[Infowarrior] - The Obama Infatuation (media)

[Richard Forno]

It is interesting how much of a 'pass' he is getting these days, and  
how many DC' journalists are still caught up in the Reality Distortion  
Field surrounding the Administration.   --rf


(c/o DS)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/31/AR2009053102079_pf.html

*The Obama Infatuation*

By Robert J. Samuelson
Monday, June 1, 2009

The Obama infatuation is a great unreported story of our time. Has any  
recent president basked in so much favorable media coverage? Well,  
maybe John Kennedy for a moment, but no president since. On the whole,  
this is not healthy for America.

Our political system works best when a president faces checks on his  
power. But the main checks on Obama are modest. They come from  
congressional Democrats, who largely share his goals if not always his  
means. The leaderless and confused Republicans don't provide effective  
opposition. And the press -- on domestic, if not foreign, policy --  
has so far largely abdicated its role as skeptical observer.

Obama has inspired a collective fawning. What started in the campaign  
(the chief victim was Hillary Clinton, not John McCain) has continued,  
as a study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in  
Journalism shows. It concludes <http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/obamas_first_100_days 
 >: "President Barack Obama has enjoyed substantially more positive  
media coverage than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush during their  
first months in the White House."

The study examined 1,261 stories by The Post, the New York Times, ABC,  
CBS and NBC, Newsweek magazine and the "NewsHour" on PBS. Favorable  
articles (42 percent) were double the unfavorable (20 percent), while  
the rest were "neutral" or "mixed." Obama's treatment contrasts  
sharply with coverage in the first two months of the Bush (22 percent  
of stories favorable) and Clinton (27 percent) presidencies.

Unlike George Bush and Bill Clinton, Obama received favorable coverage  
in both news columns and opinion pages. The nature of stories also  
changed. "Roughly twice as much of the coverage of Obama (44 percent)  
has concerned his personal and leadership qualities than was the case  
for Bush (22 percent) or Clinton (26 percent)," the report said. "Less  
of the coverage, meanwhile, has focused on his policy agenda."

When Pew broadened the analysis to 49 outlets -- cable channels, news  
Web sites, morning news shows, more newspapers and National Public  
Radio -- the results were similar, despite some outliers. No surprise:  
MSNBC was favorable, Fox was not. Another study <http://www.cmpa.com/media_room_4_27_09.htm 
 >, released by the Center for Media and Public Affairs <http://www.cmpa.com 
 > at George Mason University, reached parallel conclusions.

The infatuation matters because Obama's ambitions are so grand. He  
wants to expand health-care subsidies, tightly control energy use and  
overhaul immigration. He envisions the greatest growth of government  
since Lyndon Johnson. The Congressional Budget Office estimates  
federal spending in 2019 at nearly 25 percent of the economy (gross  
domestic product). That's well up from the 21 percent in 2008, and far  
above the post-World War II average; it would also occur before many  
baby boomers retire.

Are his proposals practical, even if desirable? Maybe they're neither?  
What might be the unintended consequences? All "reforms" do not  
succeed; some cause more problems than they solve. Johnson's economic  
policies, inherited from Kennedy, proved disastrous; they led to the  
1970s' "stagflation." The "war on poverty" failed. The press should  
not be hostile, but it ought to be skeptical.

Mostly, it isn't. The idea of a "critical" Obama story is one about a  
tactical conflict with congressional Democrats or criticism from an  
important constituency. Larger issues are minimized, despite ample  
grounds for skepticism.

Obama's rhetoric brims with inconsistencies. In the campaign, he  
claimed he would de-emphasize partisanship -- and also enact a highly  
partisan agenda; both couldn't be true. He got a pass. Now, he claims  
he will control health-care spending even though he proposes more  
government spending. He promotes "fiscal responsibility" when  
projections show huge and continuous budget deficits. Journalists seem  
to take his pronouncements at face value even when many are two-faced.