Why Chris Matthews is ridiculous

Seriously, how does anyone take him seriously, when he says things like this?  Read the original here.


Chris Matthews on Obama win: 'I'm so glad we had that storm'
Published November 07, 2012
FoxNews.com

To all the millions of victims of superstorm Sandy, Chris Matthews has a message: "I'm so glad."

The MSNBC host, on a panel of pro-Obama pundits including Rachel Maddow, ended election coverage overnight by saying he's "glad" the storm hit, suggesting it served a greater good by boosting President Obama to a second term.

"I'm so glad we had that storm last week," Matthews said, after interjecting to give some final thoughts. Somebody off-screen could be heard saying "ooo" at that remark, but Matthews confidently put his hand up to explain.

"No, politically I should say -- not in terms of hurting people. The storm brought in possibilities for good politics," he said.

Click to see the video. 

The death toll from that storm, which caused billions of dollars in damage, now exceeds 100. Many in the path of the storm's wrath -- in New Jersey, New York and elsewhere -- lost their homes or their cars or were otherwise displaced. The storm wreaked havoc on Election Day, as officials scrambled to facilitate the vote with many precincts facing power outages and fuel shortages.

Some analysts did say the storm boosted Obama's image by allowing him to show a bipartisan side -- reaching out to Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who publicly thanked Obama for the federal government's support -- and effectively sidelining Mitt Romney for a few days one week before the election.

Exit polls also showed about four in 10 voters said Obama's response to Sandy was important to their vote, and they backed the president by more than a 2-to-1 margin.

Matthews, though, was oddly upbeat in describing the political impact. He made the Sandy comment after ripping Republicans for their "assault" on the president.

"I am so proud of the country. To re-elect this president and overcoming -- not because of the partisanship or even the policies -- just the fact, here's an African guy, African-American guy with an unusual background -- part immigrant background, part African-American background -- with all this assault on him from day one. From Mitch McConnell, from the clowns out there that aren't elected, never will be to anything," he said. "And the way he took it, as someone said, with coolness and charm and dignity and just took it and took it and kept moving forward and doing his job. ... A good day for America."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/07/chris-matthews-on-obama-win-o-glad-hurricane-sandy-struck/#ixzz2BYNMRc6L

This is what angers me most

That the media attempts to shamelessly shape things for their guy. Read the original here.

Five ways the mainstream media tipped the scales in favor of ObamaBy Rich Noyes
Published November 07, 2012
FoxNews.com

Fox News and other media outlets have projected that President Obama has been reelected to a second term. If, in celebrating his victory Obama wanted to give credit where credit is due, he might want to think about calling some of America's top journalists, since their favorable approach almost certainly made the difference between victory and defeat.

Reviewing the 2012 presidential campaign, here are five ways the media elite tipped the public relations scales in favor of the liberal Obama and against the conservative challenger Mitt Romney:

1. The Media’s Biased Gaffe Patrol Hammered Romney: The media unfairly jumped on inconsequential mistakes — or even invented controversies — from Romney and hyped them in to multi-day media “earthquakes.” Case in point: the GOP candidate’s trip to Europe and Israel in late July. A Media Research Center analysis of all 21 ABC, CBS and NBC evening news stories about Romney’s trip found that virtually all of them (18, or 86%) emphasized “diplomatic blunders,” “gaffes” or “missteps.”

Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer blasted the news coverage in an August 2 column, calling the trip “a major substantive success” that was wrapped “in a media narrative of surpassing triviality.”

Similarly, when the left-wing Mother Jones magazine in September put out a secretly-recorded video of Romney talking to donors about the 47% of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, the networks hyped it like a sensational sex scandal. Over three days, the broadcast network morning and evening shows churned out 42 stories on the tape, nearly 90 minutes of coverage. The tone was hyperbolic; ABC’s "Good Morning America" called it a “bombshell rocking the Mitt Romney campaign,” while ABC "World News" anchor Diane Sawyer declared it a “political earthquake.”

None of Obama’s gaffes garnered that level of coverage. After the president in a June 8 press conference declared that “the private sector is doing fine,” the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts gave it just one night’s coverage, then basically dropped the story — nothing further on ABC’s "World News" or the "CBS Evening News" in the weeks that followed, and just two passing references on the "NBC Nightly News."

And, when Obama infamously declared, “You didn’t build that,” ABC, CBS, NBC didn’t report the politically damaging remark for four days — and then only after Romney made it the centerpiece of a campaign speech.

2. Pounding Romney With Partisan Fact Checking: There’s nothing wrong with holding politicians accountable for the honesty of their TV ads and stump speeches, but this year the self-appointed media fact-checkers attacked Republicans as liars for statements that were accurate.

For example, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter writing for PolitiFact branded VP candidate Paul Ryan’s convention speech anecdote about the closing of the General Motors plant in his hometown as “false,” even though Ryan was correct in all of his details. The slanted review became TV reporters’ talking points; the next day on NBC, correspondent Chuck Todd grumped that while what Ryan said “was technically factual, by what he left out, [he] actually distorted the actual truth.” Matt Lauer greeted Ryan the following week in an interview on Today: “There are some people who are claiming that you played a little fast and loose with the truth....”

The same thing happened when Mitt Romney talked about Obama’s “apology tour” during the final presidential debate. While in 2009 Obama had, in fact, criticized the United States as “arrogant,” “derisive” and having “too often... set [our] principles aside,” the networks said to call it an “apology tour” was “false” because, as CNN’s John Berman tenuously insisted, “even if he was critical of past U.S. foreign policy, he issued no apologies.”

Writing in the New York Times August 31, correspondent Jackie Calmes scolded that “the number of falsehoods and misleading statements from the Romney campaign coming in for independent criticism has reached a level not typically seen.” That’s not true, either; Romney’s team was, at worst, guilty of highlighting those facts that best illustrated their points (something done by all politicians), and the Obama campaign certainly put out their share of tawdry TV ads and dubious campaign claims.

But with “truth cops” who mainly policed just the GOP side of the street, the media used “fact-checking” as another club to tilt the playing field in favor of the Democrats.

3. Those Biased Debate Moderators: Upset liberals scorned PBS’s Jim Lehrer for taking a hands-off approach in the first debate on October 3, with MSNBC analyst Howard Fineman slamming him as “practically useless” for not jumping into the debate on behalf of President Obama.

