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A couple of mainstream liberal media types think our country has a leadership deficit. First is Ron Fournier of National Journal.
President Obama came to office nursing dreams “of forging a new partnership” with a stubborn rival. When times got tough, he abandoned the relationship and adopted dusty zero-sum gain policies of his predecessors. To allies and rivals alike, he looks naïve, weak, and disconnected.
This is the portrait presented Sunday by Peter Baker in his front-page New York Times story titled, “In Cold War Echo, Obama Strategy Writes Off Putin.” What struck me about the piece is the unstated parallel between Obama’s handling of Russia and Republicans, and how in both cases the gap between promise and performance illustrates a fundamental failure of leadership. …
Then Edward Luce of Financial Times.
The president’s real pivot is not to Asia but to America, inspired by domestic sentiment
When Barack Obama took office, he pledged a new overture to the world’s emerging powers. Today each of the Brics – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – is at loggerheads with America, or worse. Last month four of the five abstained in a UN vote condemning the fifth’s annexation of Crimea. Next month India is likely to elect as its new leader Narendra Modi, who says he has “no interest in visiting America other than to attend the UN in New York”. As the world’s largest democracy, and America’s most natural ally among the emerging powers, India’s is a troubling weathervane. How on earth did Mr Obama lose the Brics?
Some of it was unavoidable. Early in his first term Mr Obama called for a “reset” of US relations with Russia. His overture was warmly received by Dmitry Medvedev, then Russia’s president, who was considerably less anti-western than his predecessor, Vladimir Putin. Unfortunately for Mr Obama, Ukraine, Pussy Riot and many others, Mr Putin repossessed the presidency. The US president can hardly be blamed for that. Things have gone downhill since then.
The trajectory of US relations with China has also been in the wrong direction. Within his first year in office, Mr Obama made his much-feted “G2” visit to China, in which he offered Beijing a global partnership to solve the world’s big problems, from climate change to financial imbalances. Alas, the Chinese did not feel ready to tackle problems on a global level that they were still struggling with at home. Mr Obama was rudely spurned by his hosts. …
… The fallout with Brazil is more specific. …
… The same is true of India …
Roger Simon posts on lying presidents.
What happens when presidents lie?
The American public has had plenty of experience with this in recent years. Liar-president could be the new hyphenate occupation like writer-producer or architect-contractor. Almost every president has shaded things a bit, but three modern ones have been unabashed bull artists — Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and, of course, Barack Obama.
Clinton ultimately got a pass for his prevarications. Nixon didn’t. Neither deserved one. But our current liar-president deserves one even less, because his lies have been of substance, affecting policy. Nixon and Clinton just lied in self-defense — normal human cowardice.
Obama is something else again. He lies proactively and often reflexively. By proactively I mean the obvious, such as “If you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan. Period!” By reflexively I mean that emotional no-man’s-land when someone says something they don’t really mean, but they say it anyway because they think it sounds good or makes them seem as if they are doing the right thing.
The red line against Syrian chemical weapons is a perfect example. Did Obama ever have any intention of following up on that? Who knows? …
Jennifer Rubin thinks the foundering David Gregory is a good match for the clueless, hapless, feckless, hopeless presidency.
It is hard to say who is in more trouble — President Obama or “Meet the Press” host David Gregory.
Gregory’s ratings stink, and his bosses let it be known that they hired a consultant to find out why his close friends and family like him since most viewers don’t seem to. (As an aside, let me say that as bad as Gregory may be as a host – and we saw this coming well over a year ago – the execs who thought up this idea, spent their employer’s money on it and then leaked it should be banished.) He seems disengaged, prone to playing favorites and incapable of staying a few steps ahead of guests and pursuing much-needed follow-up inquiries. He seems laconic on screen, as if he just rolled out of bed and grabbed his script on the way to the set.
Come to think of it, Obama’s ratings stink, he’s disengaged (and “dithering“) on foreign policy crises and he lacks strategic thinking. Lucky for him, Valerie Jarrett hasn’t hired a “brand consultant,” but journalists of all political stripes are despairing about his lack of leadership and international weakness. And unfortunately for the country, having a president who stumbles along, a prisoner of events, is much more dire than a failing TV host. (Really, do we need all these Sunday shows?) NBC may lose ratings, but the West loses freedom, stability and security when the U.S. president is so slow to recognize danger to our interests and even slower to come up with a response, let alone an effective one.
Obama’s troubles metastasize from one region of the globe to another. He fails to check Syrian President Bashar al-Assad (who is reportedly back to using chemical weapons), prepares to bug out of Afghanistan with few if any troops to try to cement gains and makes a rotten deal with Iran. “Ah, this is a man who will blink!” concludes Vladimir Putin. So he gobbles up Crimea. …
Ed Morrissey posts on Sharyl Attkisson’s interviews since leaving CBS.
CNN’s Brian Stelter broadcast a two-part interview with former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson to review her accusations of political bias at CBS News — and to take on the critics she has acquired over the last year or so. Attkisson told the Reliable Sources host that the departure of top executives in the wake of Katie Couric’s flop brought in “ideologically entrenched” managers who resented her investigative reporting on the Obama administration (via Jim Hoft):
STELTER: Let me read this from “The Washington Post.” This is in March 10th, right around the time you were resigning from CBS. And Erik Wimple wrote, according to a CBS News source you felt you were being kept off “CBS Evening News” because of political considerations. Did you feel that way? I mean, were there political considerations at times?
ATTKISSON: You know, it’s fairly well discussed inside CBS News that there are some managers recently who have been so ideologically entrenched that there is a feeling and discussion that some of them, certainly not all of them, have a difficult time viewing a story that may reflect negatively upon government or the administration as a story of value. …
Sharp eyes at Legal Insurrection spot a damning admission from Attkisson about help she was getting on stories from Media Matters.
On the most recent airing of the CNN Sunday talk show, Reliable Sources, former CBS reporter, Sharyl Attkisson, revealed a rather stunning accusation about the far left online news organization, Media Matters.
Media Matters, as my understanding, is a far left blog group that I think holds itself out to be sort of an independent watchdog group. And yes, they clearly targeted me at some point. They used to work with me on stories and tried to help me produce my stories…
And I was certainly friendly with them as anybody, good information can come from any source. But when I persisted with Fast and Furious and some of the green energy stories I was doing, I clearly at some point became a target… [Emphasis Added]
Of course, anyone who has read Media Matters would scoff at the idea that it is a politically “independent” media watchdog group.
Given the obvious leanings of the organization, the revelation that Media Matters is actually assisting, in some manner, in producing content for one of the “Big 3” (ABC, NBC, CBS) network news programs carries significant implications. Most notably, these three networks are still viewed by many in the public as the place to get your least politically slanted news. For many Americans, the brief 30-minute or hour long nightly news program from these networks is the only news they get all day. …