Can the Press Redeem Itself?

Question: Can the Press Redeem Itself?

 

Answer: Maybe, but we doubt it.

 

Thomas Lifson has an intriguing article in the American Thinker in which he gives his thoughts about the reason the MSM became Obama’s biggest fan and major supporter. Obama was their picture of perfection, the one they had been dreaming about. He thrilled their legs and they were going to do everything they could to smooth his path so that he could fulfill their fantasies.

With his Ivy League pedigree and ability to deliver a speech, Obama charmed the liberal media folk into believing that he was the one they had been waiting for, an inspiring black man on a white horse who could heal our lingering racial wounds, if only given the chance. They hoped he could change an America their progressive belief system held to be flawed by racism, history, and greedy businessmen, and by helping him do so, they too could nudge history along in a positive direction. Perhaps in their own minds making up for whatever personal flaws or unfair advantages they might have possessed along their way to the top of the media food chain. Everyone wants to believe he or she is a good person, doing good things in the overall scheme of things, after all.

So they invested themselves in making the dream come true, attaching their self-concept to his cause. This is why information that was dissonant tended to evoke a rather widespread hostile reaction. Only racists and birthers could doubt any of the official Obama narrative. The Tea Party became an object of hatred, slander, and even physical attacks when it first appeared and threatened the Great Obama Project. When the tea partiers inflicted a serious blow to the political standing of Obama and the Democrats in the 2010 election, taking over the House, they became an obstacle to be removed.

A few days ago they were shocked. They were perfectly willing to give him cover for abandoning the brave men who died in Benghazi. Candy Crowley went so far as to interject herself into a Presidential debate to come to the aid of her hero. The four dead Americans were collateral damage as the press protected their man. Their hatred of the Tea Party made them complicit with the Administration when various local Tea Party groups complained about outrageous demands made by the IRS. In fact, they probably thought it was a fine idea to use the IRS to harass the evil, racist, fascist “Teabaggers” as they called them. After all, remember that mobster Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion.

But then came the revelation that the government had seized the AP’s phone records. Wait; how could their Godlike “Big O” come after them? They were allies; compatriots in changing America to their vision of the anointed. Suddenly they were on the receiving end of Team Obama’s disdain for the law. That was too much. Jay Carney was being asked questions about his previous lies; lies that even the most gullible White House reporters had known were lies but which they transcribed and peddled to gullible low-information voters.

How will we know if the MSM has actually changed from Obama lovers to seekers of the truth?
 

We’ll know they still love him if they go the way of Dana Milbank who excuses him by telling us that he’s just detached; nobody tells “President Passerby” anything.  In this version of the narrative, none of what happened happened because he wanted it.  Like Sergeant Schultz, Obama exclaims “I see nothing, I know nothing.”

If they have actually seen the light, they will begin looking at

...  all aspects of DOJ's activities, including Fast and Furious, the Minnesota scandal involving Tom Perez, Eric Holder's life history (including an armed take-over at Columbia during his college years), and everything else they can think of. That should even-up the scales the next time the DOJ or other government agencies think about overstepping their bounds.

And perhaps they can get a few reporters to do the same for Barack Hussein Obama, member of the Choom gang. Perhaps we can get to know him a little better based on his mother’s and grandparents’ radical past; just who he hung with in college and in Chicago. How close he actually was to Bill Ayers. Just why he admired Jeremiah Wright. His opposition to the born alive act in view of Kermit Gosnell’s conviction for murdering babies born alive. And all those votes of “present” in the Illinois legislature. There’s time for all that. After all, he’ll be in office for the next 3 ½ years.