By Dave Andrusko
I’d like to combine two pieces of journalism to see what together they tell us: the Washington Post’s editorial endorsement of Barack Obama for President and an interview (preceded by a LONG introduction) Mr. Obama gave presidential historian Douglas Brinkley that appeared in the “Rolling Stone” magazine.
I’ve only read one book by Brinkley with a second planned (his biography of famed television anchor Walter Cronkite). I recently heard Brinkley talk about the latter at the annual National Book Festival held in Washington, DC. In both instances I was impressed by what appeared to be his level-headedness.
It’s fine for the Post to re-endorse its hero, just as it was fine for the Des Moines [Iowa] Register to change its mind and endorse Mitt Romney. I would ask anyone to read both and ask themselves which more honestly discussed the strengths and weaknesses of each man.
To say that the Post caricatures Mr. Romney is like saying it idolizes Mr. Obama: as obvious as the nose of your face. Its faint “criticisms” are only to prove that whatever shortcomings Obama’s demonstrated these last four years were mostly a product of the (bad) fiscal hand he was dealt and those rascally Republicans who wouldn’t given him a chance.
For example, the lone semi-honest criticism was that “Mr. Obama alienated Congress and business leaders by isolating himself inside a tight White House circle that manages to be both arrogant and thin-skinned. Too often his administration treats business as an obstacle rather than a partner.” But, not to worry, this was largely not because of anything he did (or didn’t do) but because of “economic head winds and an uncompromising opposition.”
James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal compared that editorial with the one the Post wrote in 2008 in which it said
“Mr. Obama’s temperament is unlike anything we’ve seen on the national stage in many years. He is deliberate but not indecisive; eloquent but a master of substance and detail; preternaturally confident but eager to hear opposing points of view. He has inspired millions of voters of diverse ages and races, no small thing in our often divided and cynical country. We think he is the right man for a perilous moment.”
(And that’s not even to mention the Post’s foreknowledge that “Mr. Obama is a man of supple intelligence, with a nuanced grasp of complex issues and evident skill at conciliation and consensus-building.”)
Oh, my goodness, how little the Post has learned in four years.
Brinkley’s profile/interview in the Rolling Stone received a fair amount of notoriety when Brinkley quoted potty-mouth Obama saying that even kids know that Romney is “a bulls—-er.” Given the tenor of his remarks in the debate—condescending, dismissive, ornery, patronizing–it comes as no surprise the President would say something this crude.
What is surprising is how totally in the tank Brinkley was for Obama. His introduction to the interview drips with an unmistakable lack of respect for Romney and is rife with the sky-is-falling sentiment. He as much as says the last one hundred years of reform will be tossed overboard if Romney becomes captain. Brinkley write
“Viewed through the lens of history, Obama represents a new type of 21st-century politician: the Progressive Firewall. Obama, simply put, is the curator-in-chief of the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Frontier and the Great Society… the inheritor of the Progressive movement’s agenda, the last line of defense that prevents America’s hard-won social contract from being defunded into oblivion.” And I have no doubt Brinkley believes this.
To give you some deleterious idea of the effect Obama worship can have, Brinkley’s last question is “Halloween’s coming up. If you could have Mitt Romney dress in a costume, what should he be for Halloween?”
To the Post and Brinkley, Obama is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. And that’s on his off days.
I thought I’d seen everything, but the obsequious manner in which so many powerful outlets and commentators treat Obama shows me I was wrong, wrong, and (did I say?) wrong.
