Ben Smith’s piece today on how TEH INDEPENDENTS HATE OBAMA isn’t bad. It includes discussions with actual pollsters instead of political “experts” like Pat Buchanan and Bill Kristol. But it’s strange to me that the same people who insisted Bush was a popular wartime president even when his approval rating was in the 40s are now concern-trolling Obama’s 55-60 percent approval rating. Note that while many media types say that the country only turned on Bush after Katrina, the reality is that his approval ratings were consistently well-below 50 percent starting a four or five months before Katrina.
Now, there has always been a lot of weirdness in discussion of Obama’s poll numbers. Remember, to many Hillary supporters, Obama didn’t really win the primary since he didn’t win the left-handed Jewish albino demographic. And we still can’t say for sure if Obama got more votes than McCain, because of the Bradley effect; a lot of white voters were afraid to admit to themselves that they weren’t voting for the black candidate, and that could mean that the actual election results badly overestimated Obama’s level of support. (This is a joke.)
Maybe that’s all this is, but I can’t escape the feeling that many in the media are fixated on puncturing the Obama image in a way they never were with Bush. From 2001–2005, reporters boasted about the nicknames Bush gave them, now they boast about having asked Obama a “tough question”. What changed?
guster
“What changed?”
C’mon, Doug, now you’re just begging to have the same comment posted 95 times!
Elie
Because he is a socialist Muslim who must be stopped from giving every American healthcare and improving our infrastructure. We don’t want healthcare or safe roads and bridges! We want to be a Third World country run by rich Republicans who can’t govern and abuse our trust! We want Sarah Palin’s mavericky personality near the nuclear button and guns for all!
MattF
Actually, I’d bet Obama did win the left-handed Jewish albino demographic.
JK
Hey Doug,
Doug Schoen is not a real Democrat, he’s a Fox News Channel Democrat.
cay
they are trying to disprove the meme of being “the liberal media.”
JK
Doug,
Following up on my prior warning about Doug Schoen,
see the following
Douglas Schoen and Hillary’s slimy pollsters – Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/27/schoen
Clinton pollster urges senator to go relentlessly negative
Doug Schoen, Bill Clinton’s former pollster, says Hillary “needs to completely abandon her positive campaign – Steve Benen
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2008/04/16/schoen/print.html
BDeevDad
That poll is by the same group that asked how much in taxes people were willing to pay if the gov’t had a public option while neglecting to point out that their premiums and other costs would go down as well, by significantly more. Polls all depend on the question asked.
David Hunt
“What changed?”
The letter after the President’s name changed from an “R” to a “D.” What more do you think was needed?
Ed Drone
Well, for one thing, Bush became so toxic at the end that reporters are secretly ashamed of their love affair with him. So the guy they get on the rebound, they treat the opposite way (in case it was sympathetic magic — how they treated Bush led to his abject failure).
It’s partly rue and partly juju.
Ed
NonyNony
This is a rhetorical question, right?
Right?
Seriously Doug, I know you’re not nearly this naive.
Ash
You’re wasting precious BalloonJuice space by asking such unnecessary questions there, Doug.
TR
Do I know what rhetorical means?!
Mike P
Yeah, DougJ, you know the answer to this. There’s a “D” next to his name, Obama doesn’t let the press indulge in the more petty and trivial aspects of politics they so love (“are you still sneaking cigs?”) and he’s a black Muslim socialist…so shut up, that’s why!
Michael
Because he was supposed to look at the checkbook he was handed when he assumed office, and was supposed to give this speech to the nation:
Fuck them in the ear, sideways. All I keep hearing from Lord HawHaw, Mika, Joe and the rest of the punditocracy is that they want to keep getting lazily diddled by the Invisible Hand were a GOPer to be running the show, but that Obama’s lack of instant results is indicative of a failing.
Grrrrrrrr……
Is Bill Ayers taking donations to organize a new Weathermen organization with a smarter set of goals? I’ll be happy to donate what few shekels I have left.
Captain Sunshine
Just to get it out of the way:
If reporters were harsh on Bush, they were too liberal.
If reporters aren’t harsh enough on Obama, they are too liberal.
And reporters can’t be liberal, because then they’re writing secret messages in the fourth letter of every nineteenth word calling for the death of America in every article (and in TV and radio transcripts, when you can find them).
