Media Are Waking Up to Obama

Ronald Kessler

"Saturday Night Live" has been ridiculing President Obama’s claim that he wants to reduce spending and cut the deficit.

Katie Couric says Americans are growing “disenchanted” with Obama, and she cites polls questioning his credibility on her “CBS Evening News.” The Associated Press ran stories pointing out Obama’s misrepresentations on healthcare proposals. Washington Post editorials lambasted him over his out-of-control spending. Finally, the New Yorker ran a cover showing Obama bowing to Santa Claus.

As traditionally liberal media outlets finally wake up to how extreme Obama is, his approval ratings will continue to sag. The latest Rasmussen poll found that 53 percent of the nation’s voters disapprove of Obama’s performance as president, while 46 percent approve or at least somewhat approve.

In my view, Obama’s 20-year association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr. told us everything we needed to know about how he would govern. By his own account, Obama considered Wright not only his minister but also his mentor, sounding board, friend, and adviser. Indeed, Obama said Wright was like an uncle.

“I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community,” Obama said of Wright.

Yet on the Sunday following 9/11, Obama’s “mentor” characterized the terrorist attacks as a consequence of violent American policies. Four years later, Wright suggested that the attacks were retribution for America’s racism.

Wright claimed America created the AIDS virus to kill off blacks. He gave an award for lifetime achievement to Louis Farrakhan. He equated Zionism with racism and compared Israel with South Africa under its previous policy of apartheid.

“We are only able to maintain our level of living by making sure that Third World people live in grinding poverty,” Wright has said. “God d--- America!” he shouted.

To those who insisted during the campaign that Obama did not really believe in Wright’s views, I would say: Would you listen to such hatred without walking out? Even among the most liberal Democrats who are my friends, the answer was always of course not.

Nonetheless, the mainstream media refused to report on Wright for more than a year. As chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax, I began doing stories about Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ and its so-called Black Value System on Jan. 7, 2008, with “Barack Obama’s Racist Church.” The stories continued until mid-March, when the mainstream media finally began exposing Wright and his connection to Obama.

Beginning with the first story, I sent the Newsmax pieces and later a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed on the subject to key reporters, editors, and television producers at major news organizations. A reporter for one of the networks told me she could never pursue such a story.

“The media love Obama,” she said. “If you want to do a critical story about him, you are considered by the network to be biased.”

Obama’s double-digit lead over Hillary Clinton in national polls eventually vanished, according to pollsters, largely as a result of the stories that finally ran about Wright,. She then began winning primaries. At the same time, John McCain shot up in the polls.

Clearly, if the media had done the job the First Amendment envisioned for the press, Obama would not be president today. Belatedly, we now see the media beginning to atone for what can only be described as a shameful coverup during the campaign.

Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com.