A week ago, the White House was absolutely sure that its position on the sequester would prevail and that the Republicans would soon be surrendering on the president’s demands for even more new taxes in order to avoid the implementation of the draconian across-the-board budget cuts. Most of the press, backed by polls that showed the unpopularity of Republicans, agreed. But the discussion has shifted a bit in the last few days and the administration’s confidence in its ability to prevail in this political struggle has to be slightly shaken, even if they are not publicly admitting it. Part of the president’s problem is that the attempts of the secretaries of transportation and homeland security to scare the public about airport delays and the border if the sequester went ahead sounded fake and appeared to be politically motivated. But just as important was the intervention into the debate of an icon of liberal journalism: the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward.
Woodward’s op-ed reminded the public that the sequester was the White House’s idea and that any attempt to include a request for more taxes into the discussion of putting it off was “moving the goalposts.” While seemingly just one voice among many talking heads, the Woodward assertions touched a nerve in the White House and set off a furious back-and-forth argument that betrayed the administration’s sensitivity to criticism as well as a thuggish intolerance for anyone who would try to alter their hand-crafted narrative about the issue. Most of the attention on this spat today is focused on a senior White House official’s threat to Woodward that he would “regret” contradicting the president’s chosen spin.
This has provoked a discussion about how this administration and its predecessors have used threats about future access to intimidate journalists. This is a long and unfortunate tradition, and it often works when applied to less influential persons than the man who was portrayed by Robert Redford in the film account of his Watergate reporting that took down Richard Nixon. But there is more at work here than just a case of White House flacks picking a fight with the wrong guy. The problem here for President Obama is that the willingness of Woodward to expose the falsity of the administration’s position on the sequester, as well as their threat, could mark the beginning of the end of the administration’s magic touch with the mainstream press.
Last week, Politico’s feature on the ability of the Obama White House to manipulate the coverage they received generated a heated discussion about whether the supine attitude of mainstream journalists toward the president was the result of clever tactics and not, as they claimed, liberal bias. I agreed that the administration had broken new ground in employing smart ways to bypass and frustrate the working press, but pointed out the obvious fact that these strategies wouldn’t work half so well if the vast majority of the publications and networks that employ the journalists weren’t happy to roll over for Obama. No president has received the sort of adulation and fawning coverage from the mainstream since the halcyon days of John F. Kennedy’s Camelot White House.
While the Woodward rebellion hasn’t really altered that reality, it is a sign that his expectation that he will be treated with kid gloves for four more years may not be fulfilled. That the administration is pushing back so hard on Woodward betrays their worry that if the Watergate icon can get away with saying the emperor has no clothes, lesser mortals will soon be tempted to do it too.
As important as the sequester may be, this spat is about more than just that issue. The White House has assumed all along that its narrative about the budget cuts and the need for more taxes–even after the recent hikes enacted to avert the fiscal cliff as well as the raise in payroll deductions–would never be contradicted by what has been their active cheering section in the press corps.
As Max pointed out, there are good reasons to fear the effect of the sequester. But the idea that the president can bulldoze his way through Republican opposition to his big government agenda armed with the notion that the public and the media will unite behind him has been shaken. Today, even the still loyal New York Times admitted the public might not be panicked into pressuring the Republicans into submission. If the White House is today waging an unexpected war on Bob Woodward, it is because they fear the beginning of the end of their four-year honeymoon with the media.
don't forget to thank Brit Hume for his face-to-face challenge to Woodward on Fox News Sunday a few months ago. THAT was the tipping point.
Oh, I don't know… This White House knows how to play the media… The Media should be called Repeaters and not Media anymore.
The tipping point for these people will perhaps come late in Hillary's second term; the real tipping point will be when so few people listen to them that it doesn't matter what they say.
Even JFK faced more criticism, for several reasons. First, until the 1970s, it was commonplace for citites to have competing daily newspapers, of different political leanings. Two or more publishers would each have its own morning paper and its own evening paper, each with its own reporters and editorial staff. More reporters, and less reliance on wire services and human interest stories, also meant more investigation. And competition meant more pressure to get things right – if you made a mistake, your competition would skewer you. [cont'd]
Good points. Also, through the 70s many reporters/journalists had some sense of honor, as did some Democrats.
