Bozell said Obama "ran as a Reaganite" and "a fiscal conservative" -- less than two weeks after claiming Obama was espousing "socialism"
SUMMARY: On America's Newsroom, Media Research Center president L. Brent Bozell III claimed that President-elect Barack Obama "ran as a Reaganite" and "won over ... the public as a fiscal conservative." But less than two weeks earlier, Bozell accused Obama of espousing "socialism" throughout the "entirety of the campaign."
During the November 7 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom, Media Research Center president L. Brent Bozell III claimed that President-elect Barack Obama "ran as a Reaganite" and "won over ... the public as a fiscal conservative." But less than two weeks earlier, Bozell accused Obama of espousing "socialism" and advocating "redistribution of wealth" throughout the "entirety of the campaign."
During America's Newsroom, Bozell told co-anchor Bill Hemmer, "the fascinating thing, Bill, is that Barack Obama ran as a Reaganite and won over the fiscal -- the public as a fiscal conservative." Bozell went on to say: "That means that Barack Obama does not have the mandate to enact the left-wing agenda he wants to enact. He didn't run on it, he ran from it."
However, during the October 27 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends, Bozell asserted that Obama wasn't "questioned seriously by anyone except for ... the Fox News network," and then added: "But when you go through the entirety of the campaign saying the kind of things that you're saying in the debates, where on, for every question, you've got a redistribution of wealth answer, where you've got socialism, where you've got the government controlling every aspect of life. You don't expect a reporter to ask you, 'Is this socialism?' Because the media don't ask that question."
From the October 27 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends:
BOZELL: This is the arrogance, I think, of the Obama campaign, but it's a well-placed arrogance in the sense that they've gone through this entire campaign without being questioned seriously by anyone except for this news network, the Fox News network, which is why they studiously avoid the Fox News network. But when you go through the entirety of the campaign saying the kind of things that you're saying in the debates, where on, for every question, you've got a redistribution of wealth answer, where you've got socialism, where you've got the government controlling every aspect of life. You don't expect a reporter to ask you, "Is this socialism?" Because the media don't ask that question. Well, some uppity reporter did -- and look what happened, they cancelled her. And, by the way, she won't be going to the ball, either.
From the November 7 edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom:
BILL HEMMER (co-anchor): Top conservatives met in Virginia yesterday, and they met with Brent Bozell. He hosted that meeting. He's president of the Conservative Victory Committee, and Brent Bozell is with me now. Good morning to you, sir.
BOZELL: Good morning, Bill, how are you doing?
HEMMER: I'm doing fine. Who was at the meeting?
BOZELL: Well, we're not divulging all the names. I can give you some of them. People like Grover Norquist, who runs the Americans for Tax Reform, he's the leader on that front; Leonard Leo, who is the top conservative expert on judicial matters; Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, probably the most powerful social-conservative organization in America. There are many of those people representing quite a lot of armies. They came together --
HEMMER: Who have - who have a lot influence, came together, and --
BOZELL: The - the purpose was to look at the election results and take stock at where we are and where we're going, and there's some fascinating stuff out there that's really not being reported. The conservatives didn't play a role in this campaign. This was a moderate Republican against a liberal -- a left-wing Democrat, and the left-wing Democrat beat the moderate Republican. The moderate Republican wing of the party is demolished. In the House and the Congress -- in the Congress, in the Senate, and now as a presidential candidate, it's finished. So, now what happens with conservative -- conservatives have to reassert their position, and we're gonna take over this country the way we did it with Ronald Reagan.
HEMMER: You -- you have --
BOZELL: There's a lot of work that needs to be done. But here's the key thing, Bill, that really isn't being reported: Anyone who looks at the exit polls this year will find two fascinating results. Number one, this country remains every bit as center-right as it's been for a generation. And number two --
HEMMER: You don't think that's changed -- you don' think that's changed at all?
BOZELL: No, it hasn't. Look at the exit polling. The number one issue was the economy, nothing came close. The American people are fiscally conservative, and the fascinating thing, Bill, is that Barack Obama ran as a Reaganite and won over the fiscal -- the public as a fiscal conservative. That's what the polling data shows.
HEMMER: You said there were two things. What was number two?
BOZELL: Well, number one is that the public is conservative; number two, Barack Obama won as a conservative. That means that Barack Obama does not have the mandate to enact the left-wing agenda he wants to enact. He didn't run on it, he ran from it. So, this is not necessarily bad news for conservatives.
