I started watching the presidential press conference until it became clear that the Washington press corps has yet to understand just what we are facing.
This has nothing to do with what I think of President Barack Obama. What I am talking about is the focus on what I can only call the political tropes of the past.
The questions assumed a rather conservative mindset, questioning the need for increased government authority (i.e., regulation), asking for sacrifice from Americans who have already sacrificed (OpenLeft‘s Tweet on this was priceless), worrying about deficits when the deficit should be placed on the backburner as we deal with the cratering economy.
That said, Keith Olbermann is not exactly taking a critical look at what President Obama had to say during the press conference — an hour of talk that, in the end, is meaningless, as David Sirota points out. It is, in his words, a manufactured event.
And really, why when every media figure is Twittering away telling us how much they are preparing for this press conference, do I not care all that much what President Obama says? Why am I just not buying the whole manufactured hullaballoo about another presidential speech, and instead find myself with the urge to watch an 80s movie on TNT? Indeed, why am I just nauseated by the desperate – and rather pathetic – attempt to Hollywood-ize and celebrify Washington, D.C. press conferences? Does that make me stupid? Or does that make me tired of listening to words and watching officialdom’s elaborate stagecraft, and only interested in actual concrete actions?
Hank Kalet 