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Obama Swats Fly; Media Swoons
cross-posted at Alegre's Corner
I cannot make this stuff up, folks; today, Obama swatted a fly during a CNBC interview, and a story got written about it at AOL News, filed under "political news" and "national news," respectively.
Here's the link:
http://news.aol.com/article/ob...
A few lines from this "important" hard-hitting, news story follow:
Said Obama to the persistent fly: "Get out of here."
But it didn't.
My goodness! Something didn't obey President Obama on the first try? Sacrilege!
But we go on:
So Obama waited for the fly to settle, put his hand up and then smacked the fly dead in one try.
Whoo-hoo! Way to go, Mr. President!
And yet, we go on:
Without missing a beat, the president said to CNBC correspondent John Harwood: "Now, where were we."
Oh, I don't know, Mr. President -- maybe talking about health care, or the Chrysler/GM messes, or about TARP, or the Iranian election -- something of far less importance than swatting that little ol' fly, though, I'm sure.
But as the article says . . . Mr. Obama wasn't exactly ready to move back to anything else:
Well, maybe one more second to gloat.
Said Obama: "That was pretty impressive, wasn't it? I got the sucker."
Woo-hoo! Something to celebrate, unlike the health care mess, GM/Chrysler debacle, or the response the US must make regarding the Iranian election!
At any rate, I expect this sort of "news" from the Onion, or perhaps on April Fool's Day -- not from any reputable news organization.
This is a new media low, and it must be celebrated as such.
All hail the dead fly!
(Sorry for the formatting problems folks. I did my best, but this needed to go out in a hurry.)
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UPDATE as of 5 P.M. CDT: There are now over 2000 stories out there regarding Obama's swatting of the dead fly, which seems to be at least 1999 too many. Even BBC America has jumped on board the Obama flyswatting incident, though they do not play it as "hard news," which unfortunately most of the rest of the news organizations have. To their shame!
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Every time you think it can't get worse, it does. Is there no bottom for the ass-kissing, kow-towing, Obamamedia folks? Will they never run out of slobber?
They need a wee bit of "Bobby Burns". I'm paraphrasing here but "If only the power were gie us to see ourselves as others see us". They cannot see themselves as the nit-witted nincompoops that they are. Thus we have this kind of drivel served up as news.
All hail the "Flyswatter in Chief" and his courage at not only taking on that damned persistent fly, but in ridding the floor of the corpse as well. Are there any grownups in media? Any at all?
A Dishonest/Biased Media Is A Crime Against Democracy!
Quoting your salient post:
Every time you think it can't get worse, it does. Is there no bottom for the ass-kissing, kow-towing, Obamamedia folks? Will they never run out of slobber?
Apparently not -- to their shame! (See my update, above.) Because there are now over 2000 hits when you put "Obama swats fly" into the search engine for news -- and that doesn't include critical blogs like this one.
They cannot see themselves as the nit-witted nincompoops that they are. Thus we have this kind of drivel served up as news.
Which is why I immediately wrote a blog about it, even though I was on my old, slow, and cranky computer -- I had to have help from a friend who's a webmaster who lives in another state to get it up because my computer wouldn't show me the right screen and I couldn't tell if I'd posted anything other than a title. (I hadn't. He fixed it. Thank goodness, because in this case I couldn't wait. This had to go up ASAP, in order to point the hypocrisy out right away.) And I wasn't able to comment from my computer, nor from work (where I have no e-mail access and am fortunate enough to be able to view this website but cannot comment upon it), until I got to my Mom's newer, faster, better computer just now. (Yeah!)
I agree with you completely, because by all these stories, you'd think no other President of the United States had ever swatted a fly before. And that's absurd!
Also, I do not understand whatsoever why this would be classified as "news." Or as "news-worthy." Or as anything other than "odd news" or "strange, true facts" or "weird news" or even as a human interest story -- any of those, I can see, though not 2200-plus stories written about Obama swatting a fly on the first go in a CNBC interview!
Finally, one more quote from your excellent post:
All hail the "Flyswatter in Chief" and his courage at not only taking on that damned persistent fly, but in ridding the floor of the corpse as well. Are there any grownups in media? Any at all?
LOL to the picking up of the dead fly and throwing it out.
As for whether there are any grownups left in media? I think there are a few, but they're not mainstream media -- Carolyn Kay at MakeThemAccountable.com is one, and Bob Somersby at the Daily Howler is another. (Somersby in particular has a great reputation as a journalist from other journalists.)
The only mainstream media I trust more often than not at this point are Lou Dobbs, who can admit when he's made a mistake and seems to have a care for the middle-class, and Greta Van Susteran, who although isn't a bright intellectual light on these matters (she was trained as a lawyer/jurist, so that's quite understandable), is very good at pointing out the absolute nonsense that's going on amongst our legislators. And I'm betting that both of these newscasters make fun of this issue and of other media outlets covering this as "news" in their nightly broadcasts. (Oh, Rush Limbaugh and the other conservatives will have a field day with this nonsense.)