And only conservatives got press passes to the Bush White House. You didn’t even have to be a reporter. (Hi, Mr Gannon!)
CS
xaaronx
“What changed?”
A lot of things.
You did notice the president is a black, gay, MuslimAtheist SocioFascist born in Kenya, right?
Even worse, he’s a Democrat.
xaaronx
accidental double post.
RSA
Here’s something I’ve just recently noticed: Rasmussen is publishing in their daily presidential tracking poll an “approval index”, which they get by subtracting Strongly Disapprove from Strongly Approve, leading the semi-literate to claim that Obama has a negative approval rating, when he’s still well above 50%.
I don’t remember this statistic from the Bush years. Was I just not paying attention? Or has Rasmussen changed the measuring stick?
mickey g
I think it was the”liberal media” that stopped kissing Bush’s ass after Katrina. The public is always a bit ahead of the elite pundits in Washington.
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
Fully agree with the point made in comments above, that the media is insanely sensitive about appearing too liberal or “in the tank” with a Democratic president.
But it’s also that Obama is known for his unflappability and mastery of rhetoric and issues. In other words, he’s a reeeally tempting target for anyone wanting to score some “tough journo” points by having a go at him. “Look at me! I’m not mesmerized by his silver tongue! I went right after him with a searing question, and he even got a little churlish with me! I fazed him! I’m awesome!”
Obviously, the simple-minded Bush offered no such sport for them.
Brachiator
With Michael Jackson almost buried and the Sarah Palin Magical Mystery Tour still sputtering, the pundits need to give themselves a topic for the Sunday shows.
And government by poll numbers is a hardy perennial. Because poll numbers, like the weekend box office results, is a “magical number,” a pseudo-stat with absolutely no meaning or significance which nonetheless can launch a thousand blog posts.
Meanwhile, in the real world, people are trying to figure out the significance of the latest employment figures (565K new jobless claims, lowest level since Jan).
kay
I think it’s an actual response to their stenographic and truly shameful performance with Bush.
Former President Bush tricked them on a war, and they missed the whole thing. They were busy turning Rumsfeld into some sort of bizarre folk hero. Remember that? What was that all about? They invented a Donald Rumsfeld character.
They won’t be letting Obama ride on any perceived notions of “popularity”. No, sir. They’re on it, and they’re ahead of it.
Obama could probably trick them on another war, and they’d be poring over the internals of the rolling three day Gallup average, and miss it again.
lovethebomb
If you were awake and sentient during the 2000 campaign, you observed how the media cheerled and propped up GW and despised and impugned Gore. Ditto Clinton. It is a corporate media, owned by corporate conglomerates. They have no interest in candidates or legislation that serve the public good, the general welfare or the average citizen. Unfortunately, neither do Dems very much, but there is at least no danger of that with Repubs. Hence, they ignore and excuse criminal incompetence and wars launched on lies by Repubs, but will try to bring down Dems via personal attack.
Even as Obama threw the treasury at the banks that ruined the economy, walked back any attempt at financial regulation and has installed an economic team which is, if anything, more compliant with Wall Street than the previous administration, he is still pilloried as a Marxist. He is another right wing corporatist, but with some attempt to throw crumbs to the public, which will be thwarted.
It is the ol con game of decrying the “liberal” media by a media so right wing it only has a global counterpart in Israel. If you want to sell something for 50 dollars in a haggle situation, you ask for 100 and then you have some chits to take away. By relentlessly attacking Dems and blindly supporting Repubs, the corporate media ensures they will always secure an outcome favorable to the bosses.
LD50
I assume by ‘strange’ you mean ‘wildly illogical’ and not ‘unexpected’.
JK
The MSM is still feeling the sting that they were way too soft on Obama.
I think most members of the Washington Press Corps strongly identify with this Mark Halperin quote.
h/t http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15885.html
A Cat
A) The MSM isn’t actually liberal, its right leaning centrists.
B) The Obama administration isn’t showing the MSM the proper ‘respect’ they deserve.
C) The did some demographic surveys and realized their core audience is old white conservatives and are just pandering.
D) All of the above.
Kris
What changed you ask?
Simple – he is black and a democrat.
SrirachaHotSauce
What changed?
In early Bushworld, 911 changed everything, at least for a while. He rode a wave for a couple of years.
