’)
When the Washington Post writes stories like this (“An Imperiled Agenda: Anger Over Firm Depletes Obama’s Political Capital”), coming on the heels of them publishing a clearly fraudulent column by George Will, a survey of Washington opinion spanning the right to far-right, and the ongoing advocacy on their part in favor of the Iraq War, I wonder if they too deserve the fate of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and the Rocky Mountain News. Let’s not kid ourselves, it ain’t like the Washington Post is thriving.
President Obama’s apparent inability to block executive bonuses at insurance giant AIG has dealt a sharp blow to his young administration and is threatening to derail both public and congressional support for his ambitious political agenda.
Now, this story is a great example of DC establishment journalism and why the mainstream press is regularly disbelieved or taken with a grain of salt, especially by the left. Nowhere, not a single place, in the entire article does the venerable Washington Post cite any data quantifying what they characterize as a “blow” to President Obama. In fact, the entire enterprise sounds as if it could be sketched from a Boehner-Cantor-Limbaugh cocktail party. Nowhere, not a single time, does the article even quote someone in the Democratic or Republican parties taking President Obama to task over the AIG issue (at best it cites Sen. Dodd saying that the entire enterprise is bad, something the President made clear he agreed with). Nor are any independent voices or watchdogs cited. Instead, the article simply states that the President’s agenda is threatened by derailment. It just asserts this, as easily as it could have asserted that the Lincoln Memorial was constructed of Jello.
It just… says.
The entire article is 897 words, but it gives a paltry 37 to the President’s clear and direct statements addressing the issue at hand. And the Post commits this act of cowardice in the hinterlands of paragraph 5.
Now, at the same time The Washington Post wrote this story sans any actual evidence to back up the central assertion of the story comes some data in the form of polls.
From Pew, where the President dropped a few points in overall approval to 59% (Oh by the way, this is supposed to also be catastrophic according to the right. Yes, the same members of the right who would have danced in the streets if Bush had cracked 30% for the last three years of his presidency.) comes this on the economy:
Obama generally receives favorable marks for doing as much as he can to try to fix the economy. Six-in-ten express this view, which is substantially greater than the percentages saying that about George W. Bush in January 2002 (48%) or George H.W. Bush a decade earlier (21% in March 1992). For the most part, the public says that Obama’s economic policies have had no effect on the economic situation so far (64%), with much smaller proportions saying his policies have made economic conditions worse (15%) or better (14%).
Also in this poll congressional Republicans dropped to a 28% approval, compared to a 47% approval for their Democratic counterparts. This did not make A1 of the Post like the story without data did.
CNN’s poll also came out yesterday.
Obama’s job approval rating stands at 64 percent in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Monday. That rating is down 3 percentage points from mid-February.
When asked about the economy, 59 percent of respondents approve of how Obama’s performing, with 40 percent disapproving.
A lot of people, especially on the left, have done some hand-wringing about the state of newspapers now that so many of them are gasping for air and dying. While I feel badly for the people affected, stories like this make it hard to give a damn about an industry so unconcerned about it’s core mission: Collecting and investigating information and presenting it to the public. The news media, and newspapers in particular have given up on this core mission.
I’ve got nothing against an entertaining and lively newspaper, and even when my guy is the subject I’d rather they get to the heart of a matter if the alternative is dreck like this that is simply hyperbole, garment-rending, and whining in search of a Drudge link or a few hours of hashing out on Fox News.
The honeymoon is over. But not for President Obama. It’s between the mainstream media and the audience whose intelligence it abuses with alarming frequency.
If 64% positive is Honeymoon over, then Obama is going to have an amazing 8 years as president.
Great job Oliver, one of your best columns yet!!
Broderites being Broderites
Southern Strategy: Just like ….. nah… too easy.
Shorter Oliver: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
It’s the Goldberg Theorem.: bad news is bad for Democrats, good news is good for Republicans.
I think it’s at least partially like Alterman says: The conservatives haved gamed the refs for so long on the whole ‘librul media’ nonsense that they’re all terrified to appear liberal, so they overshoot in the other direction a lot of the time.