Such criticism may have encouraged the activist approach taken by ABC’s Martha Raddatz in the vice presidential debate October 11, and by CNN’s Candy Crowley in the October 16 town hall debate, as both of those journalists repeatedly interrupted the Republican candidate and larded the discussion with a predominantly liberal agenda.

Crowley earns extra demerits for taking the media’s penchant for faulty fact-checking to new heights when she jumped into the October 16 town hall-style debate to validate President Obama’s claim that he called the attack in Benghazi, Libya, “an act of terror” the very next morning. Crowley endorsed Obama’s story, telling Romney: “He did, in fact, sir, call it an act of terror.”

Not according to the transcript, which had Obama only speaking generically about how “no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this nation,” not assigning that label to the violence in Benghazi.

Wrong though she was, Crowley became a heroine to many in the liberal media; ABC's Matt Dowd, for example, cheered: “What Candy Crowley did, I actually thought, was laudable....I hope we get to do more of that in this discourse.”

Moderators are supposed to ensure both sides get a fair hearing, not pick sides. By leaping into the fray, Candy Crowley epitomized the media’s itch to tilt the scales this year — again, in Obama’s favor.

4. The Benghazi Blackout: Right after the September 11 attack in Libya, the networks proclaimed that the events would bolster President Obama — “reminding voters of his power as commander-in-chief,” as NBC’s Peter Alexander stated on the September 14 edition of "Today." But as a cascade of leaked information erased the portrait of Obama as a heroic commander, the broadcast networks shunted the Benghazi story to the sidelines.

News broke online in late September, for example, that Team Obama knew within 24 hours that the attack was likely the result of terrorism. That starkly contradicted claims from White House press secretary Jay Carney, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, and President Obama himself that the attack was a “spontaneous” reaction to an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube. Yet, ABC took nearly two days to bring this story to viewers, while CBS and NBC held off for three days.

This was, shamefully, the broadcast networks’ pattern in October: New developments exposing the administration’s failure to provide adequate security, or contradictions in their public statements, were either given stingy coverage or buried completely. The puzzle pieces revealed a disturbing failure of Obama’s national security apparatus, but the networks flitted in and out of the story, never giving it any traction.

Instead of an “October Surprise,” the networks engineered an “October Suppression” — keeping a lid on the boiling Benghazi story until Election Day. Who knows how voters might have reacted if the media had covered this story as tenaciously as they did Romney’s “47% gaffe”?

5. Burying the Bad Economy: Pundits agreed that Obama’s weakness was the failure of the US economy to revive after his expensive stimulus and four years of $1 trillion deficits. But the major networks failed to offer the sustained, aggressive coverage of the economy that incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush faced in 1992, or even that George W. Bush faced in 2004 — both years when the national economy was in better shape than it is now.

According to a study conducted that year by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, from January through September of 1992, the networks ran a whopping 1,289 stories on the economy, 88% of which painted it in a dismal, negative light. That fall, the unemployment rate was 7.6%, lower than today’s 7.9%, and economic growth in the third quarter was 2.7%, better than today’s 2.0%. Yet the media coverage hammered the idea of a terrible economy, and Bush lost re-election.

In 2004, the economy under George W. Bush was far better than it is today — higher growth, lower unemployment, smaller deficits and cheaper gasoline — yet network coverage that year was twice as hostile to Bush than it was towards Obama this year, according to a study by the Media Research Center’s Business and Media Institute.

When Republican presidents have faced reelection, network reporters made sure to spotlight economic “victims” — the homeless man, the woman without health insurance, the unemployed worker, the senior citizen who had to choose between medicine and food. But this year, with an economy as bad as any since the Great Depression, those sympathetic anecdotes have vanished from the airwaves — a huge favor to Obama and the Democrats.

Given Obama’s record, the Romney campaign could have overcome much of this media favoritism and still prevailed — indeed, they almost did. But taken together, these five trends took the media’s historical bias to new levels this year, and saved Obama’s presidency in the process.



Rich Noyes, is research director for the Media Research Center.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/11/07/five-ways-mainstream-media-tipped-scales-in-favor-obama/#ixzz2BW12oQm1

Which party has more Women and Hispanic Governors?

The answer may surprise you? Or maybe not. Does it matter?  Should it matter?  Is there a distinction between the leadership role of 50 elected governors vs. any elected officials?  Either way, read the original here.Chuck Todd: Why Do Republicans Have More Women and Hispanic Governors? 
2:02 PM, AUG 31, 2012 • BY DANIEL HALPER
The Weekly Standard:  THE BLOG 

MSNBC host Chuck Todd asked the co-chair of the Democratic party's convention, L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, why there are more Republican women and Hispanic governors:

"Let me ask you though, this one question, why is it that the Republicans have elected more women governors and have two Hispanic governors and the Democrats don’t?," asked Todd. "Don’t have as many women governors and don’t have Hispanic governors, why do you think that is?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KkJbOJ-BpI

"Well we have a lot more legislators and mayors and Congress members that are women, that are Latino, that are Asian, that are African American. We have a much broader tent, a much broader representation of every walk of life, people from, you know, every ethnicity and race and sex," said Villaraigosa. "It’s true, they may have more governors but we have a much broader field when you look at all of the elected officials."

NY Magazine says using quotes are racist

Of course it must be racist, right? Cue sarcasm. NY Magazine points out again, that in the media, racism only goes 1 way: their way. Breitbart breaks it down. Read the original here.

'NY MAG': HITTING OBAMA FOR 'YOU DIDN'T BUILD THAT' IS RACIST
by JOHN NOLTE
27 Jul 2012
Breitbart.com

With Rasmussen showing Romney enjoying a five-point lead (and that's a pollster everyone in media knows is reliable, which is why they preferjuiced NBC polls), the media is now in pure panic mode. Furthermore, Obama's Media Palace Guards know that when the full context is played of Obama's revealing "you didn't build that" quote, it's absolutely devastating for Obama because the full context of those comments show the President openly ridiculing America's small business owners.

So what's a panicked media to do?

Well, at first the corrupt media lied about Obama being taken out of context. But that's a desperate lie and everyone knows it, which means the Romney campaign was comfortable to keep on keeping on with its use of the President's comments.

So NOW what's a desperate media to do?

Well, I think we all know what the media does when it's at its mostdesperate to protect Obama, don't we, boys and girls?

That's right, the corrupt media screams... RACISM!

