Further showcasing his inability to tolerate dissension, Barack Obama recently made a statement calling out media outlets often unsupportive of his leftist agenda.
He claimed that Republican lawmakers would generally be open to compromising with their Democrat counterparts but are afraid they will be “punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh.”
Obama made the comments in an interview that never explored the obvious liberal bias held by the overwhelming majority of news outlets.
In fact, he openly embraced what he called “more left-leaning media outlets” for their recognition “that compromise is not a dirty word.” He also suggested that he and his leftist cohorts in the Democrat party are more open to “buck[ing] the more absolutist-wing elements in our party to try to get stuff done.”
Plenty of media watchdog groups and conservative organizations lashed out at the president for his ill-advised verbal attack on an industry he despises.
Of course, this is far from the first time Obama has targeted a group or individual he deems unfriendly to his worldview. In fact, as author Ben Shapiro pointed out, he has taken aim at the same entities in previous remarks.
“He’s done this before,” Shapiro said, calling Obama “a bully.”
He continued, saying the president is “saying the media is not liberal enough. I think he wants people who don’t like him to be quiet.”
A respected Fox News personality, Greta van Susteren also chastised Obama’s generalization of her network.
Writing on her blog, van Susteren implied Obama is upset because he “wants his usual media pass and Fox challenges his policies,” which she said “happens to be the media’s job.”
She also lambasted the president’s implication that Fox News featured just one viewpoint.
“Some Democrats have told me that they want to come on Fox to discuss issues,” she said, “but they get heat from their leadership for appearing on Fox.”
Finally, she pointed out the absurdity of Obama suggesting that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is open to compromise.
“He has not allowed a budget to get to the Senate floor for years to even begin a discussion,” she said. “The budget process is where all compromise begins and ends and ended it before it even got started.”
The Obama White House, and the president specifically, have called out Fox News on other occasions. While Obama implied the network’s viewers were “a little stubborn” in 2012, his then-spokesperson Anita Dunn described it three years earlier as “opinion journalism masquerading as news.”
Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center summed up Obama’s overarching complaint.
“The media has always helped shape the political environment,” he said, “but Democrats object to the conservative media now being able to.”
Noyes surmised the prevailing thought among leftists, saying “It was so much easier for them when the big three networks and The New York Times left out the inconvenient facts.”
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