Obama's Press Conference on the Budget and Economic Recovery & the Media Involved

By Kevin Gosztola

It’s very difficult to not reflect upon the horrific state of media in this country when offering up a reflection on the words from President Obama this evening. So, before getting into tonight’s main event, bare with me.

I tuned in ten to fifteen minutes before Obama was expected to magically appear in front of the press who gathered to ask Obama questions.

I circulated between FOX News, CNN, and MSNBC before I was struck by one of the most vacuous creations ever conceived by a media organization.

The Word Cloud---a cloud of words. A conglomeration of terms and buzzwords that would be heard in Obama’s opening statement on the budget.

I looked on in horror as John King and Wolf Blitzer drooled and ogled at the screen with words like “invest