Only the news media has failed to get the news that the news media is no longer the news media. It is – and can be seen by any honest person to be – the voice of corporate liberal elite opinion. If a Republican is accused of sexual malfeasance, it’s a front page panic. If it’s a Democrat, it’s a thoughtful discussion on page 20 of the Easter Sunday edition. If a Democrat spies on reporters, cuts off their access, and criminalizes their activities, there’s nothing to see. If a Republican argues back against their unfair coverage, it’s the First Amendment in flames. If things go badly for a Democrat president, it’s the fault of the last Republican. If things go well for a Republican, it’s to the credit of the last Democrat.
To some degree, it was ever thus. Press coverage of John F. Kennedy was adulatory. They went after Richard Nixon hammer and tongs until they forced him out of office for actions no worse than Kennedy’s. They allowed Bill Clinton aide George Stephanopoulos to massage them into silencing women’s complaints against Bill Clinton – and then gave Stephanopoulos the top spot at ABC News, which spiked the Jeffrey Epstein story while Hillary Clinton was running. They treated George W. Bush like a war criminal.
But media coverage of Barack Obama was something else. It marked an epoch in bias and cover-up. I don’t think even Obama expected the level of toadying he received.
When it first came to light that he had used the IRS to silence the Tea Party opposition during his re-election campaign, he actually pretended to give a damn: “I have no patience with it. I will not tolerate it and we will make sure we find out exactly what happened on this.” Once he realized the press would give him a pass even here, he shrugged it off. There was “not even a smidgeon of corruption” to be found among our tax gathering civil servants. He repeatedly said it would be unconstitutional for him to suspend deportations of illegal immigrants by executive order. But once he realized the media would turn a blind eye, eh, screw it, it was done.
When Trump got elected, the instantaneous change from questions like, “What enchants you most about your wonderful presidency, sir?” to “How long have you been spying for the Russians, thou Orange Man Bad?” was pathetic – albeit hilarious in its own disgusting way.
There may have been many things that led to the poodle-faced coverage of Obama. He was, after all, a faux intellectual incompetent with no idea how the real world works – so most journalists must have felt like they were covering themselves. No wonder they were nice to him.
But he was also black, and I’m sure that figured in.
There is only one righteous approach to race. It was best encapsulated in Martin Luther King Junior’s reformulation of the Gospels: Judge each person by the content of his character and not the color of his skin. That’s it. Bingo. Everything else is racism. Identity Politics. Intersectionalism. Racial favoritism. Racism. A Harvard-educated black woman writing about “Whiteness” for The New York Times and a toothless Klansman ranting about the coloreds in a barroom pool hall are morally on exactly the same plane. The 1619 Project and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are likewise headed for the same historical ash heap.
Under the spell of racism, the press – almost every outlet – declared the Obama Administration “scandal free.” They neglected to mention that it was only scandal free because they hadn’t reported on the scandals. The most important thing about the current Biden-Tara Reade affair is that it illustrates exactly how Obama remained scandal-free. “IRS silencing? Benghazi malfeasance? DOJ gun running? Hillary investigation fixing? Spying on Trump? Sure, we covered it! You can read our thoughtful discussion on page 20 of the Easter Sunday edition. Journalistic mission accomplished!”
The slow but genuinely awful revelations about the Russian Collusion investigation – the set-up of Michael Flynn, the FBI’s knowledge that they were investigating nothing – reveal an Obama administration that played by Chicago rules, the rules of an abusive Democrat machine. The news media said Obama was scandal free. So now, they have to minimize, cover up, and spin the revelations or else show themselves to have been liars. They must do exactly the opposite of their jobs.
All corruption works this way. You either own it, admit it and fix it, or it ultimately makes you the mirror image of what you are supposed to be.
The news media has collapsed. I blame racism.
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