Mitt Romney’s plan of blatantly lying about President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” speech is clearly drawing blood. But what makes the attack work so well is not so much the lie itself but the broader subtext of it. Watch Obama’s delivery in the snippet put together by this Republican ad[.] ...

The key thing is that Obama is angry, and he’s talking not in his normal voice but in a “black dialect.” This strikes at the core of Obama’s entire political identity: a soft-spoken, reasonable African-American with a Kansas accent. From the moment he stepped onto the national stage, Obama’s deepest political fear was being seen as a “traditional” black politician, one who was demanding redistribution from white America on behalf of his fellow African-Americans.

So desperate to reelect Obama he's unafraid to embarrass himself, that's a flailing Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine and this is the ad he's attempting to declare racist.

Sorry, Jonathan, but the only one "blatantly lying" here is you. And your vile race-baiting is equal parts hilarious, maddening, unAmerican, and just plain pathetic.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC

UK Telegraph calls shenanigans on US Media bias

Seriously, imagine if the tables were turned and it was a GOP candidate that made these claims. Read the original here.

Elizabeth Warren's 'Native American' claims: if she was a Republican, the media would call her a racistBy Tim Stanley 

Last updated: June 14th, 2012
UK Telegraph

Imagine if a Republican candidate claimed, confidently, that she was part Native American. Imagine if she had actually used that identity to have herself listed as a minority at Harvard, qualifying her for special treatment and celebration as proof of how diverse and progressive her department is. Imagine if, many years later, it turned out that her claims to Native heritage were dubious and, when pressed for proof, she offered her “high cheekbones.” Oh, and she once contributed a recipe to a Native American cookbook called “Pow Wow Chow” (that may even have been plagiarised).

Chances are, that Republican candidate would be hounded night and day by the press, branded a racist and probably be winding down her political career. Right now, she’d be sitting by the phone, praying for a call from the producers of Celebrity Apprentice (gotta pay the mortgage on that wigwam somehow).

The incredible thing is that all this has happened to a Democratic senatorial candidate called Elizabeth Warren. And not only has she been given a pass by her party, which normally treats race with the respect it deserves, but also by the mainstream media. Last night she was chatting with Chris Matthews on MSNBC and Matthews failed to mention the scandal once. If there’s any one reason why Democrats and liberals aren't showing the expected anger about this, it’s because their section of the media has declined to discuss it.

The sad thing is that Warren is, otherwise, an intelligent and credible candidate for the Senate. The product of a working-class family, this self-made academic was one of the bright sparks behind the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and is one of the leading liberal minds of her generation. She’s competing in a naturally Democratic state (Massachusetts) that turned bellwether when it elected Tea Party Republican Scott Brown. The 2012 senate race ought to be about jobs and the economy.

Alas, Warren’s bizarre posturing as a Native American (which she has pursued with all the conviction of a full blown delusion) has sapped her credibility. Race shapes a lot of the way that Democrats think about economics and social justice – and within that narrative, Native Americans were the very first minority that the Europeans oppressed on American soil. It thus ought to be not just odd but immoral that Warren would try to borrow their heritage of suffering in order to advance her political career. Worse still, the Harvard Law Journal described her as a “woman of color,” as if it was translating her claimed identity into proof that it was reaching out to African-Americans. A lot of liberals invested a lot of emotional effort into sustaining this myth. This sort of thing is just as inappropriate as Mitt Romney suddenly claiming to be the descendent of slaves.

But what is almost worse is how much the liberal media has tried to smooth the story over. They want the Massachusetts senate race to be a straightforward fight between Warren’s populism and Brown’s conservatism. And so headlines have been massaged, innuendoes have gone unreported, and only one local paper has pursued Warren with the righteousness that the issue deserves. Articles have been written expressing sympathy along the lines of “Well, we’re probably all a little bit Native American.” The Matthews softball interview is only a representative pass.

The takeaway from all of this is that racial insensitivity only matters if it’s done by a Republican. That isn’t to say that conservatives don’t deserve everything they get when they flirt with racially coded appeals (George Allen ought to be hiding in shame, not running for office again). But Democrats can have records of racist activity (the former Senate Majority Leader, Robert Byrd, was a member of the KKK in his youth), express racist sentiments towards Asians (step forward, Marion Barry) and appropriate the racial heritage of others – and no one seems to mind. When it comes to racism, the Democratic credo is “Do as I say, not as I do.”

CBS Boss admits journalism is partisan

Not really anything to add to this one, quote kinda speaks for itself. Read the original here.

CBS CHIEF MOONVES ATTENDS OBAMA FUNDRAISER, OUTS JOURNALISM AS 'PARTISAN'

by JOHN NOLTE
7 June 2012
breitbart.com

Last night in Los Angeles as our economy burned, President Barack Obama continued along his record-setting fundraising pace(events, not cash raised) with a stop among the glittery Top 1% at a LGBT fundraiser that included Ellen Degeneres, Cher, Chaz Bono, andCBS Corp. CEO and chairman Les Moonves. Part of what Moonves does is oversee the CBS News division, which makes the fact that he attended a political fundraiser fascinating, but not as fascinating as what he told The Los Angeles Times:

CBS chief Les Moonves and his wife, Julie Chen, waited patiently for their wristbands. Obama, Moonves said, "has shown great leadership" on the issue of gay marriage.

Though he heads a news division, Moonves said, "ultimately journalism has changed … partisanship is very much a part of journalism now."

He hastened to add that despite his presence, "I run a news division. I've given no money to any candidate."

It's plausible Moonves could've attended this bigtime fundraiser as a guest, meaning someone else paid for his ticket so he could maintain that he has "given no money to any candidate." But what's the head of a major news division doing at this kind of partisan event to begin with? He certainly wasn't there to cover it for CBS. And what's he thinking publicly gushing over Obama's "great leadership" on the divisive issue of same-sex marriage?

Anyway, his statement about how "partisanship is very much a part of journalism now" is not only interesting considering he said it at a Obama fundraiser, but it's also a falsehood.

Partisanship has always been a part of journalism, especially at CBS News. It's just that the network always has and always will hide its partisanship behind a phony shield of objectivity and nonsense loopholes such as, "I'm at this bigtime fundraiser but have never given money to any candidate."

But what Moonves is doing here is finally (and probably by accident) admitting that the media is partisan. It's also interesting that he's outing journalism in general, not just the openly partisan media that has blossomed online or on talk radio.

He's calling "journalism" partisan -- and indeed it is.

So the only surprise is that someone with Moonves's status is finally admitting it.

