Prior to President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric wondered what the message of the midterm elections was, to which political analyst Jeff Greenfield replied: "You've got 87 new members of the House, many of whom are fired up with a kind of militancy we very rarely see, even among new members."
Greenfield went to proclaim: "One of the things Obama politically is going to try to do – not just tonight but over the next year – is to separate out the middle from what he will try to paint as a much too ideological Republican majority." He then used the "militant" label a second time in describing tensions between new Tea Party members and Republican leadership: "It's also going to be a lot of pressure on new Speaker – the new House Speaker John Boehner. I mean, there's a tension between John Boehner and the more militant Tea Party folks."
State of the Union
MSNBC's Contessa Brewer on Wednesday blamed Republicans for obstructionism, complaining about the "attention grabber" Michele Bachmann and her Tea Party response to the State of the Union.
Talking to Democratic strategist Mo Elleithee, she derided, "Mo, is Michelle Bachmann ruining the chances for bipartisanship?" Before playing a clip of Bachmann stating her opposition to excess spending, Brewer snapped, "Here she is, the attention grabber, demanding that lawmakers are towing the line."
(Of course the network that employs Brewer, MSNBC, is not known for bipartisanship when it comes to the anchors they hire.) Later, she derided even discussing issues "we have already talked about ad nauseam before the votes happened." She added, "Health care reform, stimulus. I mean, is there a point where we move on and look at the future?"
[See video below. MP3 audio here.]
During coverage of President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night, all three broadcast networks, CBS, NBC and ABC, managed to compare the tone of the speech to that of Ronald Reagan. Reporters and pundits uniformly praised the supposed optimism of Obama. [Audio available here]
On CBS, Evening News anchor Katie Couric touted how political analyst Jeff Greenfield thought it was "down right Reaganesque" and that "some" have argued "this could be his Reagan moment." Greenfield himself declared: "He kept talking about winning the future and that was always a big theme about Reagan....the constant reiteration of optimism....he was clearly striking rhetorical notes that reminded me of Mr. Reagan."
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ABC on Tuesday introduced Barack Obama with an opening that looked and sounded more like a movie trailer for an action film. As dramatic, pounding tones played throughout, an announcer began, "The State of our Union. We heard this, just two years ago."
Then, images of the President, firework-style graphics and people crying appeared onscreen. A clip from 2008 showed Obama proclaiming, "Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America."
During the intro, ABC also included a segment often seen on the weekend Good Morning America, montages of people summing up their feelings in three words. This version of "In Three Words" was political. As the triumphant music played, the announcer wondered, "With so much at stake, what do Americans want to hear tonight?" Some of the signs featured: "Health care now," "more city jobs" and "public services matter." There were no Tea Party-esque "cut our taxes" declarations.
Gotta love the mantra of the activist old media leading up to the State of the Union address. Two very predictable and horribly flawed themes are being pushed as we speak.
1) Obama will announce a laser-like focus on jobs.
2) Unity - America wants unity and Obama will work to unify.
On Sunday’s Good Morning America on ABC, during a discussion of President Obama’s upcoming State of the Union Address, as guest Mike Paul of MGP and Associates PR argued that Obama needs to talk about forming a "partnership" with businesses and cutting taxes, co-anchor Dan Harris fretted that there would be "political risk" in Obama getting too close to business. Harris: "Isn't there some political risk here, though, for the President getting too cozy with the business community, given the fact that there are a lot of people in this country who are still very, very, angry at the CEOs and at Wall Street for helping create this mess in the first place?"
After Paul alluded to Obama utilizing business leaders as "experts," Harris continued: "Yeah, but there are a lot of people who say these are the experts who got us in trouble in the first place."
