No Honeymoon for Obama

The Media's Ongoing Love Affair With President Obama

The media has pulled no punches on behalf of the Bush administration, and they shouldn't for Obama either (despite their continuing love affair with the Illinois politician). Mr. Bush has been savaged since 2005, and deservedly so in some cases. Pundits will eventually have to put aside their unabashed affection for President Obama, and start demanding real solutions. (I'm looking at you Chris Matthews and your ilk over at MSNBC.)

The media has pulled no punches on behalf of the Bush administration, and they shouldn't for Obama either (despite their continuing love affair with the Illinois politician). Mr. Bush has been savaged since 2005, and deservedly so in some cases. Pundits will eventually have to put aside their unabashed affection for President Obama, and start demanding real solutions. (I'm looking at you Chris Matthews.)

Media overload or partisan politics?

I think our increased communications hold the promise of improving democracy or of destroying it. If our national leaders use it to better educate the voting public about the truth of various issues as well as to then solicit feedback from an educated populace, then we can achieve new levels of quality in our democracy. However, if these tools are used to send spinning sound bytes that cause not only uninformed opinions from the masses, but misled opinions from the masses, then it has the potential to destroy. The press, amateur bloggers, etc. may control that pendulum between educating and informed feedback, or spinning and misled opinion, because the politicians only control the messages they send; the press, and increasingly the amateur internet communicators, control what we “hear.”

As for Obama’s prospects, a little history is in order. The last time our country faced such a financial crisis, was in the same transition period from a lame-duck Republican President, Herbert Hoover; to the Democratic President-elect Franklin Roosevelt. Most historians blame Herbert Hoover for the Great Depression. However, one biographer suggested that congress was unwilling to move forward in any direction that Hoover requested, unless Roosevelt said he would support it. Hoover asked Roosevelt to indicate what he would support, and Roosevelt refused. The author of that book (I lost it in a flood and don’t have the name of the book nor author) said flat out that it was Roosevelt who’s refusal to indicate a direction, made the Depression worse than it needed to be. Furthermore, Roosevelt thereby created a situation where he looked more like a “savior” of America, by the steps he eventually took as President, to get us out of the depression.

That story gives historical perspective to the situation that Bush (primarily) and Obama (secondarily) face in the next 2 months. Does Bush have the moral courage to ASK Obama what he will support and to thereby actually reach across the aisle and keep things moving now, during his administration? If Bush asks, does Obama have the moral courage to give answer? Perhaps historians of the future will glean from the truth of these days, whether America, and perhaps democracy itself, is now having the grand opportunity to demonstrate its value – by Republican and Democrat working together to improve our situation without regard to which party ultimately gets the credit, or the blame.

Let me be clear, George Bush is the President, not Barack Obama. Therefore, the ball is in Bush’s court. If he never passes it to Obama, then whatever blood comes from this financial mess will be squarely on President Bush’s hands.

It would be sad if partisan politics were to cause the Fall of America, while at a time in history when communications allow us to strive for our best choices, some being led by Democrats and some by Republicans, in seeking a better democracy.

honeymoon for Obama

This election fiasco has left a bad impression with many voters.

The endless campaign,the hiking around the world as a candidate,

the excess spending to repeat the same words again and again,

and ,of course, the massive amounts of money wasted-yes,wasted-

for the ultimate buy-out job! I am spreading the idea that ALL

campaigns need to be limited to 4 months and 10 million dollar

budgets. In this age with every form of media available, we can

and do interact in milliseconds. Candidates can do the same!

Part two to this, if you currently hold an office this job

will be resigned prior to your campaign. As a tax payer, I do not want to pay a salary to a representative who is not present

to complete their duties for the job they were elected to perform. This applies to both the major candidates of the campaign!

Information Overload

To my thinking, two problems stand out that affect the new media: 1) a national inability to cope well with extraordinary prosperity; and, proceeding from that, 2) excessive self-consciousness about being American.

The current credit crisis and all its spin-off crises, brought on by excessive greed, hubris, and profound judgment deficiencies, from corporations down to individuals, speak for themselves. One main casualty of this bloat seems to be critical thinking. When people’s well-being or survival depends on having to solve real problems, they try to solve the problems, and Americans have historically been excellent at creative and adaptive thinking and behavior. Yet it is so long since we have faced deprivation on a large scale, I fear that ability has gone into remission, as manifested in the declining quality of reporting in the media in terms of content depth and reading level.

Without the imperative of a common, universally supported cause like fighting fascism in the 40s, we have the luxury of eschewing a sense of national responsibility and instead pursuing our individual pleasures and identities. This super-individualism has made us acutely uncomfortable with promoting any particular national identity as that primary one which is shared by all Americans. There is less and less of a belief that the historic American identity, based in the Judeo-Christian ethic and forged at the time of the American Revolution, accommodates all Americans of varying heritages. As a result, this heretofore shared culture is slowly but surely being eroded in the public forum, particularly public school. What has emerged is a paradigm in which the study and celebration of personal and ethnic culture is more virtuous than the adaptive preservation of a diverse culture that is soundly based in a traditionally shared American identity.

