I am wondering, If (shudder) President Obama should get re-elected who will he blame for the last four years????

The following News Watch article appeared in the 1977 Jan 15 – 21 week issue of TV Guide (and yes, before you ask, I still have that TV guide):

Jimmy Carter Is President Of All Americans
By Walter H. Annenberg,
(Commentary added. Yeah, I know…. I couldn’t resist!!! lol.)

Annenberg’s monograph addresses the press’s role in assessing a new President and (Carter’s) Administration. It contains insights that will have certain appeal to both the left and the right leaving both to applaud! Well, one would hope.

Reading this, one could EASILY replace Obama’s name with Carter.

“In the interest of fairness, it has become a tradition in the news business to grant a new President about 100 days of grace, a ‘honeymoon’ during which, reasonably free of criticism from reporters and commentators, he can go about establishing his Administration. If ever such a honeymoon was needed, it is now.

Jimmy Carter is being inaugurated as President of all American, and as such, he and the men and women who form his Administration deserve at the outset our enthusiastic support in their efforts to achieve fair social, economic and political treatment for all Americans, to maintain our defenses while seeking permanent peace, and to strengthen our reputation throughout the world as s Nation of good will.

With instantaneous news coverage—and instantaneous nit-picking and second-guessing—it would not be difficult to inadvertently undermine the confidence of the country in its new leaders in very short order. (Just like the LSM did after the 2000 election fiasco Gore v. Bush) Quite obviously, if there are irregularities or criminal actions, the people must know. But barring such developments, a new Administration is entitled to a fair opportunity to get under way without the pressure of criticism for the sake of criticism. (What the LSM, Hollywood and their DNC masters fail to understand is that their brand of criticism is just that: for the sake of criticism.)

The inauguration of a new President generally is a time for reassessment of our country and its position in the world, of our economic system and of our institutions. (If the voting public were paying attention during the election cycle, reassessment AT inauguration would be mute!) Television new is among the most important of our institutions, for it has the tremendous responsibility of informing the majority of our citizens, and it must do so accurately, fairly and thoroughly. (Can’t argue there, although the LSM has done an abysmal job of late.) It is not an easy job, nor is it one to be taken lightly. There is much that is subjective in news judgment and it is a credit to the men and women of the evening news programs that they are in the main as accurate, as fair and as thorough as their information and the time available for their newscasts permit. Improvement in network newscasts, improvement that will permit presentation of more detail in the interest of more comprehensive treatment of the ness, is much too important to the Nation to be postponed because of a squabble between stations and networks over who is to benefit financially from expanded network news.

The Carter Administration faces many difficult problems and it will be the job of the news media to report on the solutions the Administration proposes. (Solutions? How are the mantras of “change”, “Hope” and “Yes, we can” solutions?) The temptation to find fault will be strong and there undoubtedly will be faults, for the solutions of necessity must be complex. Our hope is that television, as the most pervasive news medium (Not any more! DNC-TV has lost their monopoly in the arena of ideas via the advent of talk radio!), will set a tone of fairness and watchful waiting the other media will emulate during the early months of the Carter Presidency. (It didn’t happen! And now with the media utterly and completely invested in THEIR candidate, it won’t for this presidency either!)

Perhaps the most immediate of the problems to be faced concern unemployment and inflation. (Wow! Sound familiar?) It is evident that a President who selected no less than four cabinet members with degrees in economics places the economy high in his list of priorities. (and look how the economy fell apart due to rampant inflation and double-digit interest rates from ‘77 to ’80!) It now appears that Mr. Carter has correctly assessed the conservative tenor of the country and will stress an unemployment solution that relies heavily on inducing industry to do more hiring. (Probably something Obama had better look into and with dispatch!)

Some short-term Government spending on public-works projects seems inevitable, but in the long run American prosperity depends upon private industry, most of which today is publicly owned. When industry modernizes its plant facilities, expands its markets and prospers, increased employment inevitably follows. Tax credits offered to companies willing to invest in new buildings and equipment are one way Government can increase employment in the private sector. Welfare handouts and make-work projects, on the other hand, produce few lasting benefits for the recipients or the economy. (Somebody better tell Pelosi Reid and Obama this and quickly!) And it is to be hoped that the unbridled liberal in Congress will not prevail in this area. (My favorite line in the entire piece!)

Whatever the final decisions of the new Administration in strengthening the economy by reducing unemployment, and in the other immediate problems at hand, the information media would do well to respect the ‘honeymoon’ tradition for the months following this week’s inauguration. (And why not? They certainly didn’t give W a ‘honeymoon period’!) Theses are critical times (When haven’t they been? Hey folks, this was written 32 years ago!), and during this period Mr. Carter needs all the help and encouragement we can provide to get his programs off to a smooth start.”


I’m sorry. The Socialism being force-fed the American people shall not work… ergo, I shall not support them… and we like-minded citizens don’t need a honeymoon period to make an informed decision!

Blame Bush Poll Won’t Help Obama

http://www.commentarymagazine...


It is certainly possible many Americans will go on blaming Bush for our problems in the coming years, even long after both he and Obama leave office. But that says more about the way the country thinks about him than it does about the 2012 election.

Were the Republican challenging the president someone closely associated with the Bush administration, a re-election campaign focused on blaming Bush for the nation’s problems might make some sense. But Mitt Romney is not such a figure. While his foreign policy approach seems broadly similar to that of Bush, that cannot truly be said of much of his economic and other domestic proposals. Conservatives compared Romney to Bush and called him a “big government Republican” during the GOP primaries. But the truth is, he is far more of a fiscal hawk and presents a different take on federalism issues as his rejection of Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” education policies showed.

But a campaign that is still counting on animus toward George W. Bush being enough to carry Obama back to the White House this year is one that is clearly short on new ideas. More to the point, the reversion to blaming Bush is a tacit confession that nothing Obama has tried in the past three years has worked. Because his signature legislative accomplishments — ObamaCare and the billion-dollar stimulus boondoggle — are both deeply unpopular, the president has no domestic accomplishments to brag about except bogus economic statistics that ring hollow to a nation that knows how bad things still are.


The backlash against the president’s claim that the private sector is “doing just fine” shows just how badly he seems to have miscalculated the public’s mood. If he goes on spending the next five months trying to blame Bush rather than taking responsibility for his own failed administration, he will soon be joining the 43rd president on the sidelines as his successor gets a chance to fix the mess he leaves behind.