Obama to Journalists: No Christmas Present For You

09 Dec, 2009 by Warner Todd Huston

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It is beginning to look like TheOne has just told the lapdog U.S. Old Media that he didn’t get them a Christmas present this year. Politico is reporting that the Obama Administration didn’t invite the average number of newsies to the White House Christmas Party and on top of that, even the ones that did get invited won’t be able to get their photos taken with Obama in a receiving line like they traditionally have because the president seems to have ditched the whole receiving line thing from the schedule.

Imagine the heartbreaking that is going on in those hoary Old Media circles. Imagine the gnashing of teeth and the wailing going on as they whine to their significant other that TheOne has forsaken them! It must be a caterwauling like you’ve never heard.

The Politico starts off its piece in perfect politically correct pitch by noting that reporters covering Obama always look forward to “The White House Holiday Party.” Didja notice Politico doesn’t say the White House Christmas Party? I thought you would. Anyway, shocking news has leaked out amongst the newsies that many of them weren’t invited to the White House Party this year like they have been in years past. Worse, the Prez has dumped that whole annoying having-to-meet-people stuff.

This year, however, the White House seems to be doing things a little differently. The invites went out late — and didn’t include journalists who have been invited in the past. And those who have been invited seem likely to be denied the traditional receiving-line photo.

The unkindest cut of all is when the lapdog media has been kicked to the curb by their own messiah! After all their groveling, after all the negative Obama stories that the media nonetheless put a happy face upon, after his repeated foreign policy debacles, his failure to get Obamacare passed, his policies of economic immolation… after they covered for all his failures so far, he’s kicking them in the teeth for it.

Oh, the humanities. How’s that for some change, Old Media?

Politico has a bunch of grumbling media elites expressing how upset they are at how “screwed up” this year’s “Holiday” party is as it is mishandled by this amateur White House. Amusingly, some are even saying that the Bush White House was better in this respect.

But should this off handed treatment of the press really surprise them? Yes, the U.S. press has bent over backwards to absolve this White House and President of all ills, yes they’ve hyped the silver lining in the darkest of stories, but for his part the president has yet to seem to realize how the press adores him. He’s often dissed the press and shown it the back of his hand. In fact, even during the campaign an unappreciative Obama repeatedly slapped the press.

For instance in Sept. of 2008 Obama needled the press for “the made-up controversy of the day” when the media reported on Obama’s famous “lipstick on a pig” insult that he threw out at then GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin.

And since he became president his snippiness at the obsequious Old Media establishment hasn’t gotten any better. Just the other day Obama knocked the press. Time reported Obama’s latest swipe at the media on Dec. 6 as the president was responding to Farooq Kathwari, CEO of furniture giant Ethan Allen.

And frankly, this town and the way the political dialogue is structured right now is not conducive to what we need to do to be globally competitive. And all of you are leaders in your communities — in the business sector and the labor sector, in academia, we even have a few pundits here — it is important to understand what’s at stake and that we can’t keep on playing games.

I mentioned that I was in Asia on this trip thinking about the economy, when I sat down for a round of interviews. Not one of them asked me about Asia. Not one of them asked me about the economy. I was asked several times about had I read Sarah Palin’s book. (Laughter.) True. But it’s an indication of how our political debate doesn’t match up with what we need to do and where we need to go.

Time notes, however, that “Obama did not accurately characterize his interviews” because he certainly was asked questions about important issue during his Asia trip.

The simple fact of the matter is Obama has been jabbing at the media and characterizing it as his enemy since he began to run for president back in 2004. And every time he slaps them they express their shock yet come back with tails wagging every time he calls. Or maybe it is more apt to say they keep coming back like a battered girlfriend?

Whatever it is, it is the most amazing act of unthinking fealty that has been seen in modern times.