In Obamaworld, reporters, who are apparently congenital idiots and approval vampires, are working on the pathological viewset that says “I’m such a gnarly reporter than I can even stand up to the popular black president and show that I am gnarly and not weak because his black popular blackiness is not going to intimidate me.”
It sounds sick, but there it is. I would bet money, and in particular, your money, that this is what is going on.
Audio
Cuz the librul media.
Atlliberal
What changed?
Were you not around during the Clinton years when the “unpopular” president only had a 60 to 70 percent job aproval (so they had to impeach him) and during the Bush years when the “popular ” president spent almost his whole second term in office in the 30’s for approval?
It wouldn’t surprise me if Obama’s numbers go down because all you hear on TV and Radio is Republican criticism reported endlessly and not fact checked.
It’s like watching the 2000 campaign all over again. The one thing I’m hoping is that they aren’t going to get away with it this time because we have the internet. Eventually, when they have been shown to be lying over and over, even the media types will be too embarrassed to have them on ….Or I’ll wake up from my pipe dream!
Redshirt
I don’t know if y’all heard about this, but apparently Obama asked some questions from bloggers during some press conferences, and that’s just not cool.
MikeJ
A nearly perfect copy, down to the “there’s no difference” people.
SrirachaHotSauce
@A Cat:
I agree mostly, I don’t think that MSM in general has any loyalty to anything other than its own bottom line.
Which is not a bad thing, in and of itself. It’s a business and it goes where the money and the profits are. It is not a public service and will not operate as one.
It’s like McDonalds. It sells what the target market is buying. It is not responsible for your health or your cholesterol level or the layers of fat on your body. The consumer of information has to manage his own info health just as he manages his own physical and dietary health, the retailers are not going to do it for you.
Johnny B. Guud
Classic.
JK
Beyond the question of whether or not independents are moving away from Obama, when the fuck did the presidential campaign begin 5 months after inauguration day?
All these fucking polls and news stories about the leading contenders for the Republican nomination in 2012.
Why don’t we just save the clueless, dumbass MSM all the wear and tear of treking to Iowa and NH to cover the caucuses and primary, hold a natl Repub primary this weekend and then have the winner face Obama in the general election next weekend.
SrirachaHotSauce
On the day when the MSM managers figured out that they can keep the political news junkies online by pretending to be in perma-election-year mode.
It works. Just watch what bloggers are paying attention to. Why are bloggers writing about this stuff (such as Palin for President) every day?
For the same reason that they wrote about Romney for President 3 years ago. It’s what is selling right now. You sell what you got and what they are buying. Whether you are CNN, Fox, or GOS or BJ.
JenJen
@Brachiator: Don’t forget, when Dubya triumphantly proclaimed, “I don’t govern by polls,” our awesome liberal media practically threw roses at him.
bartkid
>his approval ratings were consistently well-below 50 percent starting a four or five months before Katrina.
What were his approval ratings Dec 2000 through Aug 2001?
<50% also, IIRC.
georgia pig
All these modern media yuks think they’re smarter than everyone else but are deeply insecure, as they subconsciously know that they’re merely courtiers, not journalists. It sucks for them when the King really is smarter (better looking, sexier, whatever) than them. It’s more fun when you have a buffoon for a King and you can enjoy the naughty pleasure of manipulating the public into believing that he isn’t. It’s similar to the vapid contrarianism you see in pundits like Mickey Kaus, i.e., its one thing to win an argument when the facts support you, but it’s sweeter if you can convince someone to believe something completely ridiculous, because it reinforces your belief in your own superiority and control. Bush was the perfect foil for the media in this regard because he was either too stupid or too cynical to undermine the ludicrous image created for him. The media can’t play that game with Obama, so now they’ll pretend to be journalists to enhance their self-esteem.
LD50
And of course, these are the same people who flip out if you suggest that Bush getting fewer votes than Gore in 2000 indicates that Bush lacked a mandate, or that Bush shouldn’t have won.
jenniebee
I’m not sure that it’s the (D) behind his name. I think the press corps is just like the people you see in that Andrea Pelosi documentary who bristle all the time about how people are putting them down for clinging to their guns (of course I’m clinging to my guns and you won’t pry them out of my cold, dead hands, and how dare you say that I cling to them!) They don’t like thinking that anybody who’s running the country might be smarter or might think they’re better or more virtuous than the press are. With Bush, they didn’t have anything to prove. With Obama, they do.
