celebrity they can see and hear very little from.
Conservatives need to change our strategy and work with the celeb-centric world we live in – by keeping Obama busy with his tv spots/interviews, and vacations – conservative republicans can control the narrative.
I’m still thinking through this change in strategy. Will post something more at Hollywood Gurkha.
So just how then this our esteemed media miss this …
The CBO now estimates that the subsidies, which are to be offered through exchanges beginning in 2014, will cost 29 percent more than the CBO initially projected in 2010. The projected 10-year cost has increased by $233 billion.
The Affordable Care Act becomes the Unaffordable Care Act and Obama makes them ignore it completely.
The MSM is so pathetic. Not only are they fawning lapdogs, but now they want forgiveness.
Whatever happened to the Herman Cain sexual harassment allegations? Gloria got another 15 minutes of fame, then crept back into the shadows, I guess…
Smells like the MainStreamMonkeys are beginning to detect a massive backlash – especially against the backdrop of people realizing that they were deliberately lied to about Obamacare – and are trying to cover their tails.
Mother Jones: Obama, DC Press Corps Locked in Mutual Loathing Pact
I’m not into conspiracies, but this smells like a MSM is running a “peace offensive”
Sounds a bit like a stalker blaming his victim.
Gosh, so they were mesmerized into verbatim reporting of the blatant BS that poured from The One’s mouth. Seriously, the guy lies like it’s going out of style and not a single person challenges him on it.
Frozen out on the Reggie/Tiger weekend – outrage! Frozen out on the Benghazi terror attack – What difference does it make!
No mention of the obvious attempt to isolate and freeze FOX News (from the beginning of the first term) for the obvious reason that FOX is not “liberal press”!
“Not for the reason that conservatives suspect: namely, that a liberal press willingly and eagerly allows itself to get manipulated.”
You’re as pure as the driven snow. Now go get that leg.
And word out now, also from Politico, that David Axelrod will join NBC. Wow, wonder how tough a decision that was? Tee-hee.
The long-time strategist for President Obama and former White House senior adviser is joining NBC News and MSNBC as a “senior political analyst,” the networks said Tuesday.
Axelrod “will contribute frequently across all broadcasts and platforms of both networks,” said the announcement.
This basically means Axelrod can’t appear on competing networks.
They need to remove the words “will join” and change them to “officially joined”.
Professor, you nailed it — but maybe not hard enough. This isssue – below – is perhaps one of the most important issues in our history:
Look in the mirror and ask why you are such a bunch of hypocritical sycophants who abandoned all pretense of journalistic integrity in order to get Obama elected twice.
When the 4th estate abdicates its responsibility, democracy is imperiled. When the media creates and caters to the “low information” DEM voter, the entire nation is damaged.
Our nation was built on the premise that the media would investigate, expose and agite — fairly. It was NOT built on the idea that the Media would be totally partisan toward one side and gleefully applying a double standard based on ideology.
The Politico article is good news in a way – it shows that the MSM is aware of their bias, that it is harmful to their credibility, and that they need to develop excuses for it. I suggest they blame George Bush.
Having detected the wispy strings leading upward from their assorted appendages to the puppet master above, all Politico articles will now be free of bias, of course.
it shows that the MSM is aware of their bias, that it is harmful to their credibility
Do you honestly think the MSM cares about bias and credbility?
C’mon now.
What credibility?
And, of course, the media is aware of their bias. Journolist still exists on some other plane. They coordinate their stories.
Get outside our own bubble – half the country thinks MSNBC, CNN, NBC, et al, are balanced and fair and afford them credibility.
The Politico article shows that this firewall is now being breached.
I think they fear where this is going! Obama gets more and more bold and they become more and more ashamed of themselves! Libs are admitting their double standard now concerning the droning of citizens! “Hey, we trust our guy!”
How far will this go?
Perspective – they think they’re ‘largely’ balanced, you see.
Oh the heartbreak when the One no longer throws a bone in your direction.
Maybe now Politico will finally get a taste of what it’s been dishing out: rube-barbs.
Can you hear it??? Somewhere… Out there… The world’s tiniest violin is playing…!
