Beware Media Bearing Gift-gates

The real question about how Barack and Michelle Obama are being received on their Rolling-G-20-Summit/Euro-Tour '09 has nothing to do with how the Europeans treat them, but all about the American mainstream media itself: What infinitesimal nit will they find to pick about the new president's conduct abroad that can be blown up into a two- to three-day pseudo-international incident?

You know the sort of story I mean. We're not talking about serious systemic issues, such as the different perspective a country like Germany (with universal health care, generous unemployment benefits, and a highly unionized work force) might have on the need for a global stimulus when compared to the U.S., where the party Obama just turned out of office has proposed effectively privatizing Medicare. That would be too much like journalism, and way too MEGO.

We're looking here for a truly small-bore, utterly irrelevant, content-free distraction, like the ones the MSM entertained us with during March Meme Madness. Stories like Obama laughs too much, teleprompters too much, or simply does too much.

You know the media nitwit-pickers have struck when, at some point, they've made the exact opposite charge--that Obama's too serious, too off the cuff, or does too little, all well-worn themes from the campaign. On Tuesday, for example, a Fox News promo tried to scorch the president with the tagline "Rock star no more," suggesting he's lost his touch. Of course, that's the B-side of McCain's complaint last summer (megaphoned all over Fox) that Obama drew too big a crowd in Berlin, proving he was the "world's biggest celebrity"--and if the Eurotrash love him, how could straight-talkin' 'muricans ever accept him as president?

But let's face it: However unpopular American and British financiers may be in Europe, even Fox is having a hard time insisting that the populist firehose over there is aimed at Obama himself. The press spent two weeks in this country trying to hang Obama with the AIG bonuses, and his popularity went up.

A more likely candidate for MSM trumpetition is the line going around rightwing blogs, that the Obamas are narcissitic and stingy gifters. The English press made a big deal last month about how Prime Minister Gordon Brown gave Obama a pen mount made from the wood of a 19th century British anti-slaving warship when he visited Washington, and all he got in return was a lousy stack of American DVDs. So when it was learned that the president gave Queen Elizabeth II an iPod, the blogs went into overdrive--AmericanDigest.com dubbed the Obamas "the Clampetts," asking, "Were they born in a barn?"

Turns out the Queen requested the video iPod the president gave her, and he filled it with footage of her American visits and 40 showtunes; he also presented her with a rare songbook signed by Richard Rodgers, the Broadway composer who wrote one of the Queen's fave musicals, "Oklahoma!" But that won't stop the piss-ant dramas. When Gift-gate turned out to be just another murder of Vince Foster, some of the same folks started getting the vapors over Michelle patting the Queen's shoulders during their meet'n'greet. Nobody "touches" the Queen, for chrissakes, they mooned--at least, until Buckingham Palace put out word that there was no violation of protocol, and the Queen thought Michelle was expressing a very natural "affection," which she shares.

Just because both these shots at the Obamas' legitimacy went foul so quickly doesn't mean the desperate will give up, unfortunately. After all, after weeks on the case, conventional-wisdom dispensing machine Mark Halperin was on Monday's Morning Joe still kvetching about how something or other was an example of Obama "doing too much." These people are as incapable of embarrassment as Inspector Clouseau.

And while the "does too much" line might seem exhausted by now, it's hot stuff in the digital basement over at Politico, where they're keeping it on life support by transferring it laterally, to Michelle. In a weekend piece that asked in the homepage subhead, "is [Michelle] doing too much?" Nia-Malika Henderson brooded that "it isn't yet clear whether her self-described core messages--about military families, volunteerism, and helping working women balance work and family life--are truly breaking through. Some wonder if she's spreading herself too thin to emerge in the public mind as a leading voice on those topics."

Using the time-dishonored "some say" device to suggest throngs of critics, Henderson produced only one, Mindy Sabella, a marketing director, who griped about Michelle's "branding": "She's in the kitchen at the White House, she's building houses, she's digging in the garden. It's all very nice, but I thought to myself, `Why is she planting herbs?'"

I thought to myself, "Why is Ms. Sabella planting her bs?" Some contend, however, that it is Politico's Henderson who's doing the planting, i.e., getting an "expert" to provide quotes that fill Politico's buzz quota. (An internal memo advises writers to "reframe your reporting and analysis so people will say, 'POLITICO is reporting...' or 'The way POLITICO put it is...'") Wait, this just in: It was Henderson who got an "etiquette expert" from the Emily Post Institute to complain about Obama's iPod gift, too.

Anyway, these pseudostories--naked memes, you might call them--are more than just Republican talking points taken up by the media. What is fascinating about them is that their fakiness is so Emperor-wears-no-clothes-obvious. They're sprinkled around not so much to rile the masses up over a particular make-believe item, but to help keep the GOP base in a chronic, make-believe-ready state, one where they're unlikely to question any of the larger political lies. Like, that this is "the Obama recession."

