Here's something I discovered in the course of preparing a column which
will appear elsewhere. It appears to speak to the lengths to which
Barack Obama's administration and his campaign went to avoid having any
kind of bad economic news appear before the fall elections.
By July of last year, the increase in food stamp program participation
in the 42 months since Obama took office exceeded the increase seen
during George W. Bush's entire eight years. But "somehow," the last
monthly report issued by the U.S. Department of Agriculture before
Election Day didn't reflect that reality. It turns out that USDA made an
almost unheard-of substantial upward revision to reported July
participation on December 7 in its second -- not its first --
post-election report. It is not at all unreasonable to believe that the
original understatement was designed to ensure that Mitt Romney and
other Republican candidates would not be able to capitalize on that grim
comparative milestone, and that the revision delay until the second
post-election report was designed to minimize the deception's
visibility. The establishment press should have caught this, and didn't
-- or worse, someone caught it and didn't care to report it.
"If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by
Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest,
then you'll see more of them doing it."
So said Barack Obama in an interview just published by The New Republic:
Greta Van Susteren Strikes Back At Obama's Attack On Fox News
As NewsBusters reported, President Obama, in an interview published Sunday by The New Republic,
said, "If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News
or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common
interest, then you'll see more of them doing it."
Within a few hours, Fox News's Greta Van Susteren struck back:
Apparently President Obama wants his usual media pass and Fox challenges his policies – which happens to be the media’s job.
Frankly, I think a far bigger part of the problem is the
disintegration of relationships between politicians. It is also worth
noting that President Obama has not developed relationships on Capitol
Hill – note that he had to dispatch VP Biden to Capitol Hill for the
recent tax debate because he does not have the relationships. [...]
And do you know what else? Brace yourself for this one! Some Democrats
have told me that they want to come on Fox to discuss issues but they
get heat from their Leadership for appearing on Fox. Does President
Obama know that? So which Party is intimidating its members? And to say
Senator Harry Reid is willing to compromise is just wrong. He has not
allowed a budget to get to the Senate Floor for years to even begin a
discussion. The budget process is where all compromise begins and ends
and ended it before it even got started.
Apparently President Obama wants his usual media pass and Fox challenges his policies – which happens to be the media’s job.
No comments:
Post a Comment