How dare he plant a garden! His action of planting that garden makes me feel bad for not planting my own garden and what other purpose could he have had than to put me down. You might as well ask why Homer never bothers his other next door neighbor and concentrates all his vitriol on Flanders.
freelancer
SATSQ
EDIT: fuck that was supposed to Font Size=7.
I hate wordpress.
Sincerely, I hate it
Phoebe
It’s a very good question. Siracha @28 feels kind of right.
I think the press in general is extremely vain, and with some exceptions, not all that bright. They really don’t know their boring facts, and like to swan around rephrasing things they think seem smart, and this ends up with them clustering around the same shiny “meme” before they go stampeding to the next one, over there.
I suspect they recognize a little of themselves in Bush and Palin to some extent, which must be very uncomfortable for them. Maybe they want to take it out on Obama.
Honestly, I can’t really put my finger on the why of this, but… yeah: Fuck them. Really.
LD50
I think you have something here…
Washington Press and national news media = Homer Simpson.*
President Obama = Ned Flanders.
I think this simile has potential.
*Tho vastly less lovable
Napoleon
@Redshirt:
But I heard somewhere that the guy asking was a real dick
/danamilbank
SrirachaHotSauce
@freelancer:
WordPress is a good example of what happens when you have software invented by people who act like they are all happy and having fun doing it.
Software development is hell. In fact, it makes hell look like Club Med. Sex with a minotaur would be better than software development.
What really amazes me about WP is how bad it is and yet it is not a Microsoft product.
RememberNovember
The MSM got kicked out of the 8-year Rocks For Jocks community college and had to be transferred to the Real School of Hard Knocks.
The school infirmary reports a 1000 % increase in sprained shoulders from self-congratulatory actions.
Mnemosyne
@JK:
The day a Democrat won, which meant that the pundits had to start dreaming of the day when Republicans would be back in their rightful place as rulers. The media and pundits will do everything they can to make sure this is just a brief aberration and restore the natural order.
Tony J
Nothing at all.
SATSQ
Or – You still live in a country where no Democrat can win the Presidency unless he’s 1) a white man from the South who can 2) pick enough fights with Teh Left to convince a centre-right country that he’s electable and so c) serve out his term(s) sorting out the accounts and being humble until the natural order reasserts itself in the form of the next Republican visionary to win the hearts and minds of a bored electorate.
Which is SATSQ for the MSM.
Tony J
@Mnemosyne:
Honest, I did not steal your ‘natural order’ line. You just said it more concisely.
Marmot
Traditional media types know what draws eyeballs, and that includes spectacles and anything that appeals to the audience’s preconceptions, self-interest and self-identification.
So you get days and days of MJ eulogies or OJ car chases for your spectacle. And fawning coverage of stupid-ass GW Bush, who appeared to journalists as the distilled essence of regular-Americanness.
Hell, maybe he is. I don’t know. But sure as hell Barack Obama isn’t, and that makes him fair game. Also, what Tony J #49 said.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@jenniebee:
It’s actually become pretty formulaic at this point.
“How dare he [plant a garden/go to college/go on dates with his wife/pay attention to his kids/care about his appearance/read books]! His action of [planting a garden/going to college/going on dates with his wife/paying attention to his kids/caring about his appearance/reading books] makes me feel bad for not [planting a garden/going to college/going on dates with my wife/paying attention to my kids/caring about my appearance/reading books] myself and what other purpose could he have had than to put me down?! Damn elitists.”
–Shorter Redstate Wingnuts/MSM/Vapid idiots of America
shep
Hahahahahahahaha! Nothing at all. Bush, like most Republicans, was an authoritarian leader. Obama is a Democrat (i.e., not an authoritarian leader).
.
Where do you think most journalists fall on this scale?
Mr Furious
Party and psychology.
The D.C. media is all caught up in a high school bully-nerd dynamic.
With Bush, he was the bully, and they were happy to roll over and submit. His snide nicknames were lapped up as endearing, “Did you see that? The star jock talked to me!”
It wasn’t until Bush was completely exposed and isolated that they felt like they could even question him…think everyone laughing at the bully after he gets his nose bloodied.
But with Obama (and Gore) they felt emboldened because while they were the valedictorians, and superior to the rabble that is the press, they needn’t be feared. So the media would assume the bully role and then denigrate the President.
