The Bosque Boys

THE HONEYMOON MAY REALLY BE OVER!!!!

If it is, it ended with Ed Henry's question. Ouch...

The President keeps saying this isn't easy. Didn't poor George Bush get a whole running SNL bit made out of a similar statement?

From the Washington Post's Swampland blog (Frank James), the President gets a rave: http://www.swamppolitics.co...

"The main benefit for Obama is that tonight gave him another prime time opportunity to show off his mastery of the issues, his confidence, and his optimistic message that the nation will get through its current difficulties. Obama should probably get a pretty high grade for his performance."

Say what?

Chris Cillizza gets some things just about right: http://voices.washingtonpos...

He calls the President on his dreadful start--but notes, and I agree with this, that the Prez finished much stronger...

AP with a fairly weak "fact check":

http://www.breitbart.com/ar...

Also posted on Instapundit--as I say, pretty weak--but it is early yet...

The NYT blog says no news was made--but the President was very "serious": http://thecaucus.blogs.nyti...

As I noted, CNN reporter Ed Henry posed question that I thought drew some blood.

CNN analyst Bill Schneider (normally ultra friendly to all Dems) went from fawning early on (calling the President "in command") to this fairly critical post: http://politicalticker.blog...

in which he quoted fellow CNN analyst Bill Bennett:

"After Ed Henry, he looked like he wanted to go home."

Anybody watching TV out there?

From Tom Shales, "Style columnist" from the Washington Post:

Most of the facets of President Obama's personality that have made him intensely popular were on display last night during his second prime-time news conference, and so he emerged from it still every inch "President Wonderful," as it were, untouched and intact.

Read it all: http://www.washingtonpost.c...

Still pretty friendly from the main article in today's Post:

"Last night, against a backdrop of a broad national anxiety that the economy may still be failing, he attempted to recalibrate the high hopes to more closely fit the challenges he said lie ahead.

"Although he spoke sharply once in response to Republican criticism, Obama struck a tone of common purpose throughout his second prime-time news conference, urging the country to be patient as he works on issues as divergent as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the malign impact of lobbying in Washington."

In full here: http://www.washingtonpost.c...

The NYT offers a much more critical review of the president's performance (http://www.nytimes.com/2009...).

Definitely not fawning coverage from Peter Baker and Adam Ngourney, both superstar reporters--but, in the end, you get this summary:

"Throughout his time in public life, Mr. Obama has confronted questions about whether he was too detached, too analytical, too intellectual. In the campaign, he was as likely to be compared to Adlai E. Stevenson as he was to John F. Kennedy. And if there is a pattern to Mr. Obama, it is to lumber through periods like this and then become intense and animated at the first sign of trouble.

"Over the long term, Mr. Obama’s calm has served him well, in particular at the critical moment in the campaign when the economy began its steep slide. 'That is one of the things people like about him,' Mr. Trippi said."

NOT UNCRITICAL--but not exactly Dan Rather to Nixon, Sam Donaldson to Reagan, or David Gregory to Bush.

From Matt Drudge:

Obama skips major papers: No NYT, WASHPOST, WSJ, USATODAY...

Reporters were told in advance if president was going to call on them. Senior Administration Officials notified reporters from Stars & Stripes, Univision and other news outlets that they should have question ready. Several reporters moved up in assigned seats as result....

Question: I wonder why the President didn't just call on all these mainstream newspapers that are so in the bag for him? And why the peculiar need to hand pick questioners in such a honeymoon environment?

Tocqueville: why do we always take for granted the ones who love us the most?

Very critical and negative analysis piece from John Dickerson of SLATE today. Dickerson is somewhere between reporter and pundit. He has been with Obama from the beginning (both literally on the campaign trail two years ago and spiritually).

Interesting: http://www.slate.com/id/221...

He picks up on the "this is tough" theme, and gives a lot of hard-headed criticism.

Like this:

"'We are all in this together.' Lovely sentiment, but the times seem to call for a stronger pitch. Why should people join together when bailouts are rewarding people who didn't act in the common interest? Among those being rescued are Wall Street bankers, AIG financial engineers, and even homeowners who didn't behave responsibly—and now the responsible citizens are bailing them out.

"Obama may be popular enough to make the case. But to bring about collective action in this environment, Obama may have to return to a lesson he wrote about in Dreams From My Father: the power of self-interest in helping to create community. People often join together because it is obvious there is something in it for them. Rather than the 'we're all in this together' pitch he gave at the press conference, he wrote that an appeal to self-interest 'bespoke a certain hardheadedness, a worldly lack of sentiment.'"

Footnote to this discussion (and I promise to put this in BOLD TYPE on PAGE ONE at some point in the near future):

I think Tocqueville wins this discussion of the honeymoon being over. Is it over? Probably? If not, it is in its final throes. Was it over two weeks ago? Maybe. Will it go on forever, as I asserted? Not likely.

After we mark this one down as Tocqueville having won and me having lost. Hard to say that. "Fonzie was wrrrrrrrr......"

After that, the real discussion is over the nature of coverage. A more tenable position for me to assert is this:

President Obama gets unprecedentedly friendly coverage from the MSM outlets. That is, we may never get to a "business as usual" scenario between the WH and the WH press corps, for they are not only inclined to see the world through a left-leaning bias (which colors coverage of all Democratic presidents), but they are thoroughly invested in this man. If he is not great, then they were wrong and sold us a bill of goods.

Their coverage of Obama can, therefore, never be anything close to "objective."

The Honeymoon will be over once the MSM resumes the use of the modifirer "So Called" in reference to Administration policy policy.

Obama's speeches and press conferences serve best as educational tools in teaching logic. They are packed with tropes, fallacies, syllogisms and specious analogies.

He thinks he's schooling us...but he's actually educating citizens in how to parse a charlatan's pitch.

Commence the revolution!

Karl Rove on O'Reilly saw the press corps stiffening: http://www.realclearpolitic...

In case you missed it, the exchange with Ed Henry: http://www.realclearpolitic...

Don’t you guys get it yet? Obama knows exactly what he is doing and saying. He is living up to all his campaign promises. Change America! The map coordinates will always be the same. The name will remain the same for years to come. But the change he’s talking about is “a whole ‘nuther country.”

Thanks to everyone who pitched in on this. I am not sure we solved the world's problems--but we had some fun. We will do this again in response to the next appropriate event.

Special shout-out to photognome for having my back on this. I appreciate it. We obviously see this in a similar way....