Anderson Cooper, Gloria Borger, Dana Bash, David Gergen, etc. not only couldn’t bring themselves to criticize anything in Barack Obama’s Inaugural speech (really, he’s going to make hard choices to reduce the deficit and health care costs?), but after a good half-hour of post-speech analysis, the gushing became nauseating.
And what won CNN’s hearts?
Well, what always and so easily wins over this simplistic crowd: identity politics.
It doesn’t matter to the media that during Obama’s first term, eight million people have given up looking for work, unemployment’s still as high as it was before we wasted almost a trillion dollars on stimulus, middle class incomes are falling, gas prices and the cost of health care premiums have nearly doubled, the deficit has exploded beyond anyone’s imagination, and Obama’s second terms proposals only contain more of the same. Nope, all that matters is that Obama’s black; that he mentioned gay rights; that he mentioned Stonewall; that he mentioned Global Warming; and so on…
Accomplishments (or a striking lack thereof) and an actual record, mean nothing to CNN. Nor does the hypocritical nonsense in his speech about reducing the deficit, bringing the country together, and ending the name-calling partisanship.
No context, history, poll numbers, or crowd-sizes allowed.
All that matters to the media is that a few of the hyphenated-Americans’ boxes were checked off.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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