On the night before Thanksgiving, just an hour after Rosie O'Donnell had publicly belly-flopped with a horrible attempt at an old-time variety show on NBC, Barbara Walters made a fool of herself interviewing Barack and Michelle Obama. The toughest questions dealt with whether there was enough "change" in his cabinet picks, and whether he was "waffling" on tax hikes for the rich — questions his (and ABC's) liberal base would enjoy.
Let's go back eight years. On the Friday before the Inauguration, Walters interviewed then-President-elect George Bush and his wife Laura. But it was only one part of a routine "20/20" hour, and she brought harsh questions to carve up Attorney General nominee John Ashcroft as a divisive disaster.
This time, the media's favorite won. The Obama interview drew a whole hour, which Walters promoted with a gooey splash of Obama fawning and interview clips all across the ABC News schedule. She was so ubiquitous one might have expected her to plug the Obamas in a cameo appearance on an ABC soap opera like "All My Children."
On "Good Morning America," she couldn't help herself: "I don't want to gush. They're very cute, and very funny in this interview together." That's certainly in the eye of the beholder. Those inside the Obama tank naturally find their rehearsed marital patter to be incredibly charming. Republican households see a stale rerun of their fake bickering, just as Democratic households undoubtedly saw the Bushes' marital patter as less than "very cute."
Walters showed footage of some of her dumb questions, such as asking Obama whether Wall Street executives should grant themselves a Christmas bonus. She also asked how he felt when he read that the three CEOs of the car companies took private planes to Washington to ask for a bailout. Naturally, Obama thought it was shockingly out of touch.
Stop the tape. Earth to Walters: Did it ever occur to you that Mr. Obama campaigned all over America by flying on a huge private 757 jet, painted as a vehicle of "Change" with a half-million dollar makeover for the general election, complete with Obama logos sewn into the headrests? And how do you suppose Ms. Walters travels? By carpool? What sheer hypocrisy — on both their parts.
? Walters continued the gushing on her daytime show "The View." Doing her usual tap-dance of faked objectivity, Walters cooed: "I'm supposed to be very neutral, but they are the most appealing couple, and so smart." It's easier to look smart when no one's asking you a brainteaser. Walters shamelessly tried to sell the interview as super-substantive. Obama was asked about a range of matters foreign and domestic in the first 20 minutes, but all with a deeply deferential style.
She began by asking, "What is your biggest fear?" That's a blank canvas for a politician to paint any way he or she likes.
Walters explicitly compared the Obamas to the Camelot swoon over Jack and Jackie Kennedy, and their "youthful embodiment of style, substance and hope." Much of the hour was devoted to softballs. How would the Obamas spend Thanksgiving? How about the search for a new family dog? How will it be watching their grade-school-age girls grow up in the White House? The toughest question on the home front was the Obamas' choice of a private school. Walters simply declared, "Tell us why private school for the girls, and not public school." She could have asked it this way, too: "Tell us why a black child in southeast D.C doesn't have the choice of a fancy private school like your privileged daughters because you oppose vouchers."
The sugary sweetness never seemed to end. Walters also reprised her free advertising copy on the Obamas in a preview on "World News" in the dinner hour — they were again described as very candid and very funny. A half-hour after the Obama special ended, "Nightline" reran clips, and Walters dragged out the megaphone of praise yet again : "When you see him with his wife Michelle, he is so relaxed, he is funny. I have rarely seen a couple as devoted, as together, whether they're talking about their children or the kind of dog they're going to get ... They tease each other, but the respect that they have for each other is enormous."
All in all, it was one long day of ABC News shamelessly kissing rings. Like so many interviewers, Walters was not trying to build a factual record. She was trying to create a grand and glorious Obamalot myth, incessantly urging the public to buy her super-smart-cute-and-funny couple as the best choice history could have mustered.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. To find out more about Brent Bozell III, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
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4 Comments | Post Comment
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Wow!
Bitter much?
What a pathetic. sad, unhappy man.
