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Jim Geraghty writes in the National Review about the media’s use of “unexpectedly.”
… For about three years now, conservative bloggers have chuckled at how frequently the unveiling of bad economic news comes with the adverb “unexpectedly” in media reports. As Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds, Michael Barone, and others have often asked, unexpected to whom?
“I think it’s a combination of cognitive dissonance, the terra nova nature of the post-bubble economy, and a healthy dose of partisanship,” suggests Ed Morrissey, who has blogged about the ubiquitous adverb regularly at HotAir.com.
Perhaps the perpetual surprise reflects a media desire to focus on pockets of growth or prosperity — at least with a Democrat in the White House. In a widely diversified $14 trillion economy, one can almost always find some areas of economic improvement.
Certainly, a media that wanted to paint a more dire portrait of the economy would have no shortage of material to work with. There’s considerable evidence that America’s problems in job creation are much worse than the most widely cited numbers would indicate. …
A Corner post says there’s no change.
Following his recent vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, President Obama took some time away from his preparations for a “very specific” jobs speech, due sometime next week, to sit down with NBC’s Brian Williams and discuss his economic agenda.
Obama: “Well, look, we anticipated that the recovery was slowing. The economy is still growing, but it’s not growing as fast as it needs to. I’ve got things right now in–before Congress that we should move immediately, and I’ve said so before I went on vacation and I’ll keep on saying it when I–now that I’m back. We should be passing legislation that helps small businesses get credit, that eliminates capital gains taxes so that they have more incentive to invest right now. There are a whole host of measures that we could take, no single element of which is a magic bullet, but cumulatively could start continuing to build momentum for the recovery.”
Pretty familiar talking points, yes? Which is why this clip is so fascinating — it was filmed on August 29 of last year. Feeling that “recovery” “momentum” yet? Obama did speak today, though, to announce his new choice for chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. Here’s what he said:
Obama: “Next week, I will be laying out a series of steps that Congress can take immediately to put more money in the pockets of working families and middle-class families, to make it easier for small businesses to hire people, to put construction crews to work rebuilding our nation’s roads and railways and airports, and all the other measures that can help to grow this economy. These are bipartisan ideas that ought to be the kind of proposals that everybody can get behind, no matter what your political affiliation might be. So my hope and expectation is that we can put country before party and get something done for the American people.”
Same talking points. Same crummy economy. Can’t wait for the speech!
Scott Turow comments on the Strauss-Kahn case.
In one of those ironies that novelists relish, the on-again-off-again rape prosecution of the former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn seems to have gravely damaged the political careers of both the prosecutor and the defendant. …
… The political dust will settle where it may. But as a professional matter, both as a former prosecutor and current criminal defense lawyer, I give Mr. Vance passing grades. The most dubious decision he made was to bring an indictment so quickly, rather than taking more time to investigate. But even there, New York law forced his hand somewhat. Mr. Strauss-Kahn was in jail and Mr. Vance had five days either to seek an indictment or let Mr. Strauss-Kahn go. In hindsight, Mr. Vance should have tried to work out an arrangement with defense lawyers so that he could fully examine the background of the hotel maid, Nafissatou Diallo, especially since the wealthy Mr. Strauss-Kahn was bound to hire a team of investigators to exhaustively scrutinize her life.
But beyond a mistake due in part to being cornered by the law, I think Mr. Vance performed well. The collateral damage to the career of Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who resigned in disgrace from the I.M.F., was clearly unfair, but that was caused largely by his sensational arrest, which Mr. Vance had no choice about effecting. The prosecutor had received allegations, seemingly corroborated by the brief investigation at the crime scene, of a violent felony allegedly committed by a man about to fly overseas and place himself beyond the reach of any United States court. Any responsible law enforcement professional would have detained Mr. Strauss-Kahn and sought to question him and gather evidence, including DNA. …
Robert Samuelson makes the case for the pipeline from Canada’s oil sands to our Gulf Coast.
When it comes to energy, America is lucky to be next to Canada, whose proven oil reserves are estimated by Oil and Gas Journal at 175 billion barrels. This ranks just behind Saudi Arabia (260 billion) and Venezuela (211 billion) and ahead of Iran (137 billion) and Iraq (115 billion). True, about 97 percent of Canada’s reserves consist of Alberta’s controversial oil sands, but new technologies and high oil prices have made them economically viable. Expanded production can provide the U.S. market with a growing source of secure oil for decades.