The logical result of having the lack of any shared identity as our only shared identity is societal fragmentation. I believe that in this election cycle we saw the first manifestations in the media coverage of such a social dispersal. People self-righteously created or migrated into news forums that affirmed their personal beliefs and cultural values without offering any counter-balancing viewpoints to challenge their thinking.

Mainstream news outlets should uphold high standards for fair and honest reporting. But just as government can’t save people, only people can, the media likewise can’t save people. This will happen through good stewardship of our resources, not taking them for granted. Finally, we need a profound sense that while we are collectively vulnerable, we are capable of thriving as a nation whose diversity enhances, but does not replace, the shared core values that indeed enable those very diverse groups to coexist peacefully.

Obama's Promises and his Presidency

I didn't vote for Obama, but out of all the republicans and democrats in the primaries, he would have been my second choice behind McCain. I think most Americans realize he cannot deliver on all of his promises in the first year of his presidency. If he governs from the center, limits government intervention, works to keep America safe, and limits budget deficits, he will be successsful in my eyes.

Obama's whole campaign was a honeymoon. Now the work begins. I think the president elect will be successful in some areas, such as getting us out of the war. I'm not so sure how he'll fare in others, such as spreading the wealth.

As for the media, I live in the Chicago area and was not an Obama supporter (nor a McCain supporter). The media here were out of control. Here, and nation-wide, there was not enough scrutiny on the actual work Obama did here in Illinois versus the potential for what he could have done had he remained committed to his job as Senator.

My expectation for the media is to stop the hype and maintain some balance when reporting from this point on. We don't need to know what private school Michelle Obama chooses for their children. We do need accurate reporting on the President's agenda and the honest reporting of his successes and failures in bringing new policy to our nation.

Do Away With the Cute Stuff

If any President is going to keep his promise, it's going to be President-elect Obama. Do you know why? He's the only elected official that has a Blog Site. I think all elected officials should have one and all media networks. That way anyone that specializes in a certain subject can find information that he is searching for. I've been looking for over 15 years to find out how TOXIC those TOXIC DERIVATIVES have to get until our media finally starts talking about them. I don't believe Congress is going to do anything because there are too many paid lobbyists in Washington promoting them. The politicians were more than anxious to turn everything over to Fed Chm Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Paulson and let the Treasury buy up all those TOXIC DERIVATIVES. It sounds like they are really bad and the scary part is we don't even want to find out. It all started when former Fed Chm Greenspan kept lowering and lowering the interest rates and we bought things we shouldn't have bought. That's not a true conservative. When Ronald Reagan was President, he told former Fed Chm Paul Volcker to raise the interest rates to as high as 20%. Us Americans had a reason to put money in the bank and save and it sounds like nowadays, all we can do, is keep on borrowing. The George W. Bush Administration has come a long ways since he started with a surplus, as far as the eye can see (according to comments made by the Republicans). Granted, just before President Clinton left office, he shouldn't have gotten rid of the GLASS-STEAGALL ACT, enabling President G.W. Bush to pull all these shenigans and almost total deregulation of our financial system. So, who are you going to blame for the collapse of free enterprise.? President Franklin Roosevelt got us out of the Great Depression and if President-elect Obama follows his rules, he'll get us out of this one. I'm a firm believer of "TAXING ON ABILITY TO PAY" when it comes to federal income tax, particularly the HEDGE FUND DEALERS headquartered offshore, with all those legal loopholes that they have purposefully written into law to divide the elitists from the working class. Any magazine should have a good strong business section talking about a system run on only one set of books, separating the income from the expenses without all the cute stuff like hiding their money in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands or the UBS Bank in Switzerland. Looking for answers.

Yours truly, Disgusted Middleclass Taxpayer, LaVern Isely

Obama's skills as president

The most prominent point Obama had preseented in his campaign is that the unification of the country is a central part to our recuperation. There is a lot of pressure for him to perform as president, but we muxt remember that he seems to have great skill in unification. We have to do our part by expressing our opinions to those who represent us. We have to do our part in helping the economy to recuperate. And we have to remember that the government is not just run by the president, but by the people who represent us in the congress. Obama has a lead because the congress is along his party lines. I have not seen a candidate so beloved since President Kennedy. This will make a huge difference in his ability to operate. I have a lot of faith in him as president.And I think that he can make inroads to correct the problems our country faces. He has the ability to get people together, a plus in any public role.

No Honeymoon for Obama

There is a difference between being better informed and being overloaded with opinionated commentary. Three is also a difference between objective, informative reporting and skewed, opinionated blathering. The press seems to have lost their compass regarding the difference between freedom and license. Journalism schools need to teach real ethics, and give all their students a good injection of good judgment and judicious thinking.

I enjoyed reading the previous comments on this issue, and the opportunity to comment as well. US News is the most tempered of all the major news magazines, and your willingness to have readers comment on editorial issues creates a valid dialog.

Davina Rubin