Check out this article at the World Socialist Website that cuts to the heart of the bullshit.  The title says it all:

The media and Obama: Image and reality
28 December 2010

http://www.wsws.org/

“The shift on Obama exemplifies the ceaseless efforts of the corporate-owned and controlled media to artificially create political realities by means of image making. Obama’s election was largely the result of a media marketing operation, backed and financed by sections of the ruling class that saw the need for a change in image and personnel after the foreign policy disasters of the Bush years and in the face of public hatred for Bush and the Republicans.

Now, the media is seeking to repackage and repair the badly discredited Obama administration. Why? Because it is dutifully doing the bidding of the financial aristocracy.

Obama is presently being built up because he has made clear that his cave-in on tax cuts for the rich is only the prelude to a further shift to the right on social policy. Appearing Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program, Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, a multimillionaire Chicago real estate investor who is described as Obama’s liaison to business, said Obama would focus in the immediate future on reining in the deficit and improving his relationship with American business.

The administration has already called for a freeze on non-defense discretionary spending and federal employee pay and backed proposals for cuts in Social Security benefits, increased taxes on consumption, and a broad “reform” of the tax system that will sharply reduce income taxes for the rich as well as corporate taxes.

The content of Obama’s so-called rebound is an accelerated attack on ever-broader sections of the working class.

Not accidentally, the media has in recent days largely dropped the Tea Party movement. Built up by the media in the pre-election period as a mass movement on the right reflecting popular angst over budget deficits and coercive government interference in the market, the Tea Party was used to shift Obama and the Democrats further to the right and engineer the Republican victory in November.

For the present at least, with that mission having been accomplished and Obama making all of the right moves, the Tea Party is being pushed to the background. It stands ready to be revived by the media when the ruling elite deems it politically expedient to do so.”

Sorry E.J.,

Your essay plainly does not wash.

What we have witnessed in the last few weeks is this:  Don’t screw with the economic order (tax breaks for business and the uber rich) and we will give you a few crumbs to boast about like a cocky rooster.  DADT is good policy but affects how many people in reality?  I’m guessing 5000 at the most. The START treaty was a no brainer, even for the war mongerers.  Jon Stewart singlehandedly brought relief to the 911 workers, although for billions less than requested. Republicans should have been crucified for voting against it, but will pay no price now.

Mark my words, Obama will set us up for draconian cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Only a so called Democrat could pull that off and Obama is as so-called as they come.

“The startling achievements of this lame-duck session owed to the decision of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to shun the counsel of those who said they should just pack it in after a bad election. If a certain amount of boldness had cost some of their colleagues at the polls in November, the same audacity would at least permit those on their way out to add to their record. They would use their majorities right to the end.”

What a load of garbage!  If those two had done through 2009 and 2010 what they did on their way out of power, if the DNC had actually done its job with the media, this would not be the end of the most productive congress since 1964, but would be just the beginning of a more progressive, people-oriented Congress, instead of the disaster that looms on the horizon next year!  These two, with their “we will not be dictated to by this White House”, have put up a smoke screen of supporting the President’s agenda, but when you look closely, they barely did that, and now without major concessions that essentially vacated any good on any major bill, and in the end set up the gridlock that will occur in the next Congress so that nothing can be accomplished again, while making sure through their lack of support that the decent, strong progressives like Alan Grayson did not return to show them up as the Cowards they are and were!

This congress accomplished a lot, but to give credit to Pelosi and Reid for it is just plain wrong.  It got done because people like Grayson and Weiner and Feingold pushed and prodded and embarrassed moderate Dems into acting correctly for the American people, while rightly condemning those Blue Dogs, faux Progressives, and GOP for abandoning the American people in favor of their padded campaign funds and special interests.

“Obama’s Orphans” should be proud of what they accomplished against the deceptive work of the Rahm Emanuel led White House and the Congressional leadership.  “Obama’s Orphans” were the only decent members of Congress from what I could see, and that President Obama failed to support them either directly or through his staff, which was told to ignore them, is shameful.  These men and women worked hard for him, and in this election cycle, he abandoned them because they were progressives and the DNC wanted Blue Dogs.  When is this president going to realize that he is wrong to listen to old guard Democrats like Clinton, Pelosi, and Reid, and start surrounding himself with people like Grayson, Weiner, and Feingold?

May we ask why Obama is suddenly being presented as having developed a backbone? He gets nuclear treaty passed which may or may not have much meaning and he gets DADT removed, which is only fair and right. Certainly it is more honest and honorable to acknowledge that gays have always served in our military and many of our best troops were secretly gay people. So a pass of sorts.

But, does this mean that he has suddenly become effective or is it just a theater piece, a set piece to make him look good. He has conspired with the Republicans to validate the worst features of Bush/Cheney, the complete failure to punish or regulate the banking investment theft that has lost many people their jobs, depressed the wages that they might expect to make and has actively damaged Social Security. No I think Obama has failed over all.

Well said Gerard! This pro Obama garbage is sickening to read. This should be on the MSNBC website as opposed to Truthdig!

I don’t think the people are fooled.  More shellacking is highly likely.