obama bubble

It seems inexplicable:

A “junior varsity” senator with no executive or business experience, who made a mess of health care, presided over a less-than 2% economic growth, racked up more debt than all of the previous presidents combined, created toxic divisions in the country, traded five murdering terrorists for a deserter, allowed the IRS to hound his “enemies” – conservatives – imposed massive regulations that stifle small business, spent millions of our taxpayer dollars on extravagant family vacations, went on overseas apology tours, lied about the Iran deal – how does this smug and arrogant man enjoy such high approval ratings?

Via WSJ.

….Usually when an incumbent president is leaving office and a slew of candidates are battling for his job, that departing chief executive’s record is a major campaign issue.

But not this year, even though two of three Americans say the country is on the wrong track, job creation is sluggish, income inequality continues to rise….

But…Mr. Obama is able to avoid being a target…he is a deft manipulator of the media, probably more skillful at it than any president ever. He heads a savvy public-relations machine that markets him like a Hollywood celebrity, a role he obligingly and successfully plays. One of the machine’s key tactics is to place Mr. Obama in as many positive news and photo situations as possible. Ronald Reagan’s advisers were considered masters of putting their man in the best possible light, but they look like amateurs compared with the Obama operation—which has the added advantage of a particularly obliging news media.

A sampling over the past few weeks: A Washington Post photo captures President Obama blowing giant bubbles “At the final White House Science Fair of his presidency.” A New York Times photo shows the president mobbed by women admirers at a ceremony designating the Sewall-Belmont House on Capitol Hill as a national museum for women’s equality.

An ABC News video gives us Mr. Obama’s helicopter landing on the rainy grounds of Britain’s Windsor Castle, and then we visit the president and first lady lunching with Queen Elizabeth II on her 90th birthday.

In other news clips, we see a doctoral-robed Obama speaking to graduates of Howard University, a tuxedoed Obama yukking it up at the White House Correspondents Association dinner, a brave Obama drinking a glass of water in Flint, Mich., a cool Obama grooving with Aretha Franklin at a White House jazz concert, a serious Obama intently listening to Saudi King Salman, a jubilant Obama on his showy trip to Cuba….

Yet at the same time we were seeing those nice photos, videos and articles, a lot of other important stuff was going on where Mr. Obama was hardly mentioned, seen or questioned….

President Obama’s media handlers try to keep the president as far away from these crises as possible, leaving others in his administration such as Press Secretary Josh Earnest, Vice PresidentJoe Biden, Secretary of State John Kerry, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Joint Chiefs Chairman Joseph Dunford to be their public face. That way the problems don’t appear to be Mr. Obama’s problem, and he is free to bask in the good news.

One of the news media’s main jobs is to hold public officials accountable, from the president on down. But Mr. Obama is the beneficiary of news-media managers and reporters who mostly like his style and agree with his policies….Case in point: The administration’s easy orchestration of the media story line about the Iranian nuclear deal, recently revealed by Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, only scratches the surface of the White House’s skill at managing a media happy to be managed.

Given such a congruence of opinion, Mr. Obama’s policies don’t receive the scrutiny and analysis they should. Reporters who criticize or dig too deep are cast by the administration as spoilsports or, worse, cut off from sources….

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5 Comments | Leave a comment
  1. ROADHOG58 says:

    Master Manipulator? Not really just a sycophant press that wanted to be seen as non racist therefore they purposely spun all of his policies and actions in a positive light. All 0bama did was skillfully play the race card like Johnny Cochran did during the O.J. trial. All you have to do is find that clip of Chris Matthews getting a chill running up his leg.

  2. Maynard says:

    I’m flashing back to the Nixon/JFK debates, which, thanks to subtle media manipulation of the optics, tilted the election in favor of Kennedy, who was another inexperienced junior.

  3. midget says:

    It’ll be a big job but hopefully the next President can reverse much of the damage.
    However,at least after 1/20/17, the world will stop being BO’s personal playground
    for vacations on our wallet.I’m sure the media will criticize mercilessly any vacation Number 45 takes even if it’s only to his own compound.

  4. deaves1 says:

    It will take America a long time to turn around and beginning rebuilding itself. But it will. We built this Nation from the ashes of the Revolutionary and Civil wars, WWI and WWII, we will do it again. I pray that when this is over, we have people in power with the stones to hold those responsible, accountable for their actions.

  5. Alain41 says:

    Obama ‘is a deft manipulator of the media’ like Pavlov’s bell was a deft manipulator of dogs.

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