HEMMER: But what if --
BOZELL: Yes, the left wing controls everything now --
HEMMER: -- but what if some of these Senate races that still hang in the balance go the Democratic way? That pushes them closer and closer to 60 in the Senate.
BOZELL: Sure, there's - there's no question --
HEMMER: Would you consider that a mandate?
BOZELL: -- of the power that they now have in Washington. There's no question. The point is that the American people are still on our side. It becomes our job now to reconnect with the public.
What's even sadder is I'm still getting those e-mails that "Obama isn't a US citizen and I shouldn't vote for him" in my inbox. No joke.
And speaking of that, I wonder if Jerry is working tripletime to "definitively prove" that claim, voiding Obama's Pres-elect status. It'd be their "5th and Goal" play...
I'm still trying to remember your "screen name" from the earlier days of MMFA, but it will come to me. It's been a few years, but I'll remember it sooner or later.
Welcome back, even with a new personna.
Zzzzinnnggg !
I'm really enjoying the wingnut media the last couple of days. They're all over the place.The best part is the callers to the radio shows follow right along with the Slop du Jour, no matter how much at odds it is with yesterday's story.
Col.....
The conservative rightwing media IS falling apart because, if you remember, their game plan was originally supposed to be a Hillary Clinton presidency to pick apart and disrespect...
With Barack Obama, the choice of 66 + million Americans (probably a lot more if you consider the vote tampering that DID occur)... the rightwing is like the airplane in the Superman Returns movie, spinning out of control, destined to hit the ground (only with no Superman...
Open Question: Is it me... or has Bill O'Reilly really not been at the helm of his failing show since the election of Barack Obama?
friday nite inshannity was licking billybob o'really's wounds. They were in a back room at the faucks news studio
You know what a thumbnail definition of insanity is?
Insanity is thinking that Ronald Reagan or "conservatives" won the 2008 national elections!
Is this what is meant by "revisionism"?
Are people who think Ronald Reagan and "conservatives" won the 2008 national elections, are they insane?
Are they "revisionists"?
Hannity and Levin are playing fact-freee Reagan speeches nightly now. Do they really think this is the way to improve the appeal of the Republican Party in 2012?
I think LIARS is the word you're looking for.
America is NOT a "center-right" country, and Obama did NOT run as a conservative.
You jackasses on the right cannot call Obama a terrorist and a socialist on one day, and put your arm around him on the next.
The reason the Republican party is in shambles is because of arguments and rationalizations like these. They're hypocritical, they don't even try to be ideologically consistent, and they're corrupt. In short, they deserved to lose.
In a round about way, this convoluted pretzel-logic reminds me of a great scene in "The Brothers Karamazov".
Yul Brynner is sitting at a table at an outdoor cafe. The waiter comes up to him with something in his hand and asks, "Did you lose this?"
Never looking up from his meal, Brynner says "I never lose anything".
"Then, this isn't your money?" the waiter responds.
Brynner snatches the money and says "All money belongs to me".
"The point is that the American people are still on our side. It becomes our job now to reconnect with the public."
What the hell does that mean? If the people were still on this idiot's side, why does he have to re-connect?
do these guys even matter anymore?
Bozell's point is that Obama ran on the platform of lowering taxes for 95% of American, and of the need to change what is going on in Washington.It was a great campaign and Reaganesqe.
The point the conservative pundits like Bozell never got across is that there is no record of Obama actually succeeding, let alone trying to achieve either of those two campaign promises at any point in his career.
Let's hope Obama lives up to his campaign promises and that those nebulous changes he is calling for will actually improve the fiscal corruption and end the prolifigate spending in Washington.
ps. "improve fiscal corruption" should be "reduce fiscal corruption". Sorry for the confusion.
Another Bizzaro reality from Another American.
At least he had the good form to apologize for being confused.
That is nice. If you're going to be confused, at least be polite about it.
I will give Barney one point-- Obama has never reduced taxes for 95% of Americans, neither as a senator or a community organizer. Kudos!
So if lowering taxes for 95% of the people is "reaganesque", why was it labeled "marxist"? Was Reagan a marxist?