There's no excuse for this, DNC. You screwed the pooch; time to pay the piper.
I saw the clip of the mighty one slaying the fly and was reminded of the story of the Gallant Tailor. aka "Seven at one blow".
Here's the ending paragraph and link for the whole story. Prophetic or pathetic? We report, you decide.
And I was going to mention it, but you beat me to it, Twandx. (Great find and association!)
In this case, the story is both prophetic and, unfortunately, pathetic.
Our media has sunk to an all-time low with this nonsense.
There's no excuse for this, DNC. You screwed the pooch; time to pay the piper.
I kid you not - the story was available on not one but TWO links on the BBC news front page this morning.
The entire worldwide "news" media have completely lost their minds. QED
Independently adrift
Absolutely insane, isn't it, LizPolaris?
I couldn't believe it when I saw it put up as "news" last evening, and they apparently still have not learned.
The international media must have been having a damned slow news day to pick up on this nonsense as "news."
There's no excuse for this, DNC. You screwed the pooch; time to pay the piper.
The swat heard, and seen, round the world. Now those damn evil doers will surely shake in their shoes and dare not mess with the U.S. We got us a Dirty Harry Fly Swattin O-rambo in the Oval. Or in the minds of the mindless Obamamedia. :barf:
They do him no favors with this kind of crap. Anyone that got a passing grade in adolescence will be laughing at him. Not with him, at him. And that is not a good thing for a leader.
A Dishonest/Biased Media Is A Crime Against Democracy!
I put "mind(s)" that way because I'm not sure the media has even one mind, much less a whole bunch of minds behind all the yahoos who comprise it these days . . . at any rate, I agree with you again, Kenosha Marge.
This is insane, ludicrous, revolting, and a rock-bottom low for our American-spoon-fed Obama-led media.
Ridiculous!
There's no excuse for this, DNC. You screwed the pooch; time to pay the piper.
Now we know the truth. He is the Lord of the Flies
Civil Discourse - ERA - A Mother President - Women's Rights - Primary Reform
Most excellent call NH!
Great association, NH.
Btw, folks -- I cross-posted at Alegre's Corner and put something up there about it being cross-posted at Partizane as well. (That way both sites know I've posted it in both places.) I also went back and did it with the previous blog about GM and Chrysler; can't be too careful.
My main problem with remembering to put the crossposting disclaimer on it is the amount of trouble I have formatting posts over here; this is why in general I start at AC and then move everything over here; it tends to work better.
There's no excuse for this, DNC. You screwed the pooch; time to pay the piper.
I have trouble with posting, too, LSekhmet. I am "technically challenged" and "blogging challenged", so I am always bugging NH for help. I will have everything just the way I want it to look, then I click-on preview and the whole things goes haywire.
Btw, did you notice that Yahoo had this up as its big story of the day for about five minutes, then took it down?
They do have a hard-to-find blog about it, though -- let me grab the link, as I was chatting at Alegre's Corner when this went up -- and down -- at Yahoo:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/20090617/en_ynews/ynews_en398_5
And here's a snarky one from NY Magazine about how Obama's fly-swatting abilities have improved over time:
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/06/obamas_fly-swatting_abilities.html
And here's one I like the title of, called, "Obama: Fly-Killing Badass":
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread473636/pg1
Last I checked, the Yahoo blog (about how ridiculous this all was) continued to exist -- but all the stories about how "playful" the news media was today have been taken down. (Strange, no?)
There's no excuse for this, DNC. You screwed the pooch; time to pay the piper.
It is just a sad state of affairs that the media turned swatting a fly into some kind of momentous newsworthy event. Just when you think they can't go any lower or get anymore ridiculous, they do something like this. Pathetic....just pathetic.
I do not understand how this particular POTUS swatting a fly on one go -- on television, granted -- is newsworthy in the slightest, but I could've understood if it was a strange news story, or a human interest story (in that even a POTUS needs to swat his own flies now and again), but as news?
C'mon!
There's no excuse for this, DNC. You screwed the pooch; time to pay the piper.
Yes, it is pathetic; many members of the media have shown themselves to be fools and so their views are rendered irrelevant for most of us.
This is just weird. That it's making international news almost suggests the media is trying to point out we've turned into North Korea or something. Guardian points out
This is the strangest story I've ever seen written about an American President. Bar none.
There's no excuse for this, DNC. You screwed the pooch; time to pay the piper.
BO never does anything "on the fly" he does it to the fly.
The fly was heard to say, just before it met its' demise "I am just looking for some affordable heathcare BO...then a squeky cry
'Help Me! Help Me! :jawdrop:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7N3uvvhVrgM:'
LOL!! That is hysterical!
Oh, so true! ;)
There's no excuse for this, DNC. You screwed the pooch; time to pay the piper.
and here's the great video
Civil Discourse - ERA - A Mother President - Women's Rights - Primary Reform