More irony: Moonves outing all of journalism at an LGBT event.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC

Fair Game or beneath the Office?

WSJ makes a good point in my opinion...Read the original here.

Obama the Unseemly: A more aggressive press corps might have motivated him to preserve his dignity.
By JAMES TARANTO
Updated April 27, 2012, 4:08 p.m. ET
Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal

There's been a lot of talk of late about how "cool" Barack Obama supposedly is. But people are starting to notice the man has no class.

"Blue collar Democratic voters, stuck taking depressing 'staycations' because they can't afford gas and hotels, are resentful of the first family's 17 lavish vacations around the world and don't want their tax dollars paying for the Obamas' holidays, according to a new analysis of swing voters," reports the Washington Examiner's Paul Bedard.

A group of Republican pollsters conducted focus groups of swing-state swing voters, mostly Democrats and independents, and John McLaughlin "handled blue collar and Catholic voters" in Pittsburgh and Cleveland. He found that they tend to think Mitt Romney is "too rich," but "there is a start of resentment of the government." In Bedard's words, "voters were also lumping in the president's vacation spending in with the General Services Administration's Las Vegas scandal and federal spending for those who aren't looking for work."

Obama is also notorious for his golf outings. Blogress Ann Althouse, another swing voter (she has admitted supporting Obama in 2008), notes that George W. Bush was "savaged" for going golfing "when Americans were fighting and dying." Michael Moore made hay of it in his 2004 agitprop film "Fahrenheit 9/11," notwithstanding that Bush had given up golf in 2003 on the ground that it was unseemly: "I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong message." Althouse opens her post with a story about the latest casualties in Afghanistan.

The student-debt debate has underscored another unattractive aspect of Obama's presidential style: his tendency to be always and indiscriminately on the attack. The Washington Post's Rosalind Helderman notes that the president not only personally attacked two Republican congressmen, Missouri's Todd Akin and North Carolina's Virginia Foxx, but grievously misquoted both of them.Althouse further criticizes Obama for his appearance earlier this week on the NBC show "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," in which, as Althouse notes, "Obama performs 5 minutes of a musically sexualized speech about students. . . . It's wearing down my sense of the outlandish." We watched part of the Fallon video and found it to be a head-scratcher. The president seems to be making a serious policy argument (in favor of extending subsidies for college debt), Fallon is sucking up to him, and somehow it's supposed to be a comedy routine. We guess you had to be there.

Helderman dryly notes that "it is somewhat unusual for a sitting president to single out individual rank-and-file members of the opposition party for criticism and scorn in public speeches." She quotes Speaker John Boehner: "Frankly, I think this is beneath the dignity of the White House."

But is anything beneath the dignity of the Obama White House? This, after all, is the same president who has ignorantly blasted the Supreme Court and Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee. The only difference in his attacks on Akin and Foxx is that he is manifestly punching down. What next? Will he go after private citizens?

Oh ha ha, he's doing that already, as our colleague Kim Strassel notes:

This past week, one of his campaign websites posted an item entitled "Behind the curtain: A brief history of Romney's donors." In the post, the Obama campaign named and shamed eight private citizens who had donated to his opponent. Describing the givers as all having "less-than-reputable records," the post went on to make the extraordinary accusations that "quite a few" have also been "on the wrong side of the law" and profiting at "the expense of so many Americans."

Strassel likens Obama's demonization to Richard Nixon's "enemies list," which "appalled the country for the simple reason that presidents hold a unique trust." It's an apt comparison, but even Nixon delegated much of his attack-doggery to his vice president, Spiro Agnew. We guess Joe Biden is too goofy for that role so Obama has to do it himself.

It seems to us that Althouse is on to something in suggesting that part of the reason Obama conducts himself in such an unseemly way is that the mainstream media are largely Democratic partisans, inclined to give their man a pass. True, there are plenty of alternative media voices now, but it's relatively easy for a leftist president to dismiss them and continue to enjoy the adulation of the so-called mainstreamers, who have also been suggesting lately that Obama is a shoo-in for re-election because he is so likable.

The McLaughlin findings point to the risk that that isn't the case. Obama could end up losing because sycophantic media encouraged him to act in such an unseemly way.

There's a parallel in the way the media have strained to play down bad economic news. A couple of hilarious examples come from NPR's website today: A homepage title asked: "Is Slow Growth Actually Good for the Economy?" (The actual story, which has a less risible title, pretty much answers in the negative.) And an NPR "Special Series" is titled "Looking Up: Pockets of Economic Strength."

Remember when the economy was strong and there were pockets of poverty? In November, it is possible the voters will.

White House believes in Double Standards

I don't recall anyone being "disappointed" in the media when Abu Ghraib photos were released. I seem to recall every Democrat from LA to NYC jumping all over it as a sign that George Bush was the devil. But when it happens under their administration, now we should see "restraint". Please. Neither one of them should've happened (the incidents). Whether the photos should've been released to the public is debatable. But treat both sides equally, as opposed to the "politically bashing the wife policy". Read the original here.

W.H. 'Disappointed' L.A. Times Published Photos 'Two Years After the Incident'
1:41 PM, APR 18, 2012
BY DANIEL HALPER
The Weekly Standard

White House spokesman Jay Carney reacted to the publication of photos in the Los Angeles Times of U.S. soldiers posing with corpses in Afghanistan by saying the Obama administration is "disappointed.. [with] the decision to publish two years after the incident," according to a pool report.

Carney is suggesting, it would seem, that the photos might put at risk U.S. soldiers fighting the war in Afghanistan. And that, since the photos were taken two years ago, there would not seem to be pressing need for the Los Angeles Times to publish the photos while the soldiers are in that war theater.

Carney also blasted the photos themselves--at least, the actions of those American in the pictures. "[The] conduct depicted in those photographs is reprehensible and does not in any way represent the high standards of the US military," Carney told the press aboard Air Force One. "And the president certainly shares in the defense secretary's opinion that this should be investigated and those held responsible will be held accountable."

The spokesman said he was unsure whether the president had actually seen the photos in question, though Carney is sure that Obama is aware of the scandal.

AP Chief is objective

Is this a campaign speech, or a speech from the head of the AP? Who knows anymore. Read the original and view the video here.

