Obama Raps Cable TV “Chatter,” Hits D.C. Culture As “Petty”
President Obama took a direct shot at Washington’s cable-driven inside-game culture during a speech he gave at a DNC fundraiser last night. From the White House transcript:
I know it can be easy, especially in Washington, to get caught up in the day-to-day chatter of cable television; to be distracted by the petty and the trivial, and to fall into the trap of keeping score about who’s up and who’s down.
There will be days where we may be declared winners, and there will be days where the umpires say, oh, they lost that one. There will be days when the markets go up; there will be days when the markets go down.
Of course, calling on the cable talking heads at your press conference only empowers cable to drag down our discourse. Just saying.
Last month, Obama aides were ridiculing cable-D.C. insider culture as part of a concerted strategy to reclaim Obama’s outsider mantle, but that seemed to have stopped. Now that Obama himself is sounding this note, someone today will mock him for ridiculing D.C. insider culture while attending a gathering of big donor-insider types.
But really, aren’t the big Dem power players who Obama needs to help pass his agenda — and who are easily distracted by cable-D.C. inside chatter, even when it’s way out of touch with public opinion — exactly the audience that needs to hear this?
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Morning Joe already started the ball rolling. But in reality I think the fact that after hearing President Obama rap cable chatter and then going home and seeing them do just that goes to reinforce his point and strengthen people’s support of him. Its almost like predicting the future, except of course saying cable news pundits will be score keeping every day and pronounce issues as being important that aren’t to regular people is like shooting fish in a barrel.
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i regularly have debates with Karen Tumulty at Swampland about why cable news pundits should be combatted. She frequently makes the statement that the pundits don’t matter and people don’t pay attention to them (which is very odd because she frequently appears on both CNN and MSNBC) but she also has personal knowledge of just how easy it is for a media meme to take hold and end up changing public opinion. She was actually one of the writers of an article that had the reference to Al Gore saying he and his wife Tipper were the inspiration for characters in a movie which got blown way out of proportion and helped to get people to view Al Gore as a bloviating liar which he really wasn’t. After the last 8 years of cable news chatter I think most people who think seriously about it would have a hard time saying that cable news chatter doesn’t make a difference. President Obama is right to take their power away from them in this way and cheapen all their arguments.
March 24, 2009
To the Honorable President Barack Obama
Of the Untied States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
info@barackobama.com
OPEN LETTER — To whom it might concern
Mr. President,
I am but one single voice in America today that has all you best interest at heart. My words are fashioned best as I can I know they are feeble in comparison to many but they are from my modest Oklahoma education in the 1960’s for that is who I am. So what I propose or say is never meant to bring any one or any thing into being called intent to deride or chide.
Thanks for all the good work you are doing, and in keeping with your status as our President. We have prayed that you would not back down or cower to anyone.
Many of WE THE PEOPLE are proud to be Americans and we are NOT inane of political science and the actions needed to protect and insure our equity in justice. And because of that we respect your work and for those high and lofty goals to be the centerpiece of your Administration. With you as our solicitous vanguard we do have HOPE once more. In you taking the lead with your strong and strident voice and will in words and deeds to overcome all the many things, people and matters facing our solvency and sovereignty in our rich and abundant America.
One of the most vocal matters that is discussed daily in the televised media and printed News has been –— when and where is the real CHANGE going to come from as promised. Many good a moral folks and I too have been your devoted staunch and strong allies for each step you have taken. And seems now a new chilly wind from a bad direction has begun to blow. In my perception that is because many of your very close cabinet appointees and confidants have a proven track record that is not very good and that comes from their affiliations with groups and societies that have un-sound and un-reasonable long-term goals that have severe lacks of care and concern for our rights to life in our rich and abundant America that we have clung to in our communities and Constitution.
The following list was furnished by WIKI about those active today in your administration that has been apart of the Bilderberg Group.
Mr. President we elected you to set the stage for change and with those listed on your staff now — how can you do that? Obviously you have your work cut out for you to reform our government to integrity… and genuinely caring and working with the highest good of all in mind. You have a tall task you have taken on and we salute you and back you anyway we can.
Their connectivity to others around the world that have a different strategy about the way we should go —- I think it is NOT as a sovereign solvent nation with our own self interest at the core of all we do —- if their plans are implemented that will simply lead us to change not but for more of the same. And to bypass that end game some things that you could do in the way things go for us—– would be:
Richard N. Haass (1991, 2003, 2004[11]), president, Council on Foreign Relations
Christian Herter[12] (1961, 1963, 1964, 1966), former Secretary of State
Sam Nunn (1996, 1997[4]), former US Senator
Kathleen Sebelius[15], Kansas governor and nominee for the the Health and Human Services secretary post
Timothy Geithner[16], Treasury Secretary
Lawrence Summers[17], Director of the National Economic Council
Paul Volcker[18], Chair of the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board
March 24, 2009
To the Honorable President Barack Obama PART TWO
1. The best measure as our President Commander and Chief to do now so that you would have many more ideas put on the table to think about would be —- To hold one if not more Strategic Planning and Development Stimulus Summits — with or without any of your staff and cabinet members or close confidants in the loop now—-then arrange for many other good Americans that are noteworthy with credentials in scholarship and proven track records in name honor and recognition to attend and allow them to have your ear for at least three consecutive days. That you might hear many others opinions and suggestion why and how to move forward then that might bring another perspective of what needs to be done now.