Your point, of course, is valid. What is frightening, though, is that the MSM has played along with the Democrat Party’s shtick to delegitimize the opposing party at every turn. So low information voters disregard the opposition party out of hand because of the caricature of it created by the Democrat Party and MSM. The lack of respect and legitimacy for the opposition created by the MSM and the Democrat Party makes it difficult for the opposition party to hold the majority party accountable and in check. And now the MSM is complaining that it can’t hold the White House accountable, either. So we have the dangerous situation where the president is not held accountable by either the opposition or the MSM. The result is the imperial presidency, or as Michale Barone termed it after the administration ignored bankruptcy law to screw senior secured creditors and pay off his UAW constituents, “Gangster Government”.
When Obama says “we can’t wait” about every single agenda item on the liberal wish list, he means he intends to bypass Congress. Take for example, his “recess” appointments to the NLRB. The court unanimously struck them down because the court said Obama can’t just unilaterally decide when the Senate is in recess. It’s a violation of separation of powers. In a lawful society, the NLRB head would recognize the court’s decision. Instead, they issued a statement saying the decision didn’t really matter. They were going to keep operating as usual. That’s lawlessness in the Executive Branch.
They ignore laws requiring budgets be submitted by certain dates. They have openly stated they will not follow DOMA. They created the Dream Act via executive fiat. Obama told defense contractors to ignore the WARN Act, and if they are penalized for doing so, Obama will use taxpayer money to pay their penalties. The HHS is asserting the federal government can create health insurance exchanges in states that refuse to set them up, even though the authority for HHS to do so is not found in Obamacare. An unchecked executive branch runs amok and nobody cares. The only thing a handful of liberals (and even fewer conservatives) care about is Obama using drones to assassinate American citizens when Obama secretly decides those people are terrorists.
Gangster Government is the predictable result when the MSM fails it’s basic Fourth Estate responsibility and becomes partisan activists.
I no longer expect the MSM to pay any attention to Obama’s lawlessness, but it infuriates me that Congress takes the same “so what?” attitude.
Welfare benefits for illegal aliens and recent immigrants is another area where Obama is deliberately and openly violating federal law. Jeff Sessions sent the administration a letter asking how many visa applications have been denied on the basis that the applicant could become a public charge. After months of stalling, the administration finally answered the question: zero.
Immigrants are not supposed to be admitted to the U.S. unless they can show that they will be self-supporting, but Obama is blatantly refusing to enforce federal law. What’s worse, he is using taxpayer money to fund programs that help new immigrants, and illegal aliens, sign up for food stamps and many other types of taxpayer-funded welfare assistance.
At a time when our nation is sixteen trillion dollars in debt and running yearly deficits in excess of a trillion dollars, Obama is blatantly violating federal law and spending billions of dollars on welfare benefits for foreigners. It is a clear violation of his oath of office, and yet Congress does nothing to stop it or hold him accountable for it in any way.
“I’m calling nonsense to this.” AMEN, Professor, but sometimes you are WAY TOO POLITE.(-:
2-recent examples of MSM-Lapdog Alleged Newsmen humping the scrawny legs of The Boy King:Steve Kroft’s drooling, insipid, soft-worshipful CBS/60-Minutes faux interview of The Anointed One and the Hideous Hillary. How about David Gregory’s taking the Oval Office Side in his rendition of John McCain on Meet the Alleged Press Mouthpieces on last Sunday morning re-Benghazi???
“too polite” — that was the redraft, you should have seen the draft.
You should “Leak” the draft, then deny anything and everything within. You have my e-mail address.
I’m with Quicksilver..! You’ve got my e-addresss too, Professor!
8:00 p.m. Channel 4 NBC Disney’s Wonderful World of Colorful Journalism
Tonight in Tomorrowland, Politico’s Jim Vandehei and Mike Allen pine for a mythical unbiased past and Sing Their Favorite Tunes!!
I’d rather trust the cartoons from Disney Junior than anything that comes from Politico or the MSM. Go figure.
Pure conjecture follows:
The MSM is looking to 2016. They know that running on Obama’s record won’t play well. They know that Hillary! already blew one “inevitable” election in 2008. They know that sooner or later the Republicans may nominate somebody competent.
So they create carefully modulated reservations, not too strong or too weak, about Obama as an individual, not about his policies except to say they weren’t radical enough. This paves the way for a candidate like Warren.