Brett, you need help; please get it.
I pity you.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Bill
Wed Dec 3, 2008 2:50 AM
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Sir;...Bubba WaWa is pretty good at those fluffy sort of interviews; N'est pas??? I imagine that after a year of vilification that the last thing you want to see is the Obamas presented as just folks... Hopefully, the Nation is ready to heal, because from my perspective, the enmity and contumely that characterize the political process isn't doing the country one little bit of good... Now, I don't want my representative to get along... I expect him to dig in his heels, and not give an inch where my best interests are at stake...What happens is that the inability to get something good to happen usually means that nothing happens... And in office these so called leaders get to be all polite, and nice, while we have to look at the guy down the street who voted republican or democrat as being the biggest sob in the world... It is easy for you...It is easy for them; but to have their seats they divide, divide, divide... You are the one inciting to riot, but the people need their government to work at providing basic services and needs, to say little enough of justice...Sure, people there ought to fight, but no one should have a doubt that when their president or representative gets to Washington, that they represent all their people... It is a terrible mistake to have districts drawn to cut so many out of representation... It only empowers the parties when people are forced to depend upon the representative in the next district to represent them... The partisanship you cheer on has hurt us, and to my mind, you have hurt us... You think of it, that it was not so long ago that Calvin Cooledge was dressing up as a cowbow or sporting an Indian War Bonnet...He was just a good old boy, and one of the people... All the while he was being everyone's president the economy was avoiding management... Compare that to George Bush who so often faced the cameras with contempt, swagger, and insult... And the same mismanagement of the economy, and worse, of foreign affairs.... In what sense has the division, and lack of consensus, even the intentional playing against consensus served this whole people??? I don't think it has... No one asked me what I thought of war in Iraq and Afghanistan...No one asked me what I thought of the economy.... I would have been happy to tell since I have read some on the subject... But do you see the problem??? If you can only rule through division, then where is the necessity of serving all the people???I think Mr. Obama wants to govern, and unlike you, he has a better sense of how essential it is to our survival to have the consensus of all the people... The problems this society faces which have grown out of division cannot be cured with more division... I think the greatest fear you have is that Mr. Obama will be successful, and that people will begin to see him, as all presidents should be: just one of the people...What value do you look for in another failed presidency??? Are things so good for you that you would subject us to that??? If so, I think you are out of your mind... Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #2
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Wed Dec 3, 2008 5:33 AM
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The author of this article must be either a fool, a liar, or most likely.....both. I have NEVER witnessed the kind of unbridled bitterness now flowing from the loser republicans that can't seem to come to grips with Obama's victory. This "author" claims Walters and the Obamas are hypocrites because they use private jets in their travels and yet denounce the CEO's of the big three auto makers for using their corporate jets to come to Washington D.C., hat in hand, to beg for tax payer dollars. Ummm, hello? Bozzell boy, Walters and the Obamas haven't been begging for our tax dollars to save them from their own mistakes. Jeez, talk about sour grapes. Get over it you big baby.
Comment: #3
Posted by: kgeakin
Wed Dec 3, 2008 5:52 AM
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Re: kgeakin;...Sir/ma'am,..Baby, yes... What makes you think big??? Big in what sense??? There are some people in this country who can't get over it, and can't joke about it... I think the morals of the right are incredibly defective... They think ours are.... There is nothing wrong with my morals, and I resent the suggestion that there is... In any event, it is like these right ideologues have no clue of how much we are at each other throats at the very time when we may be facing our greatest crisis..... They do not understand history, because my thought is that if the people discover their game of sowing disent to have the power to rob us and lead us into failure, then I bet they will look like shark bait.. You know he is preaching to zombies... If this nation has not in part figured out the danger of electing all republicans all the time then they are eating too much lead and not drinking enough beer... I wouldn't bother to try to tell people what truth is, or virtue; but I would not try to tell them white is black either, and that is what most of these lost cause republicans do for a living.... Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #4
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Wed Dec 3, 2008 7:55 PM
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