OK, I read the WaPo story. Very strange stuff. The point of the story is: the AIG bonuses threaten Mr. Obama’s other legislative initiatives.
You’re right, OW. They didn’t provide so much as an atom of support for the story’s central claim.
“Liberal” media, huh?
“…stories like this make it hard to give a damn about an industry so unconcerned about it
Wow! Most of my post disappeared!
I said the news media, especially newspapers, are dying off because liberal bloggers have exposed the fact that they’ve abandoned their core mission.
Bloggers have memories. Unlike say, David Gregory or Mr. Broder. Bloggers expose the fradulent stories like those of George Will recently and Judy Miller during the Iraq conflict.
The public has seen the lies exposed and have awakened to the fact that the corporate media supports corporate interests–not ours.
The NYT and WaPo are dying. It’s their own fault.
How long till they blame Bill Clinton?
Two Weeks Ago: White House Says It’s Confident It Knows What Happened to Previous AIG Billions
Apparently not so confident then, Mr. Gibbs. Now the White House is outrageously outraged.
Amateur Hour, every single day.
matt621 says: “Southern Strategy: Just like ….. nah… too easy.”
When Bush was at 64% approval, do you think people were saying the honeymoon was over?
Dennis the Bigot: “Amateur Hour, every single day.”
Hey Dennis…
What are the tennets of the Laffer Curve?
Is Rush a racist asshole?
Did Snopes lie about Newsweek, or did Newsweek lie about Rush?
Give up C.S., Dennis won’t answer, he’s a coward with Matt on his lap.
Tell you what, Jack J., when any of Southern Strategy’s inanities become blog topics here, I’ll weigh in. Till then it’s funny watching him do his obsessive-compulsive Rainman imitation.
Dennis says: “Tell you what, Jack J., when any of Southern Strategy’s inanities become blog topics here, I’ll weigh in. Till then it’s funny watching him do his obsessive-compulsive Rainman imitation.”
It’s obsessive to want someone to answer a legitimate question?
Hardly.
Jack’s right. You are nothing but a coward.
I don’t routinely read these blog sites and rarely comment. But I am tired of all the whining and criticism of an administration that hasn’t even had time to get fully staffed and build some sort of track record of results or lack there of. I think we all should just take a time out and let Obama and his people time to get their legs under them.
Apparently the two WaPo journalists are not invited to the vast left-wing conspiracy group that is Ezra Klein’s Klein Klub.
JournoList: Inside the echo chamber
For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList. ….
Read the whole thing.
For the past two years, several hundred left-leaning bloggers, political reporters, magazine writers, policy wonks and academics have talked stories and compared notes in an off-the-record online meeting space called JournoList.
What? People are sending each other messages over this newfangled intertube?
Must be a liberal conspiracy!!
Dennis says: “Apparently the two WaPo journalists are not invited to the vast left-wing conspiracy group that is Ezra Klein’s Klein Klub.”
Klein Klub. KK. What? Are you upset about possible trademark violations with regards to your little club?
Must be a liberal conspiracy!! QIB
Just explains why one need not spend a lot of time looking at different lefty blogs. They all pretty much echo the same things. Obama’s advisors 8:45 conference call, then to Journolist for all the bloggers and liberal media repeaters, then to Shuster-Matthews-Olbernmann-Maddow, then Letterman, Stewart and Colbert, finally next morning’s Today Show and then Gibbs press conference later that morning confirming everything from the prior day to keep it alive.
All slightly different themes on the same message.
We talked about you today Dennis. Agenda item 326.3, we call you. Bwahahahaha.
First Rule of Journolist Club is that you don’t talk about the JournoList Club, Oliver.
And Area 51 totally exists and they got aliens!
That moon landing bullshit? I got a name for you: Stanley Kubrick.
Just explains why one need not spend a lot of time looking at different lefty blogs. They all pretty much echo the same things.
Lefty blogs are all the same? Haw!
I turned on my car radio on the way home today just in time to hear Mara Liasson repeating this nonsense.
What about people who criticize the administration for not being able to get fully staffed because the people it nominates seem to have been vetted by asking “Hey, does this guy have any problems?” in an empty room? Can they still criticize the administration?
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