Noemie Emery: "Media have been giving Obama a pass"
Noemie Emery has a great piece in the Washington Examiner:
"Obama's pass from the press"
In the spring of 2007 something strange happened to the coverage of Iraq by U.S. media: it disappeared.
As soon as the news from Iraq ceased to be bad, the media lost interest in covering it. The mainstream media had no interest in reporting the fact that Bush's decision had worked. They couldn't bear to believe it, and refused to report on it.
But regarding the current Middle East crises--which make Iraq in 2006 seem calm in comparison--the reverse is happening: This time the press, which can no longer deny that the world has been going to hell since Barack Obama started unleashing his peacemaking powers, is doing its best to insulate him from any possible blame for it.
Where mainstream reporters asked Bush almost every day if he regretted invading Iraq, not one ever asks Obama--the guy they strongly supported and refused to vet--if he thinks leaving Iraq has had anything to do with the chaos engulfing the region, or the huge upswing in attacks claimed by ISIS.
And while the media held Bush responsible for every casualty that occurred anywhere while he held office, Obama gets a complete pass for the massacres, rapes and enslavement of innocents that have followed his numerous foreign policy blunders. As far as the media are concerned, he had nothing to do with any of the disasters.
If we had a Republican president the media would be hammering him for the unbroken series of failures, mistakes, and false starts over the last seven years. By huge contrast, failures and mistakes by Obama are virtually ignored by the press. He's allowed to fail quietly, discreetly, out of the spotlight. Thus into a second year of beheadings and horror, instead of headlines reading "Another 24 prisoners beheaded by ISIS," we see headlines like "Attacks don't shake president's faith in patient strategy" (an actual headline in the Washington Post).
"Obama's pass from the press"
As soon as the news from Iraq ceased to be bad, the media lost interest in covering it. The mainstream media had no interest in reporting the fact that Bush's decision had worked. They couldn't bear to believe it, and refused to report on it.
But regarding the current Middle East crises--which make Iraq in 2006 seem calm in comparison--the reverse is happening: This time the press, which can no longer deny that the world has been going to hell since Barack Obama started unleashing his peacemaking powers, is doing its best to insulate him from any possible blame for it.
Where mainstream reporters asked Bush almost every day if he regretted invading Iraq, not one ever asks Obama--the guy they strongly supported and refused to vet--if he thinks leaving Iraq has had anything to do with the chaos engulfing the region, or the huge upswing in attacks claimed by ISIS.
And while the media held Bush responsible for every casualty that occurred anywhere while he held office, Obama gets a complete pass for the massacres, rapes and enslavement of innocents that have followed his numerous foreign policy blunders. As far as the media are concerned, he had nothing to do with any of the disasters.
If we had a Republican president the media would be hammering him for the unbroken series of failures, mistakes, and false starts over the last seven years. By huge contrast, failures and mistakes by Obama are virtually ignored by the press. He's allowed to fail quietly, discreetly, out of the spotlight. Thus into a second year of beheadings and horror, instead of headlines reading "Another 24 prisoners beheaded by ISIS," we see headlines like "Attacks don't shake president's faith in patient strategy" (an actual headline in the Washington Post).
posted by SF at
3:04 PM
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