But this time it's not working. Polls indicate that by huge margins people blame the banks and Bush for the collapsed economy, not Obama. Why do techniques that bedeviled the Clintons seem to slide off Obama so easily?

Well, for one thing, Obama won his election by the widest margin any new president has garnered since LBJ, and the country really wants a change.

Ultimately, though, it was the way the Clintonites governed, as a kind of Republican Lite, that opened them up to charges of hypocrisy and often split the Democratic coalition. The GOP may have lost the war to remove Bill from office, but they were definitely onto something about the Clintons, the way their immediate tactical advantage determined whatever they did--from cutting welfare to deregulating the banks. There were just enough flanges sticking up on Clintonism to catch the force of that populist firehose.

That's just not so clear about Obama. So, no matter what happens, for the foreseeable future we will have the corporate-media Clouseaus saying, "Do you have a leesance for that minkey?" And most of us won't be able to understand a word.

Comments (28)

1. "On Tuesday, for example, a Fox News promo tried to scorch the president with the tagline "Rock star no more," suggesting he's lost his touch. Of course, that's the B-side of McCain's complaint last summer (megaphoned all over Fox) that Obama drew too big a crowd in Berlin, proving he was the "world's biggest celebrity"--and if the Eurotrash love him, how could straight-talkin' 'muricans ever accept him as president?"

   "Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia", Ms Savan. Mini-true (on AM radio and Fox News)

   Posted by Mask at 04/02/2009 @ 1:22pm

2. "Well, for one thing, Obama won his election by the widest margin any new president has garnered since LBJ, and the country really wants a change."

   Really? You may have missed three presidents by the name of Nixon, Reagan and Bush 41.

   Posted by antisocialist at 04/02/2009 @ 1:54pm

3. Larry, by strict numbers, she's right...simple matter of increased votes and the key phrase "new President" (not Nixon in '72 as incumbent or even Bush-41 who beat Dukakis by 7 million while Obama beat McCain by almost 10 million).

   BTW, worse news for you. Looks like that "evil Temple Mormon" is selling you guys out again!!!!

   WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney praised President Obama at a GOP fundraising dinner Wednesday in front of a crowd that might have been expecting a heavy dose of rally-the-troops conservatism.

   Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Rommey helped Senate Republicans raise $2 million at a fundraiser Wednesday.

   "I also think it's important for us to nod to the president when he's right," Romney said, after chiding the president's budget. "He will not always be wrong, and he's done some things I agree with."

   Posted by Mask at 04/02/2009 @ 1:57pm

4. Larry, by strict numbers, she's right...simple matter of increased votes and the key phrase "new President" (not Nixon in '72 as incumbent or even Bush-41 who beat Dukakis by 7 million while Obama beat McCain by almost 10 million).

   Posted by Mask at 04/02/2009 @ 1:57pm

   Except she didn't specifically say vote numbers, she said margin, which includes percentage. By percentage, Reagan in '80 was larger (8.3%), as was Bush in '88 (7.8%) than Obama (7.26%).

   You are correct though that I didn't pick up on the word "new"

   Posted by antisocialist at 04/02/2009 @ 2:22pm

5. BTW, worse news for you. Looks like that "evil Temple Mormon" is selling you guys out again!!!!

   "I also think it's important for us to nod to the president when he's right," Romney said, after chiding the president's budget. "He will not always be wrong, and he's done some things I agree with."

   Posted by Mask at 04/02/2009 @ 1:57pm

   Not really; that's no different than my own praise for some of Obama's foreign policy decisions. And I give Romney credit for criticizing Obama's budget (doesn't mean I would vote for him though).

   Posted by antisocialist at 04/02/2009 @ 2:24pm

6. Hmmm perhaps a new name is appropriate, one that could be applied, over and over and over ... such as "ministry of information" or "news lite," only do to the egregiousness of the traffic, far less charitable.

   Something appropriately disparaging, worthy enough to make stick.

   Anything but the "Forth Estate," which has in the end, tragically, ended up referring to the small, shabby, corner recreational vehicle ... in the heart of the worst "red light" district on the planet.

   That one drives through as fast as possible, so as to avoid the thick acrid fumes of abject moral cowardice, and crowds of unkempt skank pundits attempting to wash your windshield with dirty microphones, some time ago converted to crack pipes.

   I'm so tired of the "pssst buddy I've got a hot story ... twenty bucks," I could puke.

   The more so, for as we all know if you wait, you can always get the same sad, pathetic, lines for five, or even two dollars, especially if it's on a Sunday. The earlier the better ... if you can stand the smell, you might even get it for free.

