Patterico's Pontifications

7/23/2014

President Obama Doesn’t Need To Bother With News Because He Already Knows What They’re Going To Report…Except When He Doesn’t

Filed under: General — Dana @ 8:22 am



[guest post by Dana]

Last night in Seattle, President Obama spoke at two fundraisers. Donors paid between $500 and $20,000 for one of the fundraisers, and $25,000 per person for the other one (dinner to support the super-PAC that works to keep Democrats in power in the U.S. Senate).

The president has received criticism for jetting off on a three-day West Coast fundraising trip in light of the many crises currently taking place both here and abroad.

At one of the fundraisers, the president made an eye-popping comment:

“Part of people’s concern is just the sense that around the world, the old order isn’t holding and we’re not quite where we need to be in terms of a new order that’s based on a different set of principles, that’s based on a sense of common humanity, that’s based on economies that work for all people,” Obama said Tuesday, speaking at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser at an Italianate mansion across Lake Washington from the downtown skyline.

As he often does, Obama said he’s spending his time out on the road trying to fight that kind of cynicism from seeping in.

Some of that cynicism, Obama joked, was because of the news, which he said he doesn’t tend to watch himself.

To the crowd in Seattle, though, he said about the news, “Whatever they’re reporting about, usually I know.”

Which is funny because clearly he does not know what they are going to report about UNTIL HE READS THE NEWS REPORTS:

From the 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans, to the IRS targeting conservative nonprofit groups, to the revelations about veterans dying while waiting for care because of falsified lists at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the president and his top aides have admitted that they found out about them in the media.

–Dana

20 Responses to “President Obama Doesn’t Need To Bother With News Because He Already Knows What They’re Going To Report…Except When He Doesn’t”

  1. raising money is what gives him a feeling of being relevant and useful i guess

    watching the news would greatly undermine this

    happyfeet (8ce051)

  2. at an Italianate mansion across Lake Washington from the downtown skyline.

    “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
    –some guy

    carlitos (c24ed5)

  3. They are not even trying anymore.

    JD (81a25b)

  4. “Whatever they’re reporting about, usually I know.”

    President Hubris, reporting from on high.

    carlitos (c24ed5)

  5. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

    –some other guy

    carlitos (c24ed5)

  6. “Whatever they’re reporting about, usually I know.”

    I think he’s trying to allude to W Bush, who was widely reported as saying that he doesn’t read or watch the news, because he gets briefed on anything he needs to know about, and he’s better informed than the reporters who write the news in the first place. Which was perfectly true and logical. But the problem is that 1. 0bama is notorious for skipping his briefings, and 2. there have been too many occasions on which his administration has admitted to not knowing something important until they saw it on the news.

    (The only example I can think of like that from the W administration was when Mike Brown said he had no idea of the chaos going on in the superdome until he learned about it from CNN; he was widely blasted for this evidence that he wasn’t on top of things, and it really destroyed him, but eventually it transpired that the reason he didn’t know about it before CNN reported it was that it wasn’t happening! CNN made the whole thing up, so no wonder his people on the scene didn’t tell him about it! )

    Milhouse (469487)

  7. “Part of people’s concern is just the sense that around the world, the old order isn’t holding and we’re not quite where we need to be in terms of a new order that’s based on a different set of principles, that’s based on a sense of common humanity, that’s based on economies that work for all people,” Obama said Tuesday, speaking at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser at an Italianate mansion across Lake Washington from the downtown skyline.

    Considering that it’s largely Russia, Iran, al Qaeda, Hamas, and other assorted bad actors who are trying to replace the “old order” with the “new order,” I am one of those people who are concerned. Nice to know that this President is completely sanguine with it though.

    JVW (feb406)

  8. I think, JVW, that he actually believes that his utopia is just about to kick in. All the death and destruction over the globe is just growing pains.

    Patricia (5fc097)

  9. Hat tip to narciso.

    Boehner, et al., are ‘trying’ to force antiChrist’s hand. Kinda sorta like they tried valiantly to get something from the Slowdown.

    FU Republican, backing cynical liars isn’t Ogabe-lite, its hand-in-glove Progressivism.

    gary gulrud (46ca75)

  10. Frankly news about what a putz Obama has the freshness and urgency of YouTube videos of NBC’s 1971 Fall lineup. He and his administration are the distillation of eighty years of Washington telling the nation whatever will shut ’em up.

    Mark Johnson (46b570)

  11. I think the 1981 season with Misfits of Science, Manimal, and Pink Lady and Jeff, is more appropriate,

    narciso (ee1f88)

  12. Which is funny because clearly he does not know what they are going to report about UNTIL HE READS THE NEWS REPORTS:

    The downside of constantly lying is that one day, the person may forget what lie was told about what subject, and then contradict it later on somewhere else. Other people, some of them rather influential, are bound to notice.

    Blacque Jacques Shellacque (b9c3f0)

  13. cars for clunkers
    the good old days

    mg (31009b)

  14. cars for clunkers
    the good old days

    How would we describe cash for clunkers? Perhaps “the least unsuccessful” initiative of the Obama years?

    JVW (feb406)

  15. JVW- that program did the least amount of damage, don’t you think?

    mg (31009b)

  16. Barry the Dimwitted doesn’t care what’s in the news, because he *knows* how things are supposed to be, and that’s all that that matters.

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  17. Blacque Jacques Shellacque,

    The thing about lying should be that after you’ve been caught doing it several times over, one’s credibility should be done in and every word out of your mouth should be suspect and not taken at face value . Unfortunately, with this president and a helpful media, lying doesn’t matter one iota. Everyone’s very nonchalant about it. Big deal. But to a few of us, it still is a BIG deal.

    Dana (365f5c)

  18. They don’t think of it as lying-lying like normal people do, Dana and Blacque Jacques. They think of it as “spin” or a “talking point”. So it’s no big deal to them if it’s untrue.

    elissa (d14cd1)

  19. JVW- that program did the least amount of damage, don’t you think?

    Or the people it screwed don’t have internet access to complain.

    Way I remember it billions were wasted on the alter of climate progress, and the check hasn’t cleared the bank yet.

    papertiger (c2d6da)


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