The media seems to have been critical of Obama's every step.

In the stimulus fight he was being too passive and not doing enough to get the end result. Many in the media, specifically the liberal part of the media, balked that he was giving away too much to gain Republican support. When it finally passed, a great deal were underwhelmed.

We'll get back to that stimulus thing in a bit.

Then there was the whole stock market thing. You remember that, right? It was about March, 2009 and the media began touting it as Obama's Stock Market - when it was bad, of course. The response from the White House, it seemed, was painfully slow and some wondered if Obama, only a little over a month into his presidency, was destined for Carter-like results.

Of course, the stock market rebounded, quickly, in fact, and that point of attack slowly died.

But the stimulus attack didn't. Because unemployment kept rising and the economy still looked shaky. Not as bad as it had prior to Obama becoming president, but bad enough for a great deal to call the stimulus a failure at worst and ineffective at best. Again, a passive president in this regard. Why wasn't he doing anything about the jobs or the economy? Republicans slammed him, many Democrats questioned him (remember how the topic of the day in mid-09 was the double-dip recession?) and in the end, again, a great deal were being critical of every step the President was taking.

How's the stimulus look now? Perfect? Not even. But I think we can all agree the economy stabilized and is now finally turning around.

But by the time that happened, the media turned to another topic to be critical on - healthcare.

It started in the summer of 2009 when the tea-bag movement, aided by the media, stormed the townhalls and fought like hell to put a stop to healthcare. Again, we heard Obama wasn't doing anything - even though he had been out on the stump and given speeches and even held a question & answer period with the press. That was ignored. He wasn't doing much and the tea-baggers were shaping the narrative (this couldn't be because the press gave them more publicity on this matter than they actually deserved, could it?).

The summer months turned to September and healthcare looked dead because of, without doubt, Pres. Obama. Then it revived a bit when he gave a powerful speech to the nation that month. However, it seemed only temporary as the media once again returned to being critical and touting the inflated tea-bagger numbers to show the American disapproval of health reform.

By January, after Scott Brown had won, the main stream media was once again comparing him to Jimmy Carter. But this was worse. They weren't just suggesting it possible, they were suggesting it was inevitable. He was, in their minds, a one-term president.

By March of 2010, we'd have healthcare reform.

In between all of this was Obama's so-called tepid response to the Fort Hood shooter. His slow response to the Christmas Day Bomber (don't you have to actually bomb something to be called a bomber?), the Haiti earthquake and the Times Sqaure Bomber (again with the bomb).

Haiti was supposed to be his Katrina...until the Gulf happened.

Yet in every instance, it seems Obama, after being criticized relentlessly, somehow proves to get things done.

This time last year, the economy was on an improbable course toward another recession. Everyone kept asking themselves how high unemployment would rise (could it really push 15?!?).

This time last year, the stimulus was a failure and healthcare reform had yet to be touched.

This time last year, Obama held fairly favorable approval ratings, but was already being called ineffective and too pragmatic. Too nice. Too...passive.

Yet each month brings better news about the economy. Each month proves the President's stimulus has reinvigorated the economy.

This time last year, everyone claimed Obama was trying too much too fast. Remember how his plate was supposed to be too full for healthcare reform and speeches in Prague and Egypt?

Now he's not doing enough. We expect him to face down North Korea, work on the immigration debate, continue helping the American economy and do everything a president does...all the while dominating the discussion down the in Gulf. Now, it seems, we demand that plate be filled. Now, it seems, we demand to see President Obama talking on our television every second of the day - even though a year ago the media was asking if Pres. Obama was speaking to the nation too much.

Face it. Whatever Pres. Obama does will never be good enough for the media. He could have gone down and set up camp on the Gulf, spending every day of the last month down there, and they'd all question why he didn't delegate action to other groups and stay focused on the issues of 300,000,000 as opposed to a paltry three million people.

He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't.

But we already knew this, right?

because people are lining up to fling their crap at him.

Anyone who wants to continue bitching and complaining behind their computer screen is advised to put on their boots and head down to the Gulf and start helping out themselves.

It's almost as if groups to the left of the president have joined forces with the teabaggers to topple his presidency. I, for one, don't think it will work, and that's what pisses them off most. I don't think I've ever been more disappointed in our so called "progressive media", because they're worse than the M$M.

"This government can't do shit!"

Excellent for the Republicans.

If we lose majorities in November,
yes, it will be our fault, cause although
we can expect the media and the GOP
to be against this government.....and fight it tooth and nails,
it is the fair weather allies who may end up to be more potent
at the relentless drive to bring this administration down,
just like back in 1980, which is how Reagan got elected.

Lovely.

So now after everyone's screaming for Obama to "go down to the Gulf," there's someone saying that won't be enough. NOTHING he does is EVER enough. It's not as if he's done nothing to this point. :eyes:

I can kind of identify with him - in my job there is always something more you could do. Toxic people always have to point that out rather than focus on what does get done.

