Laura Ingraham had a great interview with Newsweeks Howard Fineman. The first 8 minutes is a pretty good analysis about how Obama miscalculated almost every decision he has made during his time in office. Fineman wasn’t as hard on Obama as Laura was of course, seeing as he carried the water for Obama. Around the 8 minute mark Laura takes him to task for just that: (h/t Newsbusters)
INGRAHAM: How is it though with all these smart people at Newsweek – I went around the block with Evan Thomas about this as well. How did you all think that a guy who basically went from the Harvard Law Review, to some community leafleting, organizing, whatever you want to call it, to a short stint, a few lectures about constitutional law at [the University of] Chicago, very short stopover in the state Senate, and a very short stopover in the U.S. Senate. How does that add up to experience to run the biggest economy and the biggest military in the world? And why wasn’t Newsweek, instead of doing these celebrified covers of Michelle and Barack as historic, and celebrity culture, and all this love-love-love-love-love, why wasn’t – Why weren’t those questions asked before this election took place? Because to me, those were the questions to ask. . It wasn’t about personality. It was about experience and outlook.
FINEMAN: Well, uh, first, I’ll plead nolo [contendere] on a lot of this. But –
INGRAHAM: That’s what he did, in the U.S. Senate. He voted present. So you’re voting present for Newsweek.
FINEMAN: No, no. Part of the problem is, or part of the reason is that we – as political reporters, we become enamored with the mechanics of the campaign, and I would still insist that –
NGRAHAM: You’re gonna do that if Paul Ryan is the nominee, for the Republicans? You’re gonna celebrify him? I don’t think so.
FINEMAN: No, no. Let me back up for a second. That was – Whatever you say about Barack Obama and David Axelrod in your diaries and everything –
INGRAHAM: Yeah.
FINEMAN – It was a brilliantly run campaign. And I have come to despair of the notion of the relationship between the quality and shrewdness of a campaign that someone runs and the kind of presidency that they have. ~~~
FINEMAN – To some extent we were mystified and mesmerized by the quality of branding campaign that was Obama’s.
This is about as close as you will get to one of the MSM members admitting that they were “bamboozled” by the brand of Obama and did nothing, absolutely nothing, to vet this man as a leader.
The thing is, were they really “bamboozled” or did they do much of the bamboozling themselves? Obama didn’t call Newsweek and tell them to compare him to Lincoln. The MSM pushed this brand of Obama themselves and Obama took advantage of it, not the other way around.
Fineman and other biased reporters will start to do more backpeddling as the failure of Obama’s Presidency continues, but none of us should let them without calling them out for being the major player behind Obama. Some 48% of the voting public saw through this glamorization of Obama, and saw through Obama himself as a narcissistic politician who never really accomplished anything during his lifetime, and wouldn’t accomplish much as President.
Why couldn’t the MSM have seen this?
