Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Prez speaks, press jumps

From Best of The Web Today:

If you're not a Supreme Court justice, that doesn't mean Barack Obama doesn't want to tell you how to do your job. RealClearPolitics notes that in his speech yesterday to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the president lectured reporters that he expects more favorable coverage even than he's received:
"This bears on your reporting," President Obama said to journalists. "I think that there is oftentimes the impulse to suggest that if the two parties are disagreeing then they're equally at fault and the truth lies somewhere in the middle. And an equivalence is presented which I think reinforces peoples' cynicism about Washington in general. This is not one of those situations where there's an equivalency." 
"As all of you are doing your reporting, I think it's important to remember that the positions that I am taking now on the budget and a host of other issues. if we had been having this discussion 20 years ago or even 15 years ago . . . would've been considered squarely centrist positions," Obama said a few moments later.
Some journalists agree as The Atlantic Wire reports:
It's a message The Atlantic's James Fallows has been championing for awhile now and happily acknowledged in the president's remarks yesterday. "From the commanding heights of our government, the 'false equivalence' problem seems to be coming into view," Fallows wrote.
Hey, Fallows! C'mere! Fetch! Aww, good boy! What a cute little lapdog!

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