Saturday, January 31, 2009

Is Obama Getting a Press Pass?

Looks as though Obama has been issued the same kind of press pass Clinton was, at least when it comes to history. The latest slip came in the President's first interview, the one with Al-Arabiya, which broadcasts to the Arab world. Obama said he wanted a return to "the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago." Those wonderful days brought us the Iranian hostage crisis, the Beirut Marine barracks bombing, the Pan Am flight 103 bombing, etc. etc. etc. Respect??? We backed the Shah in Iran. Nuff said.
I saw very little media reaction to his seeming lack of knowledge about history. Perhaps today news outlets lack enough reporters to go after all angles. I'd buy this, except the watchdog press was licking itself during the Clinton years as well as the Obama-Biden campaign, (See earlier postings.) All of this would matter little except for the fact that Dan Quayle became the national punching bag for misspelling potato. Not to mention Bush's pounding, which spilled over to TV comedy. (BTW, when will we see Obama's initials in headlines a'la Bush?)
I guess this is the coverage we can expect when we are down to one major wire service. Is "liberal bias" the problem? I'm not so sure. I think it's possible to be have liberal bias and still do the job. That's the problem - professionalism, or lack of. Come to think of it, the reason is that there is no spell check for history.