Associated Press Chief Offers Lavish Praise for Obama
1:04 PM, APR 3, 2012

BY DANIEL HALPER
The Weekly Standard

Dean Singleton, chairman of the Associated Press board, introduced President Obama this afternoon at a speech to news editors in Washington. But Singleton didn’t just tell the audience the president was the next speaker—the supposed newsman offered lavish praise for the Democratic president.

“President Obama made history as the first minority to be elected president,” said Singleton. “Even many who opposed his election felt proud of our country as he took the oath of office.”

Singleton went on to detail the challenges Obama faced, much in the same way Obama himself details his own presidency (the transcript is rushed, there may be small errors):

As president, he inherited the headwinds of the worst economic recession since the great depression. He pushed through congress the biggest economic recovery plan history and what a government reorganization of two of the big three American automakers to save them from oblivion. He pursued domestic and foreign policy agendas that are controversial to many, highlighted by his signature into law of the most comprehensive health care legislation in history. The budget plan's proposed by the president on the one hand and republicans on the other hand are not even on the same planet. Many democrats believe his agenda doesn't go far enough and many republicans believe it goes way too far. While we fought be to doubt -- while we thought the 2008 white house race was rough and tumble, the 2012 race makes it look like bumper cars by comparison our country has become even more polarized. The 1 percent and the 99 percent are at each other's throats. Campaigns are now funded by secretive, multimillion-dollar super PACs. The only thing anybody seems willing to compromise on is -- I can't think of anything. [laughter] really, who would want this job in the first place?”

“We are honored today to have the man currently holding the office and aspiring for another term,” said Singleton before finally announcing the president himself.

Indeed, it sounded like a campaign speech from AP chief himself.

POTUS has advice for how journalists should cover him

Oh that's so helpful. Thank you for detailing how the 'objective' media should cover you. There's no expectation of a shady link between government and media here is there? Read the original and view the video here.

Obama Instructs Journalists On How To Report His Positions
RealClearPolitics
Posted on April 3, 2012

"This bears on your reporting," President Obama said to journalists. "I think that there is oftentimes the impulse to suggest that if the two parties are disagreeing then they're equally at fault and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. And an equivalence is presented which I think reinforces peoples' cynicism about Washington in general. This is not one of those situations where there's an equivalency."

"As all of you are doing your reporting, I think it's important to remember that the positions that I am taking now on the budget and a host of other issues. if we had been having this discussion 20 years ago or even 15 years ago … would've been considered squarely centrist positions," Obama said a few moments later.

Who's politicizing Trayvon Martin's death?

Umm....what? I'm continually shocked at assertions that are patently false, and the media's willingness to pass them off as the gospel truth because it's their side. Apparently "yellow is the new black" in terms of journalism. Read the original here.  It's a tragedy.  But it's an American tragedy when anyone, especially a child is killed.  But unless proven otherwise, I'm not going to assume it's a racial thing.  And which side is politicizing this?  Just like to point out a couple quotes here:


Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Florida): This is Treyvon Martin. Trayvon Martin's murderer is still at large. It's been one month, thirty days, with no arrest. I want America to see this sweet young boy who was hunted down like a dog, shot in the street, and his killer is still at large. 


Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Georgia): "He was executed for 'WWB' in a 'GC.' Walking While Black in a Gated Community."

Obama Campaign: Republicans "Politicizing" Trayvon Martin's Death
Posted on March 28, 2012
RealClearPolitics.com

"His Republican opponents have jumped all over him because they do want to play politics with this issue. The President spoke from his heart on this, it was trying to emphasize with some parents who had just lost a child. By any measure, this was a tragedy and we need to let the investigation take its course," Stephanie Cutter, Obama's Deputy Campaign Manager, said on MSNBC today.

"People have to stop politicizing it," she added. "It's no surprise that some of our Republican opponents are trying to make an issue with this. But the President spoke from the heart and we need to let the investigation take its course."

Newsweek is working hard for 2012...

After they drop all pretense at being an objective news organization. Read the original here.  The money quote: "He noted that one of Obama’s biggest problems is that he “isn’t out there … grandstanding and talking about his accomplishments in a way that may be necessary to break through the noise."



(the 1/23/2012 Newsweek cover h/t: The Huffington Post)





Right blogs take on Newsweek cover


The latest edition of Newsweek features the face of a pensive President Barack Obama along with the provocative headline: “Why are Obama’s critics so dumb?” — and that’s hit a little too close to home for conservative bloggers.

Joel Pollak, editor in chief of Breitbart.com, turned the cover’s question around on Andrew Sullivan, who penned the magazine’s cover story, in a blog post called, “Why is Andrew Sullivan so dumb?”

“You’d have to be stupid, fanatical and dishonest to argue — as Trig Truther Sullivan does — that Barack Obama’s failures are part of an ingenious ‘long game’ that is destined to succeed,” Pollak wrote. “If this is the best Obama’s supporters can do, Obama’s only hope for reelection is the weak Republican field.”

Similarly, Power Line’s John Hinderaker vented in a blog post titled, “We must be really, really stupid!”

“Well, sure. We who are unhappy that unemployment has increased on Obama’s watch, that over-regulation has stymied economic growth, that our children now owe a $15 trillion debt that we can’t pay — hey, we’re just dumb!” he blasted. “We obviously aren’t smart enough to understand how devastating our economy, unemploying millions of Americans and burdening our children with trillions of dollars in debt is really a great idea.”

Sullivan, a self-described “unabashed supporter of Obama from early 2007 on,” writes in the cover story that attacks against the president are not only out of bounds but “simply — empirically — wrong.”

“Given the enormity of what he inherited, and given what he explicitly promised, it remains simply a fact that Obama has delivered in a way that the unhinged right and purist left have yet to understand or absorb,” Sullivan wrote. “Their short-term outbursts have missed Obama’s long game — and why his reelection remains, in my view, as essential for this country’s future as his original election in 2008.”

The story was rated by Townhall’s Managing Editor Kevin Glass as “a doozy about how conservatives are delusional and the left-wing base is just dumber than the president,” and he added that the Newsweek writer has bought into what he called “The Obama Delusion.”

“The president’s critics, on both sides, have and will continue to make sound critiques. And Andrew Sullivan and The Daily Beast are just trolling us,” Glass wrote.

“Is there anything the mainstream media won’t do to get Obama reelected?” Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters wanted to know.

The Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway ripped Newsweek for falling deeper into “self-parody”: “If in recent years it seems as if Newsweek has been descending into self-parody, it’s still hard to imagine that this is real.”

