My Problem with the Press.

[lamberts-lost-tooth]

First I want to point out that this is not about the current President...those who know me know that I have been trying to stay OUT of partisan politics lately.

My problem is with the incredible... out of control love affair that the press has for the current administration. Serioulsy, this type of adulation is more befitting teen-girls over the latest boy-band. It is TOTALLY inappropriate for this type of relationship to exist between "objective" news sources and those that they are supposed to cover.

Here is what is sending me over the edge.

On the June 5th edition of Hardball with Chris Matthews ....Newsweek Editor Evan Thomas and Matthews were discussing Obama's speech in Cairo...This should scare the hell out of Dems and Rep's alike. Here is a transcript of the relevant portion of the exchange:

5:15PM SEGMENT:

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Tomorrow on the 65th anniversary of D-day, President Obama has a tough pair of acts to follow. His own speech yesterday and one given a quarter century ago. I remember getting up that morning in 1984 to catch President Reagan at Normandy. It was a real ‘Morning in America’ speech. I believe that Reagan’s ability to connect to World War II was a reason for his enormous popularity in this country. Here he was on the bluffs of France saying something very good about America, how we liberated Europe. That's the heart of it, really. The reason Reagan was popular, Roosevelt was popular, Jack Kennedy was popular, and Barack Obama is popular. Don't tear us down. Don't make us feel like victims or the angry guys or the worried guys. Make us feel American. I think the President's speech yesterday was the reason we Americans elected him. It was grand. It was positive. Hopeful. It said to the world, if you're a good guy, you've got nothing to fear from us. If you’ve got national aspirations, if you want to be respected as a people, if you want to be treated as an equal people in the world, we're on your side. If you're an aggressor, if you want to hold down other people, if you're driven by a predatory ideology, if you're out to hurt this country, look out. We Americans are that rattlesnake on that first flag, ‘Don't tread on me.’ But what I liked about the President's speech in Cairo was that it showed a complete humility. What he did was rob from the enemy, those who want to destroy us, their main case, the belief that only by extremism can the East reach equality of dignity with the West. The question now is whether the President we elected and spoke for us so grandly yesterday can carry out the great vision he gave us and to the world. If he can, he'll be honoring what happened on D-day 65 years ago tomorrow. He will be delivering the world once again from evil. Evan Thomas is editor at large for Newsweek magazine. Evan, you remember '84. It wasn't 100 years ago. Reagan and World War II and the sense of us as the good guys in the world, how are we doing?

EVAN THOMAS: Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something – I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God. He’s-

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

THOMAS: He's going to bring all different sides together. It's a very different-

MATTHEWS: Can he – well, here’s Ronald Reagan. Let's take a look, a little Friday night nostalgia. Here he is speaking about peace and reconciliation at Normandy back 25 years ago. Let's listen.

RONALD REAGAN: But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and, yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation. In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union so together we can lessen the risks of war now and forever.

MATTHEWS: Let's talk about the difference. He was talking about the evil empire, trying to reconcile with the people of Russia and the Soviet Union, but not the country. Barack Obama the other day was saying, yesterday, that we don't have an enemy out there per se. We have people who choose extremism, but Islam’s not our enemy. That's not the evil empire.

THOMAS: But Reagan did it with a very – for the first term it was a clenched fist. I mean, we ramped up the cold war before we ramped it down. We built up our military. We – all of this D-day stuff was about war. That was about fighting.

MATTHEWS: Right.

THOMAS: Reconciliation only after the fighting. That's not – Obama’s not doing that. Obama – we've had our fighting. Obama is trying to sort of tamper everything down. He doesn't even use the word terror. He uses extremism. He's all about let us reason together. I think he has a much tougher job, frankly, because-

MATTHEWS: What's his shtick? Reagan had the United States arms race, winning the arms race. And we had the threat of high frontier, we were going to beat the Soviets at technology.

THOMAS: I don't think he has – his shtick is he's the teacher. He's the teacher. He is going to say, ‘now, children, stop fighting and quarreling with each other.’ And he has a kind of a moral authority that he – he can – he can do that-

MATTHEWS: If there's a world election between him and Osama Bin Laden, he's running a good campaign.

THOMAS: Yes, he is.

[Dino 6 Rings]

so, people in the media consider him "God-Like"?

[devilsdancefloor]

wow

[MACH1]

I also think some of the media heads are scared shitless of him.

[RunWillieRun]

Anyone ever wonder what a state-run media looks like?


Well, you don't have to wonder anymore.

[SteelersinCA]

MSNBC is in the running to become the official media of the Obaaama Republic, didn't you know?

[fansince'76]

My problem with the press, personally? True journalism went out the window a couple of decades ago and editorializing has replaced it. Stop giving me your opinions and passing them off as facts in an attempt to tell me what to think. Just give me the who, what, when and where of the story, and I'll decide what I think, thank you very much.

[Hammer67]

Originally Posted by fansince'76

My problem with the press, personally? True journalism went out the window a couple of decades ago and editorializing has replaced it. Stop giving me your opinions and passing them off as facts in an attempt to tell me what to think. Just give me the who, what, when and where of the story, and I'll decide what I think, thank you very much.

Amen...and this is why the papers are failing at an alarming rate across the country. They have lost focus of their original intent...delivering hard, factual, unbiased NEWS. News doesn't mean I want an editorial on the front page. We don't need an entertainment section, a home and garden section, a tech section, a self help section, etc.

If papers wanted to survive, they would focus on hard news, and leave the editorializing to the pundits and blogs.

[SteelersinCA]

People don't want hard news, they want to be lead by whoever talks the slickest.

[Dino 6 Rings]

Next from the Federal Government. New Talk Radio rules and an internet Tax or cost association for "bloggers".

Watch for it. No more free news for us. Soon a Newspaper Bailout. We will pay for the crap in print whether we like it or not.