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Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The President And The Pundits
A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business...The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice the utmost humility, is boundless. -- Eric Hoffer.
Persons who aspire to rule others -- a category which includes everyone who's ever run for public office in these United States -- must believe, unalterably, that they are fit for power. They must believe that they possess adequate insight and moral standing to take certain decisions out of our hands, to be reserved unto themselves. And they must be capable of rationalizing their blamelessness when things go to Hell, for no power-wielder has ever acknowledged and accepted responsibility for the consequences of his actions "in the public interest."
They're "public servants," don't y'know. Utterly devoted to the commonweal, without a thought for themselves. It would be unappreciative to demand that they answer for their mistakes. And don't you dare suggest otherwise unless you want your nose bloodied, your wallet emptied, or both.
As the decades have rolled past, Americans have seen such assertions of "politician's immunity" distilled to an ever purer degree. Few public officials have declined to drink of it. These days, they brandish it at us mockingly. In the current occupant of the Oval Office, we have the ultimate, 200-proof draught of the elixir: in Barack Hussein Obama, the separation between politician and reality has at last become infinite.
Obama considers himself so far above the common run of Mankind that no accolade, no celebration of his excellences, could be deemed excessive. How else could he have accepted a Nobel Peace Prize, awarded to him for doing nothing but campaigning? How else could he have allowed this to be done to defenseless, impressionable school children? How else could he tolerate these blatant violations of the U.S. Flag Code? How else could he rationalize the use of paid thugs to suppress rallies against his preferred policies, or a supremely corrupt "community organizing" coalition to buttress his electoral position?
But Obama has enough of the politician's low cunning to dispatch others to do the more tawdry work of promoting his demigod status. For example, he has White House communications director Anita Dunn.
Dunn has entered upon the riskiest course a public-relations officer can attempt: she's announced a state of hostilities against a major media outlet. It's unthinkable that Obama is unaware of this, or that he disapproves. Like Jimmy Carter before him, he wants complete control of everything in the White House, at least to the extent of prior approval. Of course, should Dunn's decision rebound disastrously against the Administration, we'll hear endlessly about how it was exclusively her idea, that the president had nothing to do with it, but Anita Dunn is almost certainly acting on Obama's own wishes.
Why Fox News? Because it dares to employ a brace of conservative commentators. Fox is alone in the electronic media in having more conservative pundits than liberals. Worse, those conservative pundits are willing to criticize the Administration comprehensively: for its agenda, for its tactics, and worst of all, for its motives. As Fox's viewership is expanding at a record rate, its masters would logically conclude that they're doing the right thing from a commercial standpoint. Should the Dunn attack be followed by the acceleration of that trend -- your Curmudgeon thinks that it will be -- we may expect to see the criticism ramify and intensify.
It would be unreasonable to imagine that Obama, whose opinion of himself is so high that it’s a wonder his nose doesn’t bleed continuously, would tolerate any degree of dissent from his apotheosis. He lives for adulation; he believes he deserves it. If you fail to grant him his due, that makes you evil. Therefore, Fox News is evil and must be destroyed.
The history of the Nixon Administration suggests that this is politically a fatal mistake. The Nixon White House decided to go to war with the Washington Post. The results should require no explication from your Curmudgeon.
Glenn Beck’s conversation with former Carter staffer Pat Caddell yesterday evening delineated what a sensible, humble person does with criticism: he engages it. Even if he believes himself correct, he listens to the opposition, for there’s always a possibility that the opposition might have a cogent argument or knowledge of important precedents. He ceases to listen to the opposition only when it becomes clear that they’re repeating themselves endlessly, without listening in their turn.
But Barack Hussein Obama isn’t a sensible, humble man. He believes himself fit for power, entitled to it, without limit and in perpetuity. This substanceless product of the Chicago Democratic machine has no clue that he’s merely a front man, a pleasant image behind which loom the most vulpine men in America.
Perhaps they will remind him, for they and we are soon to witness a demonstration of an old wisdom:
Comments
It would be a lot easier to defend Fox if they were less “fair and balanced” and more “honest and reliable.” Telling both sides of a story, when one side is a bald-faced liar bent on evil ends and the other is an innocent naif who just wants to be liked is not a recipe for a well-informed public.
Posted by Mark Alger on 10/13/2009 at 09:14 AM@Mark: As I don’t watch TV news, not sure exactly what you’re getting at. Can you explain, maybe an example of coverage you’ve seen?
Posted by Liquid Egg Product on 10/13/2009 at 10:31 AMYes, Mark. Please show us some examples of comparative criticism of the Obama Whitehouse done by other news outlets so we can tell the difference. What? You say there are none to compare them against? What are you saying? That the other networks aren’t out there hiring professional journalists that don’t get a “thrill up their legs” to do real investigative research about, oh, say.. the czars? who are they? what’s their background? About ACORN and what they are really up to. You say only Fox is doing that research for us? Well...well…..there you go then.
Posted by Pat on 10/13/2009 at 02:37 PMPerhaps the “Usurper in Chief” would do himself a favor by remembering “Sic transit gloria mundi”
Posted by Guy S. on 10/13/2009 at 03:44 PM"The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire.”
Robert HeinleinPosted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ on 10/13/2009 at 07:13 PM
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