   Posted by V at 04/02/2009 @ 2:25pm

7. (doesn't mean I would vote for him though).---Posted by antisocialist at 04/02/2009 @ 2:24pm

   Of course not.

   After all he has "a doctrinal hatred of Christianity and Christians" (Posted by LVLIBERTY1 11/29/2007 @ 1:08pm)

   Posted by Mask at 04/02/2009 @ 2:37pm

8. Presently, the professional dis-informants in the corporate media have a lot of catching up to do with runaway OBVIOUS EVENTS in reality, like the world recession, which is still obviously the fault of plutocratic ideology. At worst, President Obama looks like an enabler, not a creator of this ideology. His dithering positions him somewhere between Herbert Hoover and FDR. Although the result is disappointing, he STILL looks better than G. W. Bush.

   This probably goes a long way toward explaining Obama's trademark coolness. He would have to screw up VERY badly in order to look bad in comparison to Bush. Most likely, he won't, not even if his response to an epic crisis is only fair-to-middling.

   Posted by JakobFabian at 04/02/2009 @ 2:38pm

9. After all he has "a doctrinal hatred of Christianity and Christians" (Posted by LVLIBERTY1 11/29/2007 @ 1:08pm)

   Posted by Mask at 04/02/2009 @ 2:37pm

   He has yet to renounce the official position and teaching of his faith against Christianity. Do you have evidence that he has?

   Posted by antisocialist at 04/02/2009 @ 3:06pm

10. when left with nothing else...

    bitch about trivialities!

    kinda like "flag burnin" and "thuh war on christmas"!

    woooooohoooo!

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/02/2009 @ 3:29pm

11. THIS story is a distraction, too!

    this is more "like' it:

    Geithner's Plan: Loopholes Galore

    Here are five ways hedge funds and investment banks may exploit Treasury's toxic-assets plan

    By Theo Francis and Mara Der Hovanesian

    http://tinyurl.com/c75qno (business week)

    Posted by frosty zoom at 04/02/2009 @ 3:31pm

12. Posted by antisocialist at 04/02/2009 @ 3:06pm

    Oh, no, Larry. Obviously Mitt poses as much a threat to America as if we elected Osama bin Laden...not going to fight you on that one.

    LOL

    Posted by Mask at 04/02/2009 @ 3:43pm

13. Posted by frosty zoom at 04/02/2009 @ 3:31pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    why thats not trivial at all!!!!

    nice url, frosty...

    ;)

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 04/02/2009 @ 3:43pm

14. Question; If Gonzolas politicised the Att. Gen. office what is this?

    "Attorney General Holder Politicizing the Justice Dept.: WSJ Thursday, April 2, 2009 10:11 AM By: Jim Meyers

    The Wall Street Journal has taken Attorney General Eric Holder to task over a "blatant case of political interference" regarding a bill currently before Congress.

    The Democrat-backed bill would give the District of Columbia a vote in Congress. Earlier this year, attorneys at the Office of Legal Counsel wrote a memo stating that the bill is unconstitutional on the grounds that only states can be represented in Congress.

    "Holder wasn't pleased, so he asked lawyers at the Solicitor General's office for a second opinion, which miraculously found that the D.C. bill is constitutional," The Journal reported in an opinion piece on Thursday.

    It is "extraordinary" for an Attorney General to overrule an Office of Legal Counsel opinion "that we're told is rooted in Justice Department analysis going back to the JFK-LBJ administrations," the Journal observed.

    "It is also extraordinary for an AG to so blatantly politicize the Solicitor General's office, which is the home of lawyers who argue cases before the Supreme Court. Imagine if [President George W. Bush's Attorney General] Alberto Gonzales had tried that one."

    The D.C. bill has passed the Senate but is stalled in the House. Democrats are pushing the bill because it would give them another House vote and set the stage for two more Democratic Senators."

    Obamanation and the Demoncrats LIE as usual about upholding the Constitution of the U.S.A. we expect more of this kind of betrayal of the public trust!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 04/02/2009 @ 4:48pm

15. In the spirit of reverse hijacking threads (although to be fair this one was somewhat apropos) ...

    THE ENEMY WITHIN:

    President Obama Must Dump Summers To Save His Presidency

    "In December 1991, when Summers served as chief economist for the World Bank, a memo that bore his signature was leaked to the press. The internal memo, which clearly was not intended for the public, argued that although free trade would not necessarily benefit the environment in developing sector countries, there was clear economic logic in dumping waste there. In an aside to the memo, leaked to the press, Summers cynically suggested that "I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage countries is impeccable and we should face up to that.... I've always thought that under-populated countries in Africa are also vastly underpolluted.""

    http://tinyurl.com/d6mejn

    Posted by V at 04/02/2009 @ 5:39pm

16. "These people are as incapable of embarrassment as Inspector Clouseau. "

    Or perhaps the robot himself, Al Gore. No more capable of embarrassment than Star Trek's "Data".

