It was just a few short days ago that President Obama said that Republican attempts to tie ISIS to a radical form of Islam are lying and helping to drive recruitment by not leaving out the religious element to their terror the way he does.
After he said those things, there was no furor in the press. Journalists were not taking to social media to express their outrage at the President suggesting Republicans were aiding a barbaric Islamic terror group. They were largely silent.
It was a whole different story however, when news broke broke just the day before about comments former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani made at an event for Governor Scott Walker.
“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the president loves America,” Giuliani said during the dinner at the 21 Club
This criticism, which is rather mild in my view was seen as a final straw by members of the media – and not the usual left-wing pundits but supposed “journalists” – who reached for the fainting couch upon learning of it. The first was Ben White of Politico in a series of tweets:
The next was National Journal’s Ron Fournier:
While the first two tweets from both are garden variety pearl clutching, it’s the last ones that are particularly egregious in throwing away any hint of objectivity.
The moment a journalist takes sides, they are no longer operating as a journalist but as an advocate. It doesn’t matter what one thinks of any comment made by a politician about another. White and Fournier, with those tweets calling on various Republicans to “denounce” or “condemn” Giuliani’s comments are not acting as objective reporters, but instead like palace guards whose sole purpose to protect President Obama.
This is not anything new. The most outrageous is example was in 2012 during the second debate between Mitt Romney and President Obama during the 2012 campaign. Mitt had Obama on the ropes about whether he referred to the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi a terrorist attack (he didn’t). As the President fumbled with words, Candy Crowley of CNN, there to be a debate moderator, instead swooped in to “correct” Mitt Romney on something that was not incorrect.
The easiest thing to do is just say Fournier and Smith are “liberals” and they’re just part of the “liberal media.” But such accusations are easy to make and really do not get to the root of the issue. After I made (somewhat) of a joke tweet about the press not caring about Obama’s comments re: ISIS and the GOP, a Twitter friend, Rachel Palmer responded:
to which I responded:
@PollySpin Of course you don’t. Because you’re not part of mindset that sees themselves as a subset of Obama himself
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) February 21, 2015
It was at nearly the same time, Stephen Miller aka @redsteeze (if you’re not following him, you should be and you should also be reading his work over at The Wilderness) said to me:
I replied that were both thinking the same thing and he added:
He’s exactly right. In Obama they see themselves. What he wants to carry out is what they want and they are going to do what they can to make sure these last two years he gets to do just that, the consequences be damned.
So whether it is going after Rudy Giuliani or going after a Congressional staffer for a slight against the Obama daughters, the media is going to be out to defend Obama at all costs.
That’s what the palace guard does. Like Stephen said, “They fight for his successes. He cannot fail.”