“I admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate.”
That’s what Obama said about CNN at last night’s White House Correspondents Association dinner.
Let me explain why that is such a great line. CNN sees itself as “in the middle” between left and right, MSNBC and Fox. Just recently, in fact, CNN president Jeff Zucker praised the middle as the place to be. But CNN also sees itself as a great newsgathering organization that is all about truthtelling rather than ideology. “Keeping them honest,” as Anderson Cooper, face of the brand, likes to say.
Put them together and what do you have? Keep ‘em honest, but stay in the middle. Which doesn’t work. For what happens when one side is BS-ing us more than the other? What happens when independent and honest reporting shows that these people on this side are mostly right in what they’re saying, and those people on that side are distorting the case?
CNN wants to believe, tries to believe and I think does believe that this problem does not exist. Therefore we have to remind them about it, because it does exist. And that’s what Obama did: “cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate” is saying to CNN: Accuracy and truthtelling will be sacrificed to your ideology— the middle, no matter what it takes.
(via jayrosen)
(via brooklynmutt)
4:07 PM | 714 notes | http://tmblr.co/ZynHKxjlysaf
“David Axelrod now works for MSNBC, which is a nice change of pace, because MSNCB used to work for David Axelrod. The History Channel is not. I guess they’re embarrassed about that whole ‘Obama is Satan’ thing.”
President Obama, #NerdProm (#WHCD)
9:21 PM | 6 notes | http://tmblr.co/ZynHKxji0T-H
Has he officially declared trying to cover the gray an impossible task or is it more of a “don’t give a f___-itis” because he no longer has to run for office again.
Just wondering. If I didn’t have to run again, and I were POTUS, I wouldn’t care about the gray.
(Source: gwbsmu, via politi-gal)
2:46 PM | 21 notes | http://tmblr.co/ZynHKxjbTnd4
politicsnation:
Pres. Obama became the first sitting president today to address Planned Parenthood.
This just after a new interview with Todd Akin, where he says he wishes he could take back his “legitimate rape” comments: http://usat.ly/Y1SEMo
I always thank elected officials when they address Planned Parenthood or NARAL (more NARAL than Planned Parenthood), because it’s a target… it’s a campaign target.
Sure, Obama isn’t running for reelection anytime soon, but midterms for a President’s final term in office are hellacious at best. However, this was the right thing to do on so many levels. If it just gets a few more people focusing on the fact that only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s budget is for abortions and NONE of that is federally funded.
Thank you, POTUS.
(via kileyrae)
12:56 PM | 180 notes | http://tmblr.co/ZynHKxjb56Oc
“Obama’s reelection campaign, and his second inaugural address, was founded on a very different premise: The old arguments were indeed strangling our politics, and the only way to move past them is to win them, and the only way to win them is to fight over them… This was not a speech that assumed that the disagreements that split our politics are based on the psychodramas of the past nor that they will fall easily before the onslaught of the future. But it was a speech, more so than most Obama has offered, that signaled his intention to join the battle of ideas, to use his bully pulpit to make an aggressive and uncompromising case for why his side is right, and to not rest until the American people agree that the other side is wrong. In his first term, Obama changed policy. In his second, he wants to change minds.”
Ezra Klein (via kileyrae)
(Source: Washington Post, via kileyrae)
2:20 PM | 92 notes | http://tmblr.co/ZynHKxcJTl9f
I think my feelings about the speech are this: the Inauguration is supposed to the grand spectrum, the ideal… it’s not the place for policy.
JFK famously stated, “Ask not what you’re country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” In his… which was obviously planning to introduce policy like the Peace Corps and other likeminded policy initiatives.
If this was supposed to be a two-part speech and with the State of the Union address so close, maybe we could have focused on the vision, instead of the policy and put the policy all where it belongs: the State of the Union.
Instead of this muddled mess. I’m sorry… Great ideas in the speech, don’t get me wrong, but when you mix vision and policy it just becomes mud.
11:57 AM | 1 note | http://tmblr.co/ZynHKxcIlCnf