And over at Red State, the magazine’s cover inspired blogger Caleb Howe to exercise some creative liberties by declaring a “Photoshop contest” to make a fake Newsweek cover.

“I’m assuming the thought process, such as it is, was ‘controversial sells magazines,’” he wrote. “So in that light, I have a suggestion for Newsweek’s next cover, one that will really stir things up.”

One of Howe’s several mock Newsweek covers features a sad-faced puppy and the words: “Puppies: Why our editors torture them.”

Sullivan defended the president’s record Monday evening, saying, “Obama has governed as he said he would, as a sensible, pragmatic centrist.” He explained that a frustration about lies people were telling about the president’s record had inspired him to write the cover story.

“I just got frustrated hearing all these people tell untruths about the record,” Sullivan said on MSNBC. “The record is that he has done something perfectly sensible — he’s fulfilled the promises that he made to turn this country round slowly.”

He urged Obama’s critics to have more “patience” when scrutinizing the president’s accomplishments, and suggested that critics approach their negotiations with the president without a “fantasy about who this guy is.”

“He’s not a big old lefty,” he added. “I mean, ask the left. He’s a compromiser in the middle and I think what he’s done is set out very carefully where he wants to go.”

Mark Miller, assistant managing editor of Newsweek, insisted earlier on Monday that Sullivan’s piece articulates criticism of the president from “both the left and the right.”

“I think Andrew makes the case fairly well that the way that he’s been caricatured by the right and the way that the left is disappointed with him doesn’t actually serve him well,” Miller said on MSNBC.

He noted that one of Obama’s biggest problems is that he “isn’t out there … grandstanding and talking about his accomplishments in a way that may be necessary to break through the noise.”

What makes the Green Industry, green?

Apparently, marketing...


Created by: Marketing Degree

Would George Bush have been afforded the same "courtesy"?

Read the original here.

Report: Sarkozy Calls Netanyahu 'Liar'

Microphones accidently left on after G20 meeting pick up private conversation between US, French presidents. Sarkozy admits he 'can't stand' Israeli premier. Obama: You're fed up with him? I have to deal with him every day!

YnetFrench President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly told US President Barack Obama that he could not "stand" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that he thinks the Israeli premier "is a liar." According to a Monday report in the French website "Arret sur Images," after facing reporters for a G20 press conference on Thursday, the two presidents retired to a private room, to further discuss the matters of the day.

The conversation apparently began with President Obama criticizing Sarkozy for not having warned him that France would be voting in favor of the Palestinian membership bid in UNESCO despite Washington's strong objection to the move.

The conversation then drifted to Netanyahu, at which time Sarkozy declared: "I cannot stand him. He is a liar." According to the report, Obama replied: "You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him every day!"

The remark was naturally meant to be said in confidence, but the two leaders' microphones were accidently left on, making the would-be private comment embarrassingly public.

The communication faux pas went unnoticed for several minutes, during which the conversation between the two heads of state – which quickly reverted to other matters – was all but open to members the press, who were still in possession of headsets provided by the Elysée for the sake of simultaneous translation during the G20 press conference.

"By the time the (media) services at the Elysée realize it, it was on for at least three minutes," one journalist told the website. Still, he said that reporters "did not have a chance to take advantage of this fluke."

The surprising lack of coverage may be explained by a report alleging that journalists present at the event were requested to sign an agreement to keep mum on the embarrassing comments. A Reuters reporter was among the journalists present and can confirm the veracity of the comments.

A member of the media confirmed Monday that "there were discussions between journalists and they agreed not to publish the comments due to the sensitivity of the issue."

He added that while it was annoying to have to refrain from publishing the information, the journalists are subject to precise rules of conduct.

Let the News tell you about the Economy...

Read the original here.

9.1% Unemployment Rate Left Out of 77% of Network Job Stories
By Julia A. Seymour | September 29, 2011 | 10:15
Unemployment became the top concern of Americans in September, according to Gallup. The Sept. 8-11 poll found that unemployment overtook "the economy" as "the most important problem facing this country today."

It makes sense since the month began with a "dismal" unemployment report showing zero job growth last month and the unemployment rate stubbornly stuck at 9.1 percent.

Throughout September Obama has delivered jobs speeches, including one to a joint session of Congress, promoting his American Jobs Act which he said "will put more people back to work." He has campaigned around the country for its passage on the grounds that jobs creation is urgently necessary. Back in August, he told CBS there was a "genuine unemployment crisis" going on for many Americans right now.

Yes, there is a jobs crisis in the U.S. because unemployment has been above 8 percent for the past two-and-a half years. Millions of people desperately need work across the country, but viewers of the broadcast network news shows might not realize just how bad the unemployment crisis is. That's because more than three-fourths of the September jobs stories (77 percent) didn't mention the 9.1 unemployment rate at all. Several stories put a positive spin on the horrendous jobs situation and only four stories mentioned that more than 14 million people are out of work.

The Business & Media Institute analyzed 79 stories on the broadcast evening news programs that mentioned "job" or "jobs" between Sept. 1 and Sept. 26 and found only 18 (23 percent) of them actually mentioned the 9.1 percent rate or said that unemployment was above 9 percent. Stories about "job" approval, people doing their "job" and other non-economic references were not counted.

Just as the networks have downplayed the high unemployment and looked for hopeful signs on jobs during much of the Obama presidency, reporters continued to find "good news" about unemployment to talk about.

CBS "Evening News" anchor Scott Pelley shared "a little bit of good news on jobs" on Sept. 7, 2011. He led into a report about Obama's proposed jobs plan by optimistically reporting that in July there were 3.2 million job openings posted by employers. "That's the most in nearly three years," Pelley said without noting the huge shortfall between available jobs and the roughly 14 million who were unemployed in August.

The other networks found hopeful stories too. ABC introduced viewers to "a one-man fighting force" intent on "bringing America back" economically. The man, Bob Rosenberg, decided to start his own frozen yogurt shop when he couldn't find work in sales. NBC "Nightly News" celebrated a man bringing his company's manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. from China. CBS "Evening News" showed what one Georgia town did with $14.5 million taxpayer dollars to retrain workers for jobs at a Kia assembly line.

Other reports focused on boom towns in Texas and North Dakota due to oil and gas discoveries.

Looking for positive stories to cover in a troubled economy is the opposite of the way the networks have covered unemployment and the economy under Republican presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. In 2004, the news media attacked Bush routinely on the topic of employment, even in the midst of 13 months of positive job creation and other good economic news.

