How Chris Christie Press Smackdown Is Different Than President Obama’s Lecturing

When President Obama lectures the press, he’s lecturing adoring sycophants. Their problem is that they don’t love enough. When Chris Christie lectures the press, it’s because they are fundamentally unfair and biased.

Dave Weigel loses that fact and says this:

I can’t help but notice, however, the difference between the reaction Christie’s getting and the reaction President Obama gets when he rips into reporters, either to their faces or at rallies. Obviously, you expect conservative partisans to like Christie and liberal partisans to like Obama. But we’ve seen conservatives deride Obama’s “lecturing tone,”to Republicans, exhibit outrage when he reportedly used the word “teabagger,” accuse him of stiffing the press when he told a reporter his question was a “waste” — in other words, no atta-boys for Christie-esque behavior.

There are a lot of reasons for this. Obama’s tone is not Christie’s tone, and Obama’s rationale for office was not Christie’s. Obama ran explicitly as a uniter, so any swing at the opposition or his critics gives conservatives the opportunity to be “deeply disappointed” at Obama’s rhetoric. Christie has less to lose — despite defeating an unpopular incumbent, he’s not all that popular in his state. But the split reaction is interesting.

Well, how about this?

It’s rich for Obama to lecture the press when the coverage is so slobberingly positive and incurious. He calls out Fox News because it dares give a dissenting view, even though the Obama coverage has been moderate. I mean, O’Reilly fell in love with him during the interview. Puhleeeze.

Meanwhile, Chris Christie is in a corrupt, over-taxed, dying state and trying to save it and being reviled by the press because he wants to roll back the government power. They don’t like that sort of ideology and so they are unabashedly hostile.

Personally, I think ALL press should be hostile. I don’t mind a bit that the press in New Jersey is tough on Christie.

The press’ role is to be tough–ask tough questions, push for answers, demand accountability.

President Obama gets off on that account. The press loves him. They love his ideology. They want to be part of the “in crowd”. They want to be liked.

The organizations they work for are dying. No one will ask a tough question. The party line gets regurgitated. Why read the paper? A thinking person will know what was said without even being there depending on the reporter. They are THAT PREDICTABLE.

So, that’s the difference you see in style and reaction. Plus, Obama is so condescendingly annoying and humorless. There’s also that.

The video, because it’s fun. Also, Ace has some thoughts:

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