[contr'd] An example: when Chicago police killed Black Panther Mark Hampton, the Chicago Trib (morning) dutifully showed the 'bullet holes' in the wall across for the Panthers' apartment. Not only reporters for the competing Field papers (Sun-Times in the morning and Daily News in the PM) but the Trib's own PM Chicago American noticed that the bullet holes looked suspciously liked nail holes — and some even had nailheads visible. They skewered the Trib as well as the police. (I have no idea who actually shot first; maybe the Panthers did, as the police claimed, but pointing to the holes certainly did the police no credit.) n nThat kind of correction would not happen in today's one-newspaper markets. n nFinally, back in the Camelot days, some reporters actually saw their job as reporting the news, or at least selling newspapers. Too many of them today see their job as pushing their pet social theories and making sure that people vote for left leaning candidates.
Doubtful. n nOur press hardly requires threats to glorify our Dear Leader.
I wish it were true, that this was a tipping point and the press would finally regain a sense of honor, but it is not. Even if we hear noise and rumblings, Obama will turn on charm – just enough and they will flock back to him like an abused spouse in denial. n nThey are too far gone, not to mention that their masters (editors and owners) still keep them in check. After all, they have mortgages to pay and tuition bills for the kids. Jobs over honor is the choice facing them. n n
The MSM may or may not tip, but little by little the same MSM stooges and the MSM itself becomes more and more irrelevant as people become aware of their bias and complicity in the destruction of this nation.
tipping point ….dream on, little dreamer, dream on…the Leftism of the media is inherent in media.
It's about six months too soon to declare a "tipping point." I'll say it again: The media will have their way so long as their efforts are (a) concerted enough and (b) continue long enough. n nThe second condition is just as important as the first. The critical reason that the so-called Plame Affair or the Abu Graihb Scandal became "affairs" and "scandals" depended critically on the press refusing to let go until its political goals were achieved, absolutely refusing. In this country, indeed in any polity much larger than, say, Belgium, unusual tenacity is required if a political tipping point is to be reached and then surpassed; moreover that determination must be seeded broadly throughout all sectors of the media, from broadcasting to film to the Web. Watergate was not much more serious than what happened at Benghazi, but Watergate coverage continued without letup or respite for 26 months! The hatred of the media for Richard Nixon was a quarter-century old in 1972, which interval provided ample reservoirs of investigative endurance, a depth of human resources that, had it involved any Democratic president, would have been depleted long before anyone in Congress would ever have considered drawing up a bill of impeachment. How long, I ask, did NBC look into the fiasco in Libya? n nThe Plame Affair, a true nothing of a zero of a scandal, received nearly daily coverage for 18 months. How much interest and for how long did the media devote to Fast and Furious, a far more serious matter than Valerie Plame's non-outing? Libby went to jail. What happened to Holder? To anyone in the Adminstration? n nThe New York Times banged on about Abu Graihb, a story that the Defense Department press office itself broke three months earlier and with respect to which the Department was well along in its prosecution of, for nearly six months, over one stretch giving the matter 70 front-page stories in a row, a record that not even the hallowed Watergate campaign approached. n nAnd of course, what the Times or Post deem newsworthy is all that about a thousand robots in the rest of the media need to know about the day's lede before firing up their laptops every morning. n nBy now Contentions readers really should grasp all of that and be plain allergic to awaiting anything else. Since 2009 we have seen one reeking bit of Administration criminality after the other, literally dozens of them emerge, draw a week or so of attention—if that— from a fraction of the media—if that—and then simply, well, go away, with any attempt to revisit them, for example, during the 2012 campaign, literally ignored by the Democrats' Praetorian Guards in the media. Tipping point? Good grief, gentlemen, why expect anything different to ensue now just because it's Bob Woodward? n nThe irony here is that it is Bob Woodward we're talking about, the liberal reporter who, along with his editor, Ben Bradlee, perfected the loud enough–long enough tactics I have described.
This article is nothing more than a wish list and I for one won't hold my breath waiting for the MSM to start reporting with some sort of balanced perspective. The simple fact of the matter is Obama would have never seen the inside of the WH if the media would have gone after him like they are so eager to do with Republicans. There is only one institution in this country that should be held to blame for this administration and what they have brought upon this country and that's the media.
Tobin writes: "The problem here for President Obama is that the willingness of Woodward to expose the falsity of the administration’s position on the sequester, as well as their threat, could mark the beginning of the end of the administration’s magic touch with the mainstream press." n nHow I wish it were true, but I'm sure it isn't.
Lanny Davis subtly shifted his stanch on Obama over the last few weeks. Now he supports Woodward’s claim of White House threats and cites others heaped against himself. Two aging Liberal members turning on President Cool and the boys in the hood is remarkable. More so as we witness the transparent personal attacks against them.