On the January 23 World News Sunday, ABC News Senior Washington Editor Rick Klein used President Obama’s euphemism for spending as "investments" as he and anchor Dan Harris discussed how Republicans will likely respond to Tuesday’s State of the Union Address. Although the setup piece by correspondent David Kerley did allude to Obama’s word choice to call his plan "cut and invest" as having significance, noting that it "worries Republicans," after the piece had ended, Klein twice used the term "investments" as if it were straight, nonpartisan terminology. Klein:
But when you get down to the policy, the President talking about the targeted new investments, that is going to be such a tough sell in the current environment. Republicans are busy preparing long lists of budget cuts. That's going to be their focus. So, regardless of what the applause looks like on Tuesday night, it's going to be very difficult for the President to get any Republican support for any even very targeted new investments.
Kerley’s report had played a soundbite of House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s skeptical response to the term "invest":
New York magazine's John Heilemann said this weekend that President Obama is the only serious adult in the deficit reduction conversation now going on in Washington.
This deliciously came seconds before Heilemann told other guests on the syndicated "Chris Matthews Show," "I have been dispirited by the lack of strategy on the part of the White House since the midterm elections...specifically on this [issue]" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
The Washington Post has added a new conservative blogger to its stable, one that NewsBusters readers should be familiar with.
Only three days into her new position, Jennifer Rubin has made it clear she has no intention of toning down her criticism of mainstream media darlings like New York Times columnist David Brooks:
For much of the liberal media, President Obama operates in a vacuum. In their minds, if he says he will do something, he will most likely do it, even if he has a blatant record of not following through on similar promises.
Take Obama's lobbyist rhetoric, for instance. When the President claimed the White House has "excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs" he was telling the truth, sort of. He did not mean, and his staff has confirmed this, that they've excluded all lobbyists from the process, as, you know, a reasonable person would gather. He just meant that some lobbyists that applied for jobs in his administration didn't get them.
As it turns out, there are over 40 former lobbyists working in the White House or some branch of the executive (see chart below the fold).
The New York Times today ran a glowing story on President Obama's upcoming crackdown on lobbyists, never once mentioning his duplicitous statement during the State of the Union.
CNN advocated a repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy in 12 different reports between Jan. 28, the day after President Barack Obama reiterated his pledge to end the current military policy of banning openly gay citizens from the United States military in his State of the Union address and Feb. 2.
CNN allowed spokespeople from gay advocacy organizations such as Servicemembers United, the Log Cabin Republicans and the Palm Center, as well as several former and active gay military personnel, to plead their case without challenge
Of the 12 people CNN chose to appear on air (nine were military personnel) to discuss "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," only one expressed support of the current policy. Despite a Military Times poll that indicated 58 percent of military personnel are opposed to allowing openly gay people in the military, 78 percent (7 out of 9) of the military personnel featured in CNN's recent reports expressed their desire to allow homosexuals in the armed forces. One person remained neutral.
"Our deployed soldiers deserve to have their full rights," an anonymous female soldier told CNN's Ted Rowlands.
Is Barack Obama just too complex for voters to figure out? That was the premise behind the New York Times's Sunday Week in Review lead story by Richard Stevenson,“The Muddled Selling of the President.” Stevenson denied Obama was a liberal (despite his push for government-supervised health care and $787 billion in “economic stimulus” spending), suggesting he was too “complex” for such a label. Further, he wondered if Obama's recent political struggles means it's no longer “possible to embrace complexity in a political and media culture that demands simple themes and promotes conflict?”
On this much, President Obama’s friends and foes could agree: He eludes simple labels.
Yes, he’s a liberal, except when he’s not. He’s antiwar, except for the one he’s escalating. He’s for bailouts, but wants to rein in the banks. He’s concentrating ever-more power in the West Wing, except when he’s being overly deferential to Congress. He’s cool, except when he’s fighting-hot.
In a world that presents so many fast-moving and intractable problems, nuance, flexibility, pragmatism -- even a full range of human emotions -- are no doubt good things. But as Mr. Obama wrapped up his State of the Union address on Wednesday night with an appeal to transcend partisan gamesmanship, he was plaintively testing a broader proposition: Is it possible to embrace complexity in a political and media culture that demands simple themes and promotes conflict?