The difference in coverage depending on which party is in power was even more obvious when BMI compared unemployment coverage during similar time periods in 1982 and 2009. In 1982, network reports were 13 times more negative under Reagan: 91 percent of mentions of his administration were negative compared to only 7 percent of Obama administration mentions.

The Obama administration was mentioned favorably in 2009 network unemployment stories 87 percent of the time. While there were zero positive mentions of Reagan in 1982. An identical unemployment rate (9.4 percent) was "good news" for Obama, but all bad for Reagan.

Networks Promote Obama's Jobs Plan, Infrastructure Spending

Even the president has consistently harped on the bad jobs situation. Obama has used high unemployment to demand swift action on his latest $447 billion stimulus bill: The American Jobs Act which he claims could create up to 1.9 million jobs through more infrastructure spending and unemployment benefits.

ABC's Diane Sawyer uncritically reported the same figure, estimated by Moody's, on Sept. 9.

According to Obama, "This jobs bill will put unemployed construction workers back to work rebuilding our schools and our roads and our bridges." Of course, Obama's been talking about putting people back to work "rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges" for a couple years now.

He used that as a major selling point for his enormous $787 billion stimulus in 2008 and 2009 claiming "we will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system …" Even with that first stimulus bill, net job losses in the U.S. are roughly 2.4 million. No wonder only 1-in-6 people polled thought the new jobs package would lower unemployment "a lot," according to ABCNews.com

But public skepticism didn't dissuade network reporters like NBC's Tom Costello from calling for infrastructure spending. On the Sept. 18 NBC "Nightly News" Costello shared "startling new statistics" about the nation's "crumbling infrastructure." His report quoted Obama talking about his jobs plan which would spend money on road and bridge projects.

Costello's report specifically mentioned the Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati from which Obama planned to deliver a speech calling for passage of his jobs plan. There was no mention in Costello's report that the Brent Spence Bridge would likely not be "shovel-ready" enough to get funding from that plan, something even left-wing website Huffington Post admitted.

CBS "Evening News" interviewed Caterpillar CEO Doug Oberhelman who called for education, free trade agreements and infrastructure spending on Sept. 13. Interviewer Scott Pelley followed up Oberhelman's remarks with an attack on the GOP's anti-spending philosophy saying: "But you know what the political climate is, Republicans in particular in the Congress are saying no new spending, budget cuts are necessary and no new taxes."

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/julia-seymour/2011/09/29/91-unemployment-rate-left-out-77-network-job-stories#ixzz1ZM3K68ci

Why is every rise in jobless claims "unexpected" by economic columnists in the media....

...when no one I know is ever surprised? I doubt I know more about the economy...Read the original here.

Jobless Claims Rise Above Expectations
WASHINGTON | Thu Jul 21, 2011 8:45am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, a government report showed on Thursday, pointing to a labor market that is struggling to regain momentum after job growth faltered in the last two months.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 418,000, the Labor Department said.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 410,000. The prior week's figure was revised up to 408,000 from the previously reported 405,000.

The claims data covered the survey period for the closely watched nonfarm payrolls count for July. Initial claims dropped 11,000 between the June and July survey periods, suggesting a modest improvement in payrolls after June's paltry 18,000 gain.

A rise in layoffs held back payroll growth in May, according to the department's latest Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, which was released last week. Layoffs were probably behind the downshift in employment growth in June as well.

A government shutdown in Minnesota following a budget impasse resulted in an additional 1,750 state employees filing claims for jobless benefits last week.

Initial claims have now been above the 400,000 mark for 15 straight weeks. That level is usually associated with a stable labor market.

The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends, slipped 2,750 to 421,250.

The number of people still receiving benefits under regular state programs after an initial week of aid dropped 50,000 to 3.70 million in the week ended July 9.

The number of Americans on emergency unemployment benefits declined 80,133 to 3.15 million in the week ended July 2, the latest week for which data is available.

A total of 7.33 million people were claiming unemployment benefits during that period under all programs, down 159,000 from the prior week. (Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Neil Stempleman)

White House vs. Fox News?

Read the original here.

Emails Show White House Targeting Fox News Despite Denial
Foxnews.com

Newly released emails show the Obama administration communication team privately discussed whether to exclude Fox News from interviews in late 2009, despite claims at the time that the White House did not intend to snub the cable news channel.

The emails, obtained and released by watchdog Judicial Watch, pertain to a kerfluffle over whether the administration tried to lock Fox News out of a round of interviews with "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg, who was then responsible for reviewing compensation of Wall Street executives.

The perceived slight in October 2009 led to a confrontation with the press corps, not just Fox News -- afterward, the administration ultimately granted the interview to Fox News, along with other news outlets. Administration officials at the time rejected any suggestion that they had tried to exclude Fox News in the first place.

But the emails suggest the subject was at least discussed.

"The Obama administration seems to have lied about its attempt to exclude Fox News Channel from access to an interview with the 'pay czar,'" Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.

Fitton told Fox News the White House treatment was "something Hugo Chavez might do but it really has no place in modern-day America."

The emails cover dozens of conversations in late 2009. But in one email dated Oct. 22, 2009, White House media official Dag Vega wrote to Treasury spokeswoman Jenni LeCompte saying, "we'd prefer if you skip Fox please."

The guidance was in reference to a discussion about whether to make economic officials available. It's unclear whether they were referring at all to Feinberg -- who was, after a back-and-forth, offered up to Fox News for an interview later in the afternoon.

But administration aides showed frustration as they later saw media reports claiming Treasury tried to exclude Fox News at first. That frustration ended up being directed at Fox News itself.

"brett baier just did a stupid piece on it---but he is a lunatic," White House spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki wrote in an email that evening, referencing "Special Report" host Bret Baier.

The next morning, as other media coverage of the run-in popped up, Psaki wrote: "I am putting some dead fish in the fox cubby -- just cause."

At the time of the dispute over access, the explanation offered by the administration was that there was no "effort to exclude" Fox News, and that the administration initially was only offering interviews to the big three networks. Officials claimed Fox News had not made a request, but that the administration eventually made time for other outlets including Fox News.

Deputy White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest, in one email, put it this way: "We've demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews -- but yesterday, we didn't."

But Fox News, back in 2009, refuted the claim that the cable channel did not request an interview.

Fitton said in a statement that the documents his group obtained show a "pervasive anti-Fox bias in the Obama White House."

