I know the mainstream media is always licking its wounds after President Donald Trump smacks them around in his press conferences since being in office.
And I hate to add salt to their wounds, but it seems they’ve got a case of amnesia.
It all started when President Trump went all-out against the network because they reported on an unsubstantiated 35-page document that claimed Trump is being blackmailed by the Russian government.
Trump praised those in the media who had restraint from peddling the false report.
“I have great respect for the news, great respect for freedom of the press,” Trump said, thanking those who didn’t run the unsubstantiated story, saying his opinion of them may have “gone up a notch.”
But the mainstream media rallied around CNN.
“The journalist whom Trump called on should have yielded to CNN. Don’t allow him to refuse to answer questions from certain news outlets,” Politico reporter Peter Sterne tweeted.
Acosta whined that incoming press secretary Sean Spicer threatened to toss him out of the press conference after he repeatedly interrupted the president-elect demanding to get his question answered.
I can’t recall the mainstream media rallying around Fox News anytime over the last eight years when President Obama attacked them.
In fact, let’s review the times Obama blamed the number one name in news (AKA Fox News).
October 25, 2008
Then-candidate Obama complained he would be polling higher if Fox didn’t exist. This may work in soap operas and song lyrics, but that’s not exactly the best start to a working relationship with the press.
“I am convinced that if there were no Fox News, I might be two or three points higher in the polls,” Obama told liberal journalist Matt Bai of the New York Times Magazine. “[T]he way I’m portrayed 24/7 is as a freak! I am the latté-sipping, New York Times-reading, Volvo-driving, no-gun-owning, effete, politically correct, arrogant liberal. Who wants somebody like that?”
June 16, 2009
Obama says that Fox News is entirely devoted to “attacking my administration.”
JOHN HARWOOD: Last question. When you and I spoke in January, you said–I observed that you hadn’t gotten much bad press. You said it’s coming. Media critics would say not only has it not come, but that you have gotten such favorable press, either because of bias or because you’re good box office, that it’s hurting the country, because you’re not being sufficiently held accountable for your policies. Assess that.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: It’s very hard for me to swallow that one. First of all, I’ve got one television station entirely devoted to attacking my administration. I mean, you know, that’s a pretty…
HARWOOD: I assume you’re talking about Fox.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, that’s a pretty big megaphone. And you’d be hard-pressed, if you watched the entire day, to find a positive story about me on that front.
October 14, 2010
Obama admitted in a softball interview with Rolling Stone that he “disagrees” with Fox News. No shock there, but added he believes Fox has a “destructive viewpoint.”
“Look, as president, I swore to uphold the Constitution, and part of that Constitution is a free press. We’ve got a tradition in this country of a press that oftentimes is opinionated. The golden age of an objective press was a pretty narrow span of time in our history. Before that, you had folks like Hearst who used their newspapers very intentionally to promote their viewpoints. I think Fox is part of that tradition — it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view. It’s a point of view that I disagree with. It’s a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world. But as an economic enterprise, it’s been wildly successful. And I suspect that if you ask Mr. Murdoch what his number-one concern is, it’s that Fox is very successful.”
December 2010
After the Democrats’ midterm election shellacking, President Obama reportedly toldlabor leaders in a private meeting that Fox News was partly responsible for him “losing white males” who tune into the network to “hear Obama is a Muslim 24/7.”
He needed someone to blame for the massive losses because the next election was his.
May 10, 2011
Obama takes a shot at Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch.
“One CEO had this to say about reform. ‘American ingenuity is a product of the openness and diversity of this society… Immigrants have made America great as the world leader in business, science, higher education and innovation.’ That’s Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, and an immigrant himself. I don’t know if you’re familiar with his views, but let’s just say he doesn’t have an Obama bumper sticker on his car.”
January 27, 2013
Obama hits Fox News for making “compromise” a “dirty word.”
“One of the biggest factors is going to be how the media shapes debates. If a Republican member of Congress is not punished on Fox News or by Rush Limbaugh for working with a Democrat on a bill of common interest, then you’ll see more of them doing it.”
September 26, 2013
Obama went after Fox News on the campaign trail for his health care law.
“If you’ve talked to somebody who said, ‘Well, I don’t know, I was watching Fox News and they said this is horrible,’ you can say, ‘you know what? Don’t take my word for it! Go on the website.”