2. Each passing day in America is filled with insidious, hideous and tenuous stuff as was the days when the BUSH BUNCH GANG was in power doing their THANGS. And because of that— things must change now you know that wholeheartedly, so please don’t wait —- to make the Strategic Planning and Development Stimulus Summit one of the matters most important on your agenda.
3. Now my suspicions are like many — if a Strategic Planning and Development Stimulus Summit or one of like kind —– is not done soon by you —-then your men might with their faulted and failed plans prevail.
4. The Bilderberg Group agendas are very clear they are out to protect the accumulation of wealth held by the old line and some new Barons [or benefactors of the spoils of war] to do what is best for them in exclusionary measures no matter what is best for the people affected. Because in their grand scheme of doing things all their goals are about exclusion for all reasons.
One thing for sure all of us agree you have guts to want the job of being our President to lead us out of the espionage and sabotage done by some corrupting our Nation that has been going on for a long time. And one thing you can count on us for doing —-is watching your back day and night, best as we can.
What ever you need us to do just tell us. Give us BIG JOBS to do —-there is a lot of folks that will work for free to help us get back on our feet—-WHY — They like me love this our home America —– think about holding a SUMMIT with the many others that have a good heartbeat from the grass roots of the American folks right now.
As in all good things —- change comes little by little and we should not rush any longer to put out fires that might be needed to burn down the old failed ways of doing business as usual —– that has us in the fix we are in.
Remember we are the willing and we will do as asked.
Best regards
Dwight Baker
Co –Founder of the Bondservants of Christ Jesus Ministries
Chairman of the Voices of We the Peoples Lobby now [Advocacy or WTPA] grass roots actions
Dbaker007@stx.rr.com
Anyone who saw Alex Castellanos on CNN the night of Obama’s presser saying “This is a hint of a one-term president because he shot down Ed Henry” can see the utter disconnect between them and the rest of the population. Even Gergen was looking at Castellanos with incredulity after that one.
Hmmm, looks like your spam filter needs some tweaking Greg
It will start now….guys at the gym with beer guts that took them 20years to develop hoping that they will get those high school abs in 2 months before their big reunion this summer. They will do 1,000 crunches a day and run cardio and ya know what? It won’t work. It may in about a year or so if they keep it up, but usually do not.
We want the big quick fix.
Barack Obama has been president for flippin just over 60 days and people want everything better yesterday. Yikes…..Much like the guy at the gym, everyone wants instant gratification.
IT TOOK 8 + YEARS OF THE BUSH REGIME TO GET UP WHERE WE ARE TODAY.
It ain’t gonna change on a dime. Yet, the chatterers are flipping out that Obama isn’t about change.
THE POLL NUMBERS BEAR THIS OUT, and the chattering class is freaked out about it.
Barak Obama is a SMART MAN AND KNOWS WHAT HE IS DOING.
Refreshing.
Oh, and I love all the pics of Reagan with his tele prompter.
It would be great if the talking heads on the cable shows actually reported news now and then – or were involved in legitimate “debate”. Like John Stewart said ‘ “stop hurting America”.
The best thing Obama can do is what he did the other night at his press conference – throw them a bone now and give them something to chew on. They all want to show their guy/gal asking the “thoughtful” question – whether it is actually thoughtful or not. Play the press. Also – invite them to BBQ’s and stuff like that.
Hey Dwight Baker, they have this new website called WhiteHouse.gov where I am sure you could submit that long arse incoherent screed and you would have a better chance of the President reading it. Im just saying.
This is absolutely the right move, and not only for his own political reasons. The hold the decadent Village media has on the national discourse needs to be broken, completely and permanently.
Everytime I hear the President speak and then listen to how people like Joe Scarborough, Alex Castellanos, Pat Buchanan, Bobby Jindal, and Eric Cantor characterize what he said, I keep wondering who is listening to them? I only hope people’s personal situations force them to listen to grown up ideas, instead of the ususal partisan spin spatter!
Agree with Farinata. I think holding them up to scrutiny and calling on them in press conferences exposes their shallow agenda. I think that the Obama admin’s strategy of hammering on the “media is out of touch” meme is a great idea. It goes right along with the “Republicans have no ideas” meme. A jab and a right hook, then back away. Repeat.
About time POTUS called out the trashy cable news networks and their childish and contrived BS. If you are like me, you stopped listening to their daily poison a long time ago. Whimpering about how it “empowers” them is bizarre. By not calling them out you are reinforcing it even more by avoiding the elephant in the room.
Cable chatterers are in the game of self-reinforcement because it pays. They have their friends on, promote one another’s books, ad nauseum; have a suck up routine; and generally engage in douchebaggery.
They are useful venues for personal vendettas. *ucker Carlson never misses an opportunity to dump on Jon Stewart because Jon put him on the unemployment line toute suite some years back when he criticised Missfire. CNN’s pathetic defence of Ed Henry shows how incestuous this business is. Which group of idiots will call themselves the best political team on television with a straight face?
This gang can be called America’s Thinnest Skinheads.
Greg, you said that President Obama made these statements “while attending a gathering of big donor-insider types.” However, about 85-90 people that I know (who have never been involved in a campaign before in their 40-65 year old lives) bought the $100 and $250 tickets. Are they and the others who bought the countless other $100 and $250 tickets considered “big donor-insider types?” I thought that phrase applied to those $10,000 a head, closed-door events. I think your assertion is too broad to apply to this event. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
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