Now where have I heard that before? Obama’s taunt, before a complacent media, that Republicans should target him, not Rice *UPDATED*
Yesterday, during his first press conference in months, Obama tried a little swagger:
But let me say specifically about Susan Rice, she has done exemplary work. She has represented the United States and our interests in the United Nations with skill and professionalism and toughness and grace.
As I’ve said before, she made an appearance at the request of the White House in which she gave her best understanding of the intelligence that had been provided to her. If Senator McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me. And I’m happy to have that discussion with them. But for them to go after the U.N. Ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi, and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received, and to besmirch her reputation is outrageous.
And we’re after an election now. I think it is important for us to find out exactly what happened in Benghazi, and I’m happy to cooperate in any ways that Congress wants. We have provided every bit of information that we have, and we will continue to provide information. And we’ve got a full-blown investigation, and all that information will be disgorged to Congress.
And I don’t think there’s any debate in this country that when you have four Americans killed, that’s a problem. And we’ve got to get to the bottom of it, and there needs to be accountability. We’ve got to bring those who carried it out to justice. They won’t get any debate from me on that.
But when they go after the U.N. Ambassador, apparently because they think she’s an easy target, then they’ve got a problem with me. And should I choose, if I think that she would be the best person to serve America in the capacity of the State Department, then I will nominate her. That’s not a determination that I’ve made yet.
Reading that, I’m irresistibly remind of an old joke:
Two men are hiking, when suddenly they meet with an angry bear. They both take off in the opposite direction, running as fast as they can. After a few seconds, the slower runner says, “Why are we doing this? We can’t outrun a bear.” To which the faster runner replies, “We don’t have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you.”
Obama is pretending to be the slower bear, making himself available to the media in order to provide the chivalrous protection a gentleman should give both a female and a subordinate. But the real joke here is on the American people, because Obama knows that there’s no bear chasing him or, if there is, it’s a teddy bear. A compliant and complacent press means that no one is really going to go after him. As this election showed, reports of the MSM’s death were greatly and too optimistically exaggerated. The MSM still has a flow on the information streaming to the American people. The media will block negative news about Rice and Obama, and it will heap the full measure of ridicule on anyone who dares to go after one of Obama’s chosen representatives.
As Individualists (as opposed to Statists), our job in the next year isn’t to challenge the President. It’s to appreciate Breitbart’s magnificent insight about the way the media has corrupted American discourse, and to challenge — and topple — media control over the free flow of information.
UPDATE: In the “great minds think alike” department, when I wrote the above, regarding Obama’s “chivalry,” I wasn’t aware that Kristen Powers had zoomed in on precisely the same point:
Don’t pick on the little lady.
Wednesday, President Obama bizarrely cast the U.N. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, as some delicate flower the boys should stop picking on for her dissembling claims on five Sunday talk shows following the killing of 4 Americans in Benghazi. But, there is no damsel in distress and Obama’s paternalistic bravado in defense of a top administration official is going to come back to haunt him.
Yeah. What she said!