But Michael Clemente, senior vice president of News for Fox News, said times have changed.

"On and off-the-air relations with this administration have come a long way since then, and if that unfortunate incident helped get things on a better track, then it served its purpose," Clemente said.

Asked Thursday about the emails, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said he has respect for the reporters at Fox News.

"It is well known that at the time there was a dispute between Fox News ... and the White House and its feelings about the coverage. That was then, and you know, we obviously deal with Fox News regularly," Carney said.

He joked that nobody ever put fish in the Fox News cubby.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/14/emails-show-white-house-ripping-fox-news/#ixzz1SC94jnpw

WSJ on Obama Debt talks...

Read the original here.

Wall Street Journal
BEST OF THE WEB TODAY
JULY 12, 2011
Raise Taxes or Granny Gets It
The liberal media's idea of a grown-up.
By JAMES TARANTO

President Obama is pulling out the big guns and pointing them straight at your grandmother. "Obama on Tuesday said he cannot guarantee that retirees will receive their Social Security checks August 3" absent an agreement with Congress to raise the debt ceiling, CBS News reports:
"I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue. Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it," Mr. Obama said in an interview with CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley, according to excerpts released by CBS News.

At a press conference yesterday, Obama demanded that Republicans not only authorize trillions of dollars in new borrowing,which at this point seems unavoidable, but agree to what he called "massive, job-killing tax increases" effective in 2013--i.e., after what he expects will be his re-election.Obama's news conference.

For this he drew plaudits from what used to be called the mainstream media. "Obama Grasping Centrist Banner in Debt Impasse" read the New York Times headline. The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza dubbed him "Dad-in-Chief," explaining: "Boil Obama's message down and you get this: Adults sometimes have to do things that they don't want to do. This is one of those times. So, let's get it done."

The kids are acting up, so he threatens to starve Granny to death. That's just how a strong father behaves.

It looks to us as if Obama may once again be overestimating his persuasive powers by relying for feedback on journalists who, for a combination of ideological, partisan and personal reasons, are predisposed to take his side. NewsBusters.org has a useful compilation of what it calls the "softballs" reporters lobbed at yesterday's press conference. Some of them were actually a bit adversarial, but only from the left.

Our favorite is from Rich Wolf of USA Today: "You keep talking about balance, shared sacrifice, but in the $4 trillion deal that you're talking about roughly, it seems to be now at about 4 to 1 spending to taxes; we're talking about $800 billion in taxes, roughly. That doesn't seem very fair to some Democrats." Mr. President, your massive tax hikes aren't nearly massive enough!

We sometimes forget just how in the tank much of the press is for Obama, especially since they've tended to tone it down a bit now that he is actually president. So we're grateful to Esquire for publishing a piece this morning by one Stephen Marche titled "How Can We Not Love Obama?" You may want to pop a Dramamine before reading this passage, which brings back memories of 2008:
Can we just enjoy Obama for a moment? Before the policy choices have to be weighed and the hard decisions have to be made, can we just take a month or two to contemplate him the way we might contemplate a painting by Vermeer or a guitar lick by the early-seventies Rolling Stones or a Peyton Manning pass or any other astounding, ecstatic human achievement? Because twenty years from now, we're going to look back on this time as a glorious idyll in American politics, with a confident, intelligent, fascinating president riding the surge of his prodigious talents from triumph to triumph. Whatever happens this fall or next, the summer of 2011 is the summer of Obama.

Though it's possible this is another one of Esquire's satirical misfires.

WSJ on POTUS Tweet Conference

James Taranto at the WSJ has some opinion on the President's tweet conference. I can't say I disagree...read the original here.

Commander in Tweet
Just what we need, another "explanation" from @BarackObama!
By JAMES TARANTO

We have to admit, we didn't watch President Obama's "Twitter town hall" yesterday. In fact, we were unclear on the whole concept. We assumed that the whole thing was happening on Twitter--that the president would be tweeting answers to tweeted questions. And to be honest, we can think of better things to do on Twitter, like replacing a word in a famous quote with "duck."
In short, it was little more than a glorified press conference--replete, as CBS reports, with the usual Obama tropes:

A CBS News video set us straight. Apparently it was sort of an interview format, with a guy in a gray suit (Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, according to CNN) reading questions off a TV screen, and Obama speaking, not tweeting, in response. The questions were screened by a team of eightTwitter-selected "curators"--all journalists, coincidentally enough--which ensured that none of IowaHawk's questions would get through to the president. Too bad. We'd have liked to hear the answer to this one: "An $8 billion high speed train leaves Chicago for Iowa City at 8:15am at 40mph. Why?"
The magnitude of the worst U.S. recession since the Great Depression escaped President Obama when he first stepped into office, the president acknowledged today at his "Twitter town hall."
Asked what mistakes he made in handling the recession, Mr. Obama said today he could have done a better job at explaining "to the American people it was going to take a while to get out of this."

Except of course that he did explain: that there was a danger unemployment would rise as high as 8% unless Congress spent some $800 kajillion on a so-called stimulus. Congress obliged. Unemployment reached as high as 10% and is still above 9%.

That's why the World's Greatest Orator keeps claiming that the quality of his explaining was insufficient. It diverts attention from the real problem: that his explanation was wrong because his policy was bad.

Nonetheless, there's always room for improvement, and if Obama wants to learn to explain things better, he could do worse than to stop talking and start tweeting. Twitter's 140-character delimitation, though sporadically vexatious, is an inexorable disincentive to magniloquence. And let's face it, Obama can be a bit pompous.

This seems as good a time as any to mention that you can now follow this columnist on Twitter. Sorry for the self-promotion, but as Hillel the Elder observed, "If I am not for my duck, who will be for me?

Michelle Obama's Quote of the Day

Can you imagine the media treating the Bushes well enough to get that 'thank you'? Read the original here.

Michelle Obama: "Fortunately, We Have Help From The Media"

In an interview with CNN, First Lady Michelle Obama thanks the media for their "support" and "kindness."

CNN reporter: "How's the family ready for this [the election]? It's going to be quite vicious, isn't it? How do you prepare for that?"

First Lady Michelle Obama: "You know, it's … we're ready, you know. Our children, you know, could care less about what we're doing. We work hard to do that. Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I'm very grateful for the support and kindness that we've gotten. People have respected their privacy and in that way, I think, you know, no matter what people may feel about my husband's policies or what have you, they care about children and that's been good to see."