Take a look at the highlighted passage below from Milbank's WashPost column today , as he races to the front of the line, alongside Peggy Noonan, to announce Obama is doomed. The passage pretty much tells you all you need to know about today's “liberal media” [emphasis added]:
It had been probably the worst week of his presidency so far, his administration at the mercy of events: the failure to cap the oil spill in the gulf, the economic crisis in Europe, the new tensions with Iran and North Korea, the developing scandal over the White House's job offer to Joe Sestak and, finally, Israel's deadly interception of an aid mission to Gaza.
The whole sentence is a train wreck in terms of logic. For instance, Obama is somehow to blame for the fact that Israel attacked the aid flotilla bound for Gaza? That's just Fox News nonsense. But according to Milbank the claim is true. The raid was Obama's fault because the U.S. “can't control Israel.” Has a more foolish claim ever been made in the Post? (Well, at least this week?) And by the way, imagine the epic press scandal if Obama did try to “control Israel”?
But please note Milbank's description of the Sestak non-story. It's “developing.”
Oh brother.
As everyone inside Washington, D.C. knows, the story is the opposite of “developing”; it has expired. There is no official body investigating the matter for the simple reason that there are no facts in question. And since last Friday when the White House released it's official explanation of the non-“job” offer, there have been no new facts uncovered to fuel the story. And as I noted yesterday, I'm not aware of a single press account that has quoted an independent, non-partisan legal expert who thinks the Sestak non-job “offer” broke any law, or represented something unusual in politics.
Meaning, there's no there, there.
But Milbank, desperate to prop up his Obama-is-doomed meme, pretends the Sestak story is “developing.” Not only that, the Sestak “crisis” threatens to “weaken” Obama's entire presidency.
Just how dumb does Milbank's Obama-bashing column get? His key piece of evidence to prove Obama just suffered his worst week in office was that it rained on Memorial Day in Illinois where he was supposed to give a speech. I kid you not. Milbank cites the weather and finds deep political significance in Midwestern precipitation.
Again, this is just right-wing, Obama-hating foolishness, except it's being paraded onto the pages of the Post.
Oh yeah, in terms of Milbank's portrayal of the Obama presidency being in free-fall thanks mostly to BP's disaster (that's what all the Kool Kidz in the press corps are saying), please note that on April 20, the day of the BP oil rig catastrophe, Obama's approval rating at Gallup stood at 49 percent. Today, amidst Obama's worst seven-day stretch of his entire presidency (according to Milbank), Obama's approval rating at Gallup stands at 47 percent.
That's right, a two-point collapse over a six-week span. How will Obama survive???