    Posted by Person at 04/02/2009 @ 7:43pm

17. "March Meme Madness...", "naked memes..."

    You like this word. For those of you who might not know a meme is sort of like a fad or maybe a rumor. It's an idea or concept that becomes prevalent, but is not necessarily rooted in hard evidence. It passes from person to person rapidly.

    Leslie, if I have this wrong, please let me know.

    Posted by Person at 04/02/2009 @ 8:02pm

18. "well-worn", "nitwit-pickers", "content-free", "small-bore", "Emperor-wears-no-clothes-obvious", "make-believe", "make-believe-ready"

    Leslie, I had to stop here. I can't copy and paste all night, you know. You honestly use too many hyphens. I admit I'm being critical, but you're a professional writer now and you should tighten up.

    Posted by Person at 04/02/2009 @ 8:15pm

19. "Obamanation and the Demoncrats LIE as usual about upholding the Constitution of the U.S.A. we expect more of this kind of betrayal of the public trust!"

    about 1/10 of 1% of people believe this is a breach of constitutional law. and that includes such luminaries as michelle bachmann, chuck norris and glen beck.

    Posted by darladoon at 04/02/2009 @ 9:06pm

20. "about 1/10 of 1% of people believe this is a breach of constitutional law. and that includes such luminaries as michelle bachmann, chuck norris and glen beck.

    Posted by darladoon at 04/02/2009 @ 9:06pm | ignore this person | warn this person "

    That is solidly in the stopped clock being right twice a day position. I also happen to believe that the bill is unconstitutional.

    Posted by brunowe at 04/02/2009 @ 10:48pm

21. I am surprised and slightly shocked: yesterday, here in Russia, I watched BBC World all day, with in depth analysis and reports of the G20 summit. This morning I read the US press and what do I see: gossip about Michele Obama and remarks about president Obama not getting for the US what he wanted to get (NY Times). Isn't this the moment we have been waiting for, for eight years? This was a meeting where finally the US presented itself as "one of the nations", not "the nation". The immediate result was that 20 world leaders were willing to listen, to compromise and I think that Obama should get a lot of credit for that. This meeting was as much about the economic crisis as it was about restoring the relationship of the rest of the world with the US.

    Posted by danceart at 04/02/2009 @ 11:09pm

22. Um....Obama just bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia. Sorry Savan, you're whole argument and the last shred of support Obama had among non-liberals just went up in flames. Today, the President of the United States, who knows very well what prostrating himself before an Arab monarch means, publicly disgraced his office, his solemn oath to protect the Constitution, and a nation of 300 million. Obama is not my President. He must go.

    Posted by griffith123 at 04/03/2009 @ 12:10am

23. Give it up. Il Duce just bowed to an Arab King. The real media are much smarter than your snarky internet column. Time for him to go....and not even 100 days yet.

    Posted by JohnGalt09 at 04/03/2009 @ 01:32am

24. Posted by griffith123 at 04/03/2009 @ 12:10am Posted by JohnGalt09 at 04/03/2009 @ 01:32am

    Wow, two in a row.

    Well ... at least he didn't give him tongue like GW.

    Posted by V at 04/03/2009 @ 05:44am

25. "Kinda makes you wish someone would drop some Polonium in that fat bastard's tea doesn't it?"

    Posted by snowball666 at 04/02/2009 @ 6:42pm

    Or, drop him in some Polonium, and pour a pot of hot tea over his head.

    It also goes to show the mindset and mentality of the IMF.

    Posted by V at 04/03/2009 @ 05:58am

26. Posted by snowball666 at 04/03/2009 @ 07:55am

    I think he's down in the Doom Bunker with Glenn Beck!

    Posted by Mask at 04/03/2009 @ 08:07am

27. This post is a total waste of time. Every journalist has an agenda and a spin. Who cares what Fox or anybody else says? Of course those who get advertising by attacking Obama will do so. Hello reality.

    Posted by jsens at 04/03/2009 @ 09:59am

28. Posted by jsens at 04/03/2009 @ 09:59am

    Which, is ... why this post is relevant.

    Also why something defined as the Fourth Estate came in to being. Which definition, is mutually exclusive to the "reality" you would have us willingly, seemingly ... without so much as a comment, critique, or fight, inhabit.

    Even though you do express passion in this regard, though I could be wrong.

    Posted by V at 04/03/2009 @ 1:01pm