Journalists are by nature skeptics and cynical but many there were so relieved that the US pushed “the reset” button in a phrase used by ex-Congressman Harold Ford Jr. from Tennessee, now head of the centrist Democratic Leadership Conference. Ford backs Barack but is also stressed by all the economic uncertainty. The DLC has a crisis too because it has consistently stressed free market pro-corporate policies only to find they contributed to the current calamity.
Later this week, you will hear endless punditry in attempts to offer a “report card” on the first 100 days, even though they all know it is too soon to make a real judgment. A lot of this blather will be partisan and all knowing and most of it will be wrong. There will be little reference to the bureaucratic and political delays he faces in staffing up Government agencies including the Treasury despite the fact that we are in a major crisis.
As the man at the top, Obama needs a team in place to make things happen and many of its members are not there yet. (Unfortunately, he can’t use a phrase employed by an innovative journalist on a panel on the media. The acronym is JFDI—“just f*cking do it.”) So while everything internally is moving in slomo speed, everyone on the outside expects hyper-speed solutions.
The media can be unforgiving and quick to judge but the public seems more aware of how deep the challenge is. So far, the President’s approval rating is up. My colleague DXM tells me that for the first time in the years he has been watching, Barack replaced Britney as the most searched after name on the Internet. Mr. Obama, however, finished second. The number one name on this hit parade is another Obama, the one named Michelle.
News Dissector Danny Schechter is making a film on the financial crisis based in his book plunder (Http://www.newsdissector.com/Plunder) He blogs for Mediachannel.org. His new film is Barack Obama Peoples President Comments to Dissector@mediachannel.org.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
