Former White House Reporter: Media ‘Happy to be Managed’ by Obama
- Former White House Reporter: Media ‘Happy to be Managed’ by Obama
by Tim Graham, Newsbusters , via www.infowars.com
Retired USA Today White House reporter Richard Benedetto penned an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal on Friday titled “How Obama Gets Away With It.”
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Retired USA Today White House reporter Richard Benedetto penned an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal on Friday titled “How Obama Gets Away With It.”
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He suggested “Usually when an incumbent president is leaving office and a slew of candidates are battling for his job, that departing chief executive’s record is a major campaign issue.”
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But Obama’s record in office is not an issue. Obviously, one reason is the Republican establishment didn’t want Obama to be an issue, which is why they moved to take any budget fight with Obama off the table for the rest of his presidency. Benedetto noted “Donald Trump’s bombastic candidacy is a huge distraction and often blocks out or obliterates more-substantive issues.” He also argued the media is putty in Obama’s hands.
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But another reason—a big one—why Mr. Obama is able to avoid being a target is that he is a deft manipulator of the media, probably more skillful at it than any president ever. He heads a savvy public-relations machine that markets him like a Hollywood celebrity, a role he obligingly and successfully plays. One of the machine’s key tactics is to place Mr. Obama in as many positive news and photo situations as possible. Ronald Reagan’s advisers were considered masters of putting their man in the best possible light, but they look like amateurs compared with the Obama operation-which has the added advantage of a particularly obliging news media.
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A sampling over the past few weeks: AWashington Post photo captures President Obama blowing giant bubbles “At the final White House Science Fair of his presidency.” A New York Times photo shows the president mobbed by women admirers at a ceremony designating the Sewall-Belmont House on Capitol Hill as a national museum for women’s equality.


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