Legacy media downplay (or downright ignore) Obama’s September of Incompetence

Legacy media downplay (or downright ignore) Obama’s September of Incompetence

  by B. Daniel Blatt

In  the month of September, the conservative (and Spanish-language) media (and from a few rogue reporters at ABCNews) reported a number of stories about President Barack Obama all showing his disinterest in or ambivalence toward governing. And yet, outside those pockets at ABC and occasionally on CNN), our legacy media all but ignored (or otherwise downplayed) these stories which called Obama’s competence into question.

By the end of the month, a number of pundits and bloggers, including a Democratic pollster, commenting on the media’s negligence, had scored them for promoting the president’s reelection and undermining the national interest, with Charles Krauthammer suggesting the media should just “relocate to Chicago” given that they’ve all but become “‘an auxiliary of the Obama campaign”.
In both interviews with and news reports about Obama, authors, journalists in Spanish-language media, a late night talk show host and those occasional “rogue” reporter, revealed a man more focused on his reelection than on the job to which he was elected four years ago. And our friends in the legacy spent more time following up on Mitt Romney’s supposed “gaffes” than they did on these very real examples of Obama’s incompetence:

• The release of the Bob Woodward book showed Obama disinterested in the give-and-take that is part and parcel of negotiating with Congress.
• The president jetted off to a campaign event in Las Vegas the day after the attacks on our embassy in Cairo and the murder of our ambassador in Libya.
• In an interview with David Letterman, Obama failed to identify the amount of the national debt.
• He dissembled on immigration reform in the Univision townhall, blaming Republicans for his failure when his party controlled Congress for the time period in question (his first year in office); Obama neither introduced such reform legislation nor did he provide a framework within which Congress should work, nor did he press Congress to act.
• In that same townhall, the Democrat “falsely claimed that the [Fast and Furious] program began under President George W. Bush.” There has been almost no legacy media followup on the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report on the gunrunning scandal, a report which calls into question the managerial competence of Attorney General Holder and reminds us that some in the administration did not cooperate with investigators.
• He descrribed increasing violence in the Middle East, including the murder of our Ambassador to Libya” as “bumps in the road.” And that’s just one of his “gaffes” in the administration’s jumbled response to those attacks.
• When in New York to address the United Nations, he chose to go in the View where he described himself as “eye candy”, but failed to meet with world leaders in the Big Apple for the opening of the the world body.

Given the events of this past month, it’s no wonder conservatives have been scratching their heads about Obama’s continued strength in the polls.
UDPATE: Some in the legacy media may be getting the message. Take a gander at some of the tough questions NBC’s David Gregory asks of Obama advisor David Plouffe — and the lame, talking points he offers in response.

http://www.gaypatriot.net/2012/09/29/legacy-media-downplay-or-ignore-obamas-september-of-incompetence/