President Obama has constantly slipped digs at his media fans into his speeches, despite the fact that the media are among his biggest supporters. He did it again this week in a speech at Los Angeles Trade-Technical College.
During his July 24 address in Los Angeles, Obama again went after the media with his newest dig, which was that they won’t report the right news to America.
In an effort to redirect attention from his massive foreign policy failures and his inability to maintain order at our southern border, Obama is “pivoting” to the economy once again by pushing his new catchphrase: “economic patriotism.”
Once again giving lip service to “closing tax loopholes” and “investing in education,” Obama said it is “economic patriotism” to implement his big government policies. But one problem, he told his audience, is that the media won’t report all his successes.
Touting his job training program ideas on Thursday, Obama said, “So today, I’m here to focus on one thing that we should be doing, which is training more Americans to fill the jobs we’re creating. Right now, there are more job openings in America than any time since 2007.” Then he slammed the media, saying, “That doesn’t always make headlines. It’s not sexy, so the news doesn’t report it, but it’s a big deal. And the job training programs can help folks who fell on hard times in the recession–help them find a solid path back to the middle class.”
This isn’t the first time Obama has said that the media won’t report the right stories. Only weeks ago, the President made the same accusation on a fundraising trip to Minnesota.
In Minnesota, he met with Rebekah Erler–a woman who wrote him a letter–and used the occasion to scold the press for not talking enough about the plight of the Rebekahs of the world.
“You don’t see that on TV sometimes. It’s not what the press and pundits talk about. But I’m here to tell you I’m listening,” he said at one of his stops.
He continued criticizing the press by saying, “If you watch the news, you’d think, ‘Okay, Washington is a mess and the basic attitude is that everybody’s crazy.'”
The President then said he became a politician because of people like Rebekah, but “the press will not report it.” He added, “The only reason I’m in politics is because of you.”
But this isn’t a new charge. He made the same claim in November of 2013, when he complained to the press that “the things that go right, you guys aren’t going to write about.”
Also, in February of last year at the National Prayer Breakfast, Obama complained that cable news networks are so capricious that they won’t even report that he prays. “I start watching the cable news networks, and it’s like we didn’t pray,” he said.
Even as far back as 2010, he was attacking the media for the coverage it gave his oftentimes disastrous town halls.
This is only a small selection of Obama’s insincere jabs at the media since 2008. An attempt to evoke sympathy because of how badly the media is supposed to have treated him has been one of Obama’s favorite themes since he first ran for the White House–and all this despite the media’s slavish attention to his needs.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.
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