Over at Ace Of Spades, DrewM provided a handy dandy Obama scandal scorecard, for which I opined in the comments that of all the scandals, the most dangerous for Obama is the Associated Press phone records one. There are certainly ones which are worse overall, but, if the AP turns on Obama, or at least decides that they are no longer going to be his lapdogs and will report the news and investigate the Obama admin, this could turn very bad for Obama. And we could see other media outlets decide to start being cranky Chihuahua’s. Like this
(Politico) No contemporary American politician has benefited more from the power of good storytelling than Barack Obama. He vaulted from obscurity to the presidency on the power of narrative — invoking his biography and personal values to make a larger point about how he would lead the nation.
No American politician has ever benefited as much from the story telling as portrayed from a lapdog media.
So presumably no one understands more vividly than Obama and his close aides just how toxic and potentially paralyzing his situation has become this spring, as four distinct ethical and policy controversies have simultaneously converged.
Obama’s critics now have a narrative — a way of connecting four discrete episodes to a larger point about this president’s leadership style and values. In other words, they didn’t merely happen on his watch but were in important ways caused by his watch.
And for the first time, this anti-Obama storyline is being presented in a way that might seem reasonable to people who are not already rabid anti-Obama partisans.
The narrative is personal. The uproars over alleged politicization of the IRS and far-reaching attempts to monitor journalists and their sources have not been linked directly to Obama. But it does not strain credulity to suggest that Obama’s well-known intolerance for leaks, and his regular condemnations of conservative dark-money groups, could have filtered down to subordinates.
I’ll be accused of raaaaacism if I use the very old “monkey see monkey do” saying, so how about we just say Marxist say, Marxist do? When the leaders in any organization do or say something, the people below them feel emboldened to act themselves. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If Obama is denigrating the Tea Party, calling them “Teabaggers”, smearing Republicans, whining about outside groups destroying Democracy, well, why wouldn’t the IRS offices in multiple cities feel righteous in treating Conservative groups differently than Liberal groups? Why wouldn’t the DOJ feel emboldened to do as they want? Heck, the DOJ was involved in running guns to a sovereign nation without that nations permission and no one was smacked down.
Obama himself has constantly besmirched American citizens and groups that have different viewpoints. While it may not be a violation in the letter of the 1st Amendment, but he surely violates the spirit. The Obama admin. can say all the right things, but they do not do the right things.
In Obama’s case, the narrative emerging from this tumultuous week goes something like this: None of these messes would have happened under a president less obsessed with politics, less insulated within his own White House and less trusting of government as an institution.
Sadly, the same media which has been treated like foster children stuck in a meth user’s house enable much of the attitude that Obama was god, that he could do no wrong, and that he could do whateverthehell he wanted, since few would call him on it. Will this attitude from the Press change after the AP phone records scandal? Time will tell.
Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.
Read: Politico: Obama’s Narrative Goes Down Dark Alley »
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