February 2, 2014
During a pre-Super Bowl interview, President Obama suggested Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly was being unfair for asking questions about ObamaCare’s shortcomings, the IRS scandal and Benghazi.
“Your detractors believe that you did not tell the world it was a terror attack because your campaign didn’t want that out,” O’Reilly said. “That’s what they believe.”
“And they believe it because folks like you tell them that,” Obama said, adding on the IRS scandal: “These kinds of things keep on surfacing, because folks like you will promote them.”
October 2, 2014
President Obama insisted ObamaCare is “working pretty well in the real world” despite it being a “fanged threat to freedom on Fox News” in a speech at Northwestern University.
May 12, 2015
Obama hits Fox News for anti-poverty narrative.
“There’s always been a strain in American politics where you’ve got the middle class, and the question has been, who are you mad at, if you’re struggling; if you’re working, but you don’t seem to be getting ahead. And over the last 40 years, sadly, I think there’s been an effort to either make folks mad at folks at the top, or to be mad at folks at the bottom. And I think the effort to suggest that the poor are sponges, leeches, don’t want to work, are lazy, are undeserving, got traction. And, look, it’s still being propagated.
“I mean, I have to say that if you watch Fox News on a regular basis, it is a constant menu — they will find folks who make me mad. I don’t know where they find them. They’re like, ‘I don’t want to work, I just want a free Obama phone’ — or whatever. And that becomes an entire narrative, right? That gets worked up. And very rarely do you hear an interview of a waitress — which is much more typical — who’s raising a couple of kids and is doing everything right but still can’t pay the bills.”
September 20, 2015
Obama takes a shot at Fox News for allegedly covering him unfairly.
“I want to repeat — because somehow this never shows up on Fox News. I want to repeat — because I’ve said it a lot, unwaveringly, all the time: Our law enforcement officers do outstanding work in an incredibly difficult and dangerous job. They put their lives on the line for our safety. We appreciate them and we love them.”
October 27, 2015
Obama claims “certain televisions stations” distort his position on guns.
“And some of you who are watching certain television stations or listening to certain radio programs. Please do not believe this notion that somehow I’m out to take everybody’s guns away and every time a mass shooting happens one of the saddest ironies is suddenly the purchase of firearms and ammunitions jump up because folks are scared into thinking that Obama is going to use this as an excuse to take away our Second Amendment rights.”
November 5, 2015
Obama blames Fox News for making him “seem scary.”
“It’s interesting, because we’re talking in Iowa; people always, I think, were surprised about me connecting with folks in small-town Iowa. And the reason I did was, first of all, I had the benefit that at the time nobody expected me to win. And so I wasn’t viewed through this prism of Fox News and conservative media, and making me scary. At the time, I didn’t seem scary, other than just having a funny name. I seemed young. Sometimes I look at my pictures from then and I say, I can’t believe anybody voted for me because I look like I’m 25.”
September 18, 2016
At a Clinton fundraiser in New York City, President Obama predicted a close election “not because of Hillary’s flaws,” but because of Fox News and some blogs “that are churning out a lot of misinformation…”
November 3, 2016
Obama blames Fox News for “balkanization of the media.”
“The problem is we’ve got all these filters. Look, if I watched Fox News, I wouldn’t vote for me either because you’ve got this screen—this funhouse mirror—through which people are receiving information. How to break through that is a big challenge.”
November 29, 2016
Obama blames Fox News for election loss.
“In this election, [they] turned out in huge numbers for Trump. And I think that part of it has to do with our inability, our failure, to reach those voters effectively. Part of it is Fox News in every bar and restaurant in big chunks of the country, but part of it is also Democrats not working at a grassroots level, being in there, showing up, making arguments.”
While the media and liberals are lamenting the fact that Trump is defending himself against CNN and other left-wing news outlets, they were largely silent as President Barack Obama routinely attacked Fox News for 8 years.
So, it happens during every presidency. The president feels a need to defend himself, so before CNN and MSNBC and other speculation news outlets have another seizure, as President Trump points out how unjustly his administration is being covered, think about all that President Obama said about his “enemy” in the media.
The irrationality in some precincts and the dishonesty of the talking heads and the absolute hysteria that surrounds some news stories is simply dumb and incredibly annoying. You get nowhere when you present the facts and they are rejected, so why bother? Facts don’t matter to these ignorant morons or conspiracists, why debate them? And the worst part is if you don’t see it the way that these far leftists do, then you’re branded as a racist.