And when it comes to the POTUS, they really have no idea what they are talking about. How do they know how to deal with this oil spill? The pundits, the DUers, have no idea how to deal with it. So Monday morning quarterbacking and on a subject the person themselves is not expert on.

It is also a nation that has been socialized to believe that patience is a sin--since everything now gets done at light-speed.

However, it is because of those same insurmountable expectations that we are the most overworked citizens of the entire planet. We take less vacation time, yet we demand more of others because work is supposed to be the epitome of Puritan virtue. In the midst of those demands, no one cuts anyone slack. And of course, empathy is not allowed when repetitively waving one's finger and barking out orders.

This same mind-set is at the forefront of the criticism of President Obama.

I'd also say--in the case of the dominant culture--that these unrealistic expectations also are tinged with race as well.

In the eyes of some white people, it is easier to expect Mr. Obama to do a "lesser" job than the forty-three Presidents before him. As a result, they perceive him not to do "enough" when it has to do with the things he has tried to accomplish. And what is worse, this perception is pitched in the media by focusing especially on white faces angrily heckling, shouting at him, and waving signs at every public venue Mr. Obama seems to be. Because he "isn't working hard enough" and considered "lazy", some folks in the dominant culture have to "yell and yell" to get him to accomplish the things that they want him to do.

So, even when the current POTUS works even harder to solve quite difficult problems, he faces a lot of derision and disrespect because people will continue to believe despite high accomplishment he's not doing enough. After all, he's not like the earlier Presidents. The bar has to be set higher for him than the others. :eyes:

It's a catch-22.

The only thing to be said about this is to suggest that some of those folks who heckle him to take the reigns of this country and do his job for a day.

I wonder once night falls if these very same critics would crawl into a corner and have a mental breakdown after trying very loudly and hard to push their agenda when there are screaming politicians that denounce their name, a grass-roots organization calling for their assassination while a difficult ecological situation is damaging a portion of the nation. Even after this, try to conduct their business on social policy while bullies deride each and every move.

Being the POTUS is not for the faint of heart.

It is a miracle that Mr. Obama doesn't break down right in front of the cameras after all this crap thrown against him.

mediawhorecorp..so yeah they don't just criticize..they manipulate, manufacture, and turn theirselves into a celebrity-rag sideshow attraction format.

Big ol propaganda machine.

:thumbsup:

Glad we agree! :)

:hi:

:crazy:

Where did you get that the OP was trying to absolve Obama from anything by laying blame off on the media?

Any rational person can see MSM bias towards a Dem president and call it out, but now this is interpreted as trying to get Obama off the hook?

Don't worry: We know YOU won't let him off of yours. Ever. Until you pointedly DO NOT vote for him in 2012 to finish sending your message.

And then you'll probably be back after he wins in 2012 to remind everyone that you didn't vote for him.

it drives them fucking batshit insane :D

I was telling her about the folks bitching and blaming Obama for the oil spill and she looked at me and said "baby, they blame him for EVERYTHING. But it doesn't matter because no matter what they throw at him, he is STEADY. He doesn't scream and holler or get mad. He is a rock and he gets things done."

You're both absolutely right. And because he is so unflappable and more often right than not, it drives his detractors even more insane. Gotta love that. :)

propped it up, too. The narrative involved extensive coverage of Obama--good and bad--to the point where Americans were duped into believing that the M$M is biased in favor of Obama. They kept doing it. And losing candidates always blame the M$M for their loss, so that didn't help.

So now that we are trying to convince people that it's the exact opposite--that the M$M has actually been negative towards Obama from the beginning--it's harder to get people to see that.

The M$M itself then blamed Obama for the extensive, unprecedented coverage that he was getting as though he himself had anything to do with it.

So, again, when you tell someone that the media is actually negative towards Obama, they look at you as though you're crazy. When you try to prove it to them, they still won't embrace the truth. Even here on this very forum.

Because it has been repeated over and over again--by left and right media--that the M$M favors Barack Obama, people believe a repeated lie. And nothing we can say or do will change that, sadly.

will never happen. They see everything through a historical lense. If Bush was an incompetent loser, then we must do our best to make Obama look like is one as well. They think it's their job to make sure one President does not come off better than his predessesor.

They have no fucking idea how to do their jobs and Obama's press conference proves it. Most everything the President said during his opening remarks are things I and many here on DU already knew about, yet the media seemed to be completely unware (based on their on-air remarks during the past 2 weeks). It's like deja vu with the Iraq war build up all over again. I and others knew Bush was rushing to war, pushing our weapons inspectors and lying about WMD and Saddam's connection to al Queda, but the media was completely cluless, just as they are today. They're always the last to know anything.

Sad.

"Oh we were asleep during the Bush years, we must now get tough"

However I think that is only a small part of what is going on.

Standard Operation Procedure has always been to put a Republican on TV and he or she pretty much never gets fact checked. Put a Democrat on TV and go into haughty skeptical gotcha mode.

Great post,dude.

Perhaps if they have been more critical of Shrub we wouldn't be in half the mess we are in now.