O’bammy wouldn’t manipulate the media IF he couldn’t.
But he can and when he does, they whine like little girls who have just wet their panties.
Sounds like a justified circle of confusion to me…
Wouldn’t it be great if FOX replaced “Geraldo at Large” with “Jacobson at Large”?
Yeah, I’m a dreamer:)
Mrs. H calls that FOX show “Geraldo At A Loss”.
The MSM has abandoned their 4th Estate role. Considering they are fellow travelers in what is truly a fascist movement, this makes perfect sense.
So don’t expect the MSM to react to any criticism, because that ship has sailed: they are under a completely new mandate.
It’s our job to fight them as underhandedly as they fight us. Our other important job is to fire the corrupt and incompetent GOP political leadership — or simply bypass them. Starve them — give donations to the Tea Party or the NRA instead.
In other words the totally corrupt, leftist-biased MSM is just a VICTIM of OBOZO. Under this regimes policy, they are now entitled to unlimited amounts of OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY in compensation.
I say again, the Politico article makes a grand admission – that the MSM is, in fact, biased. Of course, they blame it on external agency, Obama’s magical magicalness, but the admission is the important thing.
We ought to see this as a major victory for the countermedia, Legal Insurrection being a big part of it.
Watch what happens now, as the countermedia dissects and trashes this Politico you-a culpa for the nonsense it is. The admission cannot be retracted – now we make them come up with a better reason for the bias they now admit to.
Victories are far and few between these days – ENJOY THEM.
“Far and few between”? Try English, ya moron.
Aw, bite me, self.
Tick-tock, or tock-tick…
True either way…!!!
Reader comments for the Politburo article now over 2100 and climbing fast – and the great majority of them are negative. Even their own readership is not buying it.
[…] Funny they’re just noticing this now? Where were they the past four years? Oh yeah, they were doing Obama’s bidding, as William Jacobson pointed out. […]
Shenanigans!
Now the lapdog media is acting as though they have been stood up by their prom date. Did no one tell them that no one buys the cow when the milk is free.
Well, if the affair is over I just hope the MSM used protection.
[…] » Politico tries to expunge media bias by playing victim of Obama manipulation – Le&midd… […]
Axelrod’s abandoning (as all rats eventually do) of Barry’s White House tells us several things:
(1) Axelrod is a very smart, if totally unscrupulous person. So he is cashing in at the peak of his (and the WH’s) power.
(2) That leaves Valerie Jarrett as the de facto President (Barry’s been reduced to advanceman-in-chief). She is more ideological than Alexrod (who’s basically in it for the money). This should lead to even more extreme, off-putting policies by Barry’s gang.
(3) With luck, this perhaps may mean that there are scandals in the offing, which Axelrod wants to distance himself from. First possibility: the WH leaks of classified information. Second: the Fast and Furious Brothers (aka Barry and Eric). Third: the albatross of Benghazi.
Good times ahead! Oh, and Axelrod: you and NBC have managed to further sully each other’s reputations. Something which I would have thought was impossible.
Members of the media are on a mission. They are doing exactly what was planned sixty years ago…the overthrow of this great country. The communists have slowing infiltrated just about everything in this country…up to and including the republican party. They don’t care if the media completely goes down the tube…it is irrelevant now and will be more so in the future. The fourth estate will be made up of government flunkies…it is already. They will fall on their swords to put forth their communist agenda and/or will spew their lies with their last breaths. Obama’s agenda is the same as theirs and he is doing everything he can to tear down this country. Too bad the low information voter won’t know about all this until it is too late and even then won’t realize how this all happened.
[…] The White House has merely exploited the unabashed fandom of the journalistic elite, which is so overwhelmingly liberal that they were only too happy for the opportunity to publish daily valentines to their presidential heartthrob. Predictably, this posture of eager sycophancy has not earned reporters the respect of those they flatter, and so White House correspondents — journalists at the very peak of professional prestige — are shocked to find themselves treated like rent-boys by the administration’s P.R. machinery. William Jacobson at Legal Insurrection is unsympathetic: […]
[…] I love this, it’s my favor…well, it’s one of those “always funny” […]