Obama Blasts the Media for Feeding “Cynicism”

Written by Don Irvine

President Barack Obama, who has seen his relationship with the press grow more adversarial as his administration has become engulfed in scandals and cover-ups, lashed out at the media for spreading cynicism.

Obama was speaking at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in New York City on Tuesday when he made his comments on the press:

Too much is at stake. The issues I’m fighting for, the issues that I will continue to fight for even after I leave this office, those issues are at stake. And we’ve got to be willing to fight for them. We’ve got to feel a sense of urgency about this at a time when, frankly, the press and Washington, all it does is feed cynicism.

Obama then presented the audience with his cherry-picked numbers on health care and the economy as examples of good news that are rarely reported, before taking another shot at the media.

“Most of you don’t know the statistics I just gave you,” he continued. “And the reason you don’t know them is because they elicit hope. They’re good news. They shouldn’t be controversial. And that’s not what we hear about. We hear about phony scandals, and we hear about the latest shiny object, and we hear about how Washington will never work.”

That’s because Obama’s good news really isn’t so good after all—Obamacare hasn’t fixed health care the way Obama promised it would—and the economy is still struggling as evidenced by last month’s labor participation rate hitting a 36-year low. For many people, Obama’s promise of Hope and Change has left them with little hope and no change in their personal situation.

Obama’s comments, however, do seem to back up New York Times reporter James Risen’s accusation last weekend that “Obama hates the press.”

Six years ago the press couldn’t say enough good things about Obama. Today it appears they have had enough of him.

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Media blog.