Just before the election, I had a conversation with a McSame supporter. He was going on about if Obama won the election he was going to raise taxes on anybody making over 45K a year. I tried to talk to him, but it was futile. I finally had to tell him that if he continued to deny reality and got all his misinformation from Fox and Drudge, it would be impossible to continue a rational conversation with him.
Brab,
Obama's socialist-marxist comments were not conscious parts of his campaign. He did not claim to be socialist or marxist. His opponents tried to and failed to attach that to him.
Of course lowering taxes is not marxist. Raising taxes on the rich to spread the wealth is.
AA,
I just can't see defending Bozell in this, at all. As others have pointed out, you can't have it both ways. You can't bellyache all through the campaign that Obama is the most liberal Senator, a socialist, a tax and spender, all of the above - and then spin around now and claim he ran as a fiscal conservative in the mold of Ronald Reagan.
It makes no sense and just shows Bozell to be a whiny sore loser, as he is trying to validate his own media existence somehow. He has no credibility.
Tommy,
I do not believe that Obama is a fiscal conservative at all, however during the campaign his economic attack was that he was cutting taxes more than McCain and his ads said his economic programs would cost less than McCain's.
He also argued that "Washington" was the problem and that he would "change" it.
The promise of lowering taxes and changing Washington were two issues that helped Reagan win. Obama's promises are not identical to Reagan, but very much in the same vein.
All along conservatives felt that Obama's campaign was based on class warfare and taxing the rich, and that the change Obama promises are simply words. However the enormous amounts of ad time Obama bought, plus the mainstream media buy-in, imho, effectively negated the McCain response. The undecideds and Democrats bought the "Reaganesqe" campaign promises of Obama's campaign.
He's still not a Reagenite. And can you name me one politician that hasn't run stating a desire to "change Washington"?
Tax cuts aren't a conservative principle. It's who those cuts go to that is the difference.
He's not raising taxes on the rich to spread the wealth. He is raising taxes on the rich to help pay for the government goods and services we require as a society - the funds for which have partially been squandered on an unnecessary and unethical 6-year war against a puny 3rd-world country the size of Texas and whose GNP didn't equal that of California. He's raising taxes to help pay for the multi-billion dollar bailout of some of the wealthiest corporations in America whose CEO's each make 100's of millions of dollars in bonuses for driving their corporations into bankruptcy. He's raising taxes on the rich - that top 10% that holds 70% of the nations wealth - because we've lost more than 700,000 jobs over the past 2 months, all of which were formerly held by folks in the bottom 60% who DON'T HAVE ANY STINKIN' MONEY ANY MORE...
Neon,
Are you calling Obama an liar?
Obama: “I want to spread the wealth around”
See it and hear it for yourself.
http://theconservativerevolution.com/barack-obama/obama-tax-plan/
Please don't post links to your conservative nutjob sites. I will not follow them and I'm sure others are the same. If you have an argument to make, make it yourself.
I don't think Obama ever said, "I want to spread the wealth around".
Is your head hurting? I think I know why...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
Obama's socialist-marxist comments were not conscious parts of his campaign.
AA, your statement should have read; Obama comments WERE NOT Socialist OR Marxist, even though the Republicans party tried to portray make them that way!
Reagan taxed the wealthy?
Yup. And also there was the famous Reagan national health care plan, his focus on alternative energy, his cuts on wasteful defense spending...
This makes perfect sense, if you live in that alternate dimension where all good things are automatically conservative and Reaganesque and all bad things are automatically liberal and Democratic. See also, "Bush is really a liberal."
"...Obama ran on the platform of lowering taxes for 95% of American,"
True.
"...and of the need to change what is going on in Washington."
Also True.
"It was a great campaign..."
True as well.
"...and Reaganesqe."
I'd like to know where this buzzword was before the election. If it was uttered, it was getting completely drowned out by "Obama wants to spread the wealth around!"
I was listening to Hannity yesterday, and he called Rahm Emanuel (hope I spelled his name properly) the most left wing Representative in the House. Today, Rahm Emanuel was named Obama's Chief of Staff.
What Brent Bozell is doing is setting Obama up. When Obama begins to actually govern, Brent Bozell will accuse him of lying to the American public during the election, and that his agenda was really left wing all along.
Stay tuned folks
^^ Bingo!
I hate to say it but in a very twisted Big Brother formulated Emmanuel Goldstein way you make absolute sense. Could Obama be a super secret Sean Hannity. The implication is too much I must retreat to my safe place.