We would be crazy to turn our back on this. In a global oil market repeatedly threatened by wars, revolutions, and natural and man-made disasters — and where government-owned oil companies control development of about three-quarters of known reserves — having dependable suppliers is no mean feat. We already import about half of our oil, and Canada is our largest supplier, with about 25 percent of imports. But its conventional fields are declining. Only oil sands can fill the gap.
Will we encourage this? Do we say yes to oil sands? Or do we increase our exposure to unstable world oil markets?
Those are the central questions raised by the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline connecting Alberta’s oil sands to U.S. refineries on the Texas Gulf coast. The pipeline requires White House approval, and environmentalists adamantly oppose it. …
The New Yorker continues to cheerlead for Obama. Abe Greenwald catches the latest.
Apparently Barack Obama’s lead-from-behind Libya policy has been vindicated. Or so we’ve been hearing from the president’s overjoyed friends in the media. The latest is David Remnick, who writes in the New Yorker, “Part of Obama’s anti-doctrinal doctrine is that it insists on the recognition of differences in a way that Bush’s fixed ideas did not.”
In other words, our thoughtful president, unlike our cowboy president, grasps critical nuances of culture, region, and politics. This, in turn, allows him to tailor his policies to meet each unique challenge—like Libya—on its own terms. Bravo. Except this oft-told tale fails to explain why Obama has handled every wildly varying case of threatened democrats—whether in Honduras, Eastern Europe, Iran, Egypt, or Libya—in the exact same way: indifference followed by tepid, last-second support for freedom.
Considering the thousands of Libyan lives lost to the president’s lead-from-behind strategy, his supporters’ boasts are indecent. …
Fred Barnes says the media’s Obamalove is hurting his presidency.
As a rule, the press is the scourge of presidents. They’re expected to endure unending scrutiny, mistrust, and badgering—plus hostility if they’re Republicans—by a hectoring herd of reporters and commentators in the mainstream media. But there’s an exception to the rule: President Obama.
It’s counterintuitive, but Obama has been hurt by the media’s leniency. Both his presidency and reelection prospects have suffered. He’s grown lazy and complacent. The media have encouraged him to believe his speeches are irresistible political catnip, though they aren’t. His overreliance on words hasn’t helped.
The kind of media pressure that can cause a president to sharpen his game, act with urgency, or take bolder steps—that has never been applied to Obama. If it had, I suspect he’d be a more effective, disciplined, energetic, and popular president today. Ronald Reagan is a good role model in this regard. When the media attacked him over gaffes in the 1980 campaign, “Reagan responded like all competitive men by working to improve himself,” says Reagan historian Craig Shirley. “Experience taught him to be better and try harder.” He took this lesson into the White House.
I don’t want to exaggerate the media’s baneful influence on Obama. It’s hardly the main reason for his decline. It’s a secondary reason, and it continues to have an impact.
Absent pushing and prodding by the press, the Obama presidency has atrophied. His speeches are defensive and repetitive and filled with excuses. He passes the buck. With persistently high unemployment and a weak economy, Obama recently declared, in effect, “I have a plan. See you after my vacation.” …
Toby Harnden has fun with Irene hype. Since the storm was mostly media hype for an empty suit, maybe it should be renamed Hurricane Obama.
For the television reporter, clad in his red cagoule emblazoned with the CNN logo, it was a dramatic on-air moment, broadcasting live from Long Island, New York during a hurricane that also threatened Manhattan.
“We are in, right, now…the right eye wall, no doubt about that…there you see the surf,” he said breathlessly. “That tells a story right there.”
Stumbling and apparently buffeted by ferocious gusts, he took shelter next to a building. “This is our protection from the wind,” he explained. “It’s been truly remarkable to watch the power of the ocean here.”
The surf may have told a story but so too did the sight behind the reporter of people chatting and ambling along the sea front and just goofing around. There was a man in a t-shirt, a woman waving her arms and then walking backwards. Then someone on a bicycle glided past.
Across the screen, the “Breaking News: Irene Batters Long Island” caption was replaced by stern advice from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): “Stay inside, stay safe.”
The images summed up Hurricane Irene …
Andrew Malcolm has late night humor.
Jimmy Fallon: A new study says eating healthy adds $380 to your grocery costs yearly. Or as Americans put it, ‘Cool, I saved $380 this year!’
O’Brien: A brawl broke out during Vice President Joe Biden’s recent speech in China. Apparently, someone was blocking the exit.
Letterman: You know that big East coast earthquake, 5.8 down in D.C. It was so strong that Nancy Pelosi’s hair actually cracked.