Politico: "Obama Falls Flat"

You know things are going poorly for a Democratic president when the MSM turns on them. And the last month has seen a significant number of journalists doing just that. Some have been more obvious than others. The left-leaning Politico in particular has turned on their crush. Observe.

The morning after Obama gave his big speech at the convention, Politico ran a huge headline: “Obama Fell Flat.” This is quite the shocker, even if it is true. Even more interestingly, they pulled no punches in the associated article. They noted that a “long parade of Democrats and media commentators” didn’t think much of the speech and described it as “a fizzle – an oddly missed opportunity to frame his presidency.” They pointed out that even those who like the speech graded it as little more than “effective. . . in a tough-minded if prosaic style.” They said it paled in comparison to Michelle Obama’s and Bill Clinton’s. They said it “underscored the limits of Obama’s oratorical skills in the context of a grind-it-out campaign.” And they even pointed out that Obama’s campaign knew the speech had failed by evidence of senior staff sharing focus group results with reporters, something that would never have been reported on in the past.

Others has similar reactions, especially on the left:

● The Daily Beast: “Let’s be blunt. Barack Obama gave a dull and pedestrian speech tonight, with nary an interesting thematic device, policy detail, or even one turn of phrase.”

● James Carville: “Certainly not the best speech of this convention.”

● Mother Jones: “I didn’t feel any real passion in the delivery. It felt more like an actor soldiering through his lines. There was nothing memorable, nothing forward looking, and nothing that drew a contrast with Romney in sharp, gut-level strokes. Obama was, to be charitable, no more than the third best of the Democratic convention’s prime time speakers in 2012.”

● Nathan Daschle (former head of the Democratic Governors Association): “Disappointed. It was sort of a metaphor for his entire first term.”

These aren’t things Democrats or leftist television hacks normally say. Indeed, this is the silly season of politics where nothing you read isn’t pure spin anymore. So for them to criticize Obama now is truly amazing.

And it doesn’t stop there. Right after telling us how the speech flopped, Politico ran an article under the headline: “Jobs report challenges Obama’s economic message” in which they point out that last Friday’s jobs report completely undercut the entire Democratic message that things are getting better. The article even opened with this line: “President Barack Obama’s convention honeymoon lasted all of eight hours.”

And indeed, that jobs report was dismal as it showed dramatic slowing of the job market and hundreds of thousands of people dropping out of the search for employment altogether.

A few hours later, Politico pointed out under another blaring headline that the number of viewers for the convention was DOWN FROM 2008! (35.7 million compared to 38.4 million). That they didn’t downplay this drew a lot of angry comments.

And this follows a growing trend over the last several weeks where they did articles debunking Obama’s claims and pointing out that while both campaigns have been negative in terms of attacking the other’s policies, the personal attacks are coming overwhelming from Obama. They particularly noted the constant charges of criminality, racism, and the repeated comparisons to Nazis by Team Obama. I find this fascinating.

The MSM never takes shots at Democrats this close to the election, but here they are. I think there are three reasons for this:

● Street Cred: If the media believes Obama is finished, and I’ve stated a pretty strong case for that, then now would be the time for them to regain their credibility with the public by attacking him and debunking his lies. They will need that credibility if they want to be able to criticize President Romney without being dismissed as partisan. And if Obama is going down, then there’s no reason not to pile on now.

● The Left Is Angry: As much as some conservatives like to think of Obama as a leftist ideologue, he certainly hasn’t lived up to their expectations. His Wall Street reform bill was a sop to big banks. Taxes are still low compared to where they were even after Reagan’s first round of tax cuts. Obamacare sucks, but he didn’t socialize anything. . . it was basically a sop to insurance companies. There aren’t any new social programs. He didn’t grant an amnesty. He never pushed for equal pay amendments for women. He finally started talking in favor of the gay agenda, but hasn’t delivered. And his environmentalism is all crony-environmentalism. About the only thing he did was send taxpayer money to unions.

I suspect a big part of what we’re seeing here is that the left has decided Obama deceived them and that he will never come through for them. So I think they are willing to take him on.

● Journalists Just Don’t Like Him: Finally, Politico has been running a fascinating series of articles detailing how many journalists simply don’t like Obama. They’ve described him as arrogant, detached, petty and uninspired. They don’t like the way they’ve been treated by the campaign. They don’t think much of his skills. It is very difficult to treat people fairly when you have personal animus toward them, and I suspect there is a large amount of this going on as well.

Whatever the reasons, it’s clear to me that the MSM is not Obama’s friend, not at the moment.

Thoughts?