I almost forgot--he also picked a radical left-winger to be his chief-of-staff.
I cheated--I posted this from my happy place.
Republicans. The message is clear. Your strategists and leaders think you are incredibly stupid.
If they didn't get that message from the nomination of Hockeymom McWinky Youbetchya they will never get it.
Has this crushing loss caused Bozo's brain to completely short circuit?
The circular firing squad is forming for the Cons. This is so fun!
Think Progress has more contorted logic from Bozell:
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/07/bozell-flips-obama/
Is there another kind?
I think people like Bozell are trying to convince themselves as much as anybody. I guess it's painful to get "drubbed" two elections in a row. It's easier for them to pretend that Obama won because he was "Reaganesque" instead of admitting that America has rejected the knuckledragging neo-fascist abomination masquerading as the Republican Party.
To the Republican True Believers, Reagan is much more a myth than the actual doddering old actor that the rest of us saw in the White House for those 8 years. Maybe Obama is just really impressing them.
It is funny listening to these conservabots argue multi- conflicting thoughts at the same time????? Obamas a "Conservative socialist muslim christian radical terrorist"???? There is a fight taking place in the republican party for the control of it's heart and soul. I think thats what this sniping about Sarah Palin and finger pointing is partly about. Palin ignited the base, but the base is shrinking and no-where near as influential as it was in 2004 or in 1980. The situation and conditions have changed dramatically , as has the make-up the population. This segment of the republican party which Bozell and his caball represent are the most backward right wing militaristic anti-worker and anti-progress segment of society. You saw them at the Palin rallies, and the use of her to unite the base only united everyone else against THEM!!!! So why would you want to continue down that road???? And lets get this straight...Reagan didn't cut spending he increased it and ran up the biggest deficits since the 30's. What he did do was cut spending for social programs and weaken labor and environmental laws , destroy the air traffickers union and deregulate the Savings and Loan Industry which led to $5billion dollar govt. bailout of that industry, and this is their "HERO"????This reactionary faction of the republican party that fights to march backward like an insane person will not let reality interfere with their idiology. Like the demogogues they are, they will try to use caricatures like "Joe the Plumber" and/or Sarah "hockey mom" Palin as tools in an attempt to fool US the working man in to believing their on our side,but don't forget their contempt for us, how quick where they to label Sarah Palin a "hillbilly from Wasilla"!!! That being said let the sideshow begin!!!!
Sorry that should be $500billion dollar bailout of the Savings and Loan Industry. Along with violating the Boland Amendment ,trading arms to Iran in return for money they used to fund illegal wars in Latin America.
I found this on "Washington Monthly" :"
QUOTE OF THE DAY.... I really do love gems like these.
The comments came just seven days before the election. Obama won in North Carolina.
Senator Linsey now sez: glug glug?
If the rumors are true he's been saying that his whole adult life.
I just read this from a story written by Carla Marinucci of the San Francisco Chronicle, where she quotes conservative icon Richard Viguerie(remember him??) in his defence of Sarah Palin (against those nasty attacks)actually admit that McCains/Palin campaign was..."Almost the entire leadership of the McCain campaign was Washington insiders, lobbyist...and they come from a different background than Sarah Palin." And all the while they were telling us they were "mavericks and reformers".????? Who woulda thunk they were lying????HaHaHa!!! Stop it this is tooooo eazzzzy!!!! LOL!!
These idiots coulden't get their act together no matter how hard they try. What a pathetic bunch of morons.
Obama is a crypto socialist Reaganite Marxist fiscal conservative, pass it on.
Who pals around with tourists
Which can only lead to manditory small umbrellas in all mixed drinks. A fatal step on the road to Islamalofasciocommunistidentitynugiehood.
...they also shop at "Whole Foods", eat arrugala and order orange juice at diners...definitly suspicious????
They don't come any more psychotic than bozo bozell.
They don't come any more psychotic than bozo bozell.
Hmmm, Funny I thought Reaganwas the pioneer of trickel down economic and giving the wealthy more tax break so prosperity could trick down to the middle class.
.Didn't Obama say tickle down economics was a bust and complete failure that did work...
Bozell must be very dizzy from all of the spinning he's doing. He and the other right wing types cannot deal with the fact that the American people have spoken against them in a very loud fashion.