It happens that that favors the GOP at the moment, and that will be tough to ever shift all the way over, but the GOP is rapidly becoming the wannabe jock that can’t make the team, and while a loudmouth and a bully in style, cannot back it up.
The GOP get play now simply as a weapon or tool for the media to use to bring Obama down a notch—not because they are feared or respected in the media any more.
Jim Treacher
Don’t try to escape your feelings.
Brachiator
@JenJen:
This would have been admirable had not the full quote been, “I don’t govern by polls. I govern based on what the Baby Jebus whispers in my ear.”
And even here, Bush’s quote was also a clumsy dig at Bill Clinton, who supposedly wouldn’t order french fries in public if Dick Morris hadn’t first done an internal poll about it.
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason — It’s actually become pretty formulaic at this point. “How dare he [plant a garden/go to college/go on dates with his wife/pay attention to his kids…
It’s crazy. Even though this is the first president in some time who has two young children during his presidency, I see some lame comments on blogs about how “inappropriate” it is for Obama to take his kids with him on his overseas trips. Of course, if he left them at home, you would see nonsense in Outer Wingnuttia about how he was neglecting them.
Wile E. Quixote
@DougJ
I’d love to see Obama call someone on this. Right after one of the journos asks him a tough question have him say “Wow, what a great question. You never asked anything like that when Bush was in office, it’s nice to see that you’re getting a backbone and learning some actual journalism skills and not just being a stenographic ass-kisser” and then go on to answer the question in great detail.
Ed Drone
So who’s Mr. Burns? Smithers? Maggie?
Ed
Anne Laurie
In my wildest dreams, I fantasize that Obama’s people are using the Media Village Idiots’ obsession with the “rolling three day Gallup average” to distract them while the serious work of assembling a veto-proof healthcare package that will cover all Americans takes place behind the curtains.
I think Georgia Pig has the best summary, though — our modern Media Village courtiers prefer a weak, witless figurehead
kingpresident because it gives them greater scope for their own displays of vanity and egotism. And what’s more important, the fate of the whole country, or the status war between Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch as cheerled by Dana Milbank and David Brooks?BDeevDad
And just like Homer, they have no problem eating his food, drinking his beer and partying with him, as long as it’s on the down low.
aarrgghh
actually, nothing has changed.
a man with very high approval ratings always makes a big target. but in obama’s particular case, the media’s obsession with any downward movement in his poll numbers is the same obsession the media indulged in over even the most insignificant upward movement in bush’s abysmal poll numbers. it’s the same tedious village masturbation that dominated bush’s second term and just another episode in the horse race.
or have we already forgotten about the always-imminent bush bounce?
Nellcote
John McCain’s on Meet the Press this sunday. Perhaps Dancin’ Dave can ask him.
David
Rupert Murdock is using his media empire and his multitude of sockpuppets to bash Obama 24/7.
ellie
That pretzel logic makes my head hurt.
Mike in NC
Always unreliable douchebag Dan Balz at WaPo: “Clouds Gather for Obama”. Just fuck these idiots.
pattonbt
@Johnny Gentle (famous crooner): and @aarrgghh: above.
The press want a story. If Obama was in the dumps they would then want to write his phoenix-like ressurection so the tone would shift. Theres 86,400 seconds in a day and the news cycle needs fresh stories for each one of them and each reporter wants to be ‘the one’ to break the new meme. I think thats why Halperin (spelling?) always makes such wrong headed guesses. He figures if he gets one longshot right, it will vindicate his self believed genius. Whats the phrase ‘even a blind squirrel finds an acorn (ha, Acorn!) once in a while’.
With Bush, they just let him slide because he simply didnt care about them. Bush knew he could piss on their heads and it wouldnt matterm theyd still ask for more. They also knew asking Bush ‘tough’ questions didnt matter. All that mattered was Bush’s gut. He was deciderer after all. Bush happily played along with the game while not caring one whit. It was only at the end when all the legacy stuff started getting discussed when you actually, for the first time, saw Bush start to care in any way and he struggled with it.
With Obama, they just dont like his long game. It doesnt suit soundbites or the news cycle. They want to goad him into joining the news cycle game so they can play on their turf, not his. And the tough questions for Obama are because 1) they now realize they can actually ask tough questions and hope to get a real thoughful answer and 2) they want to look smart and play trump the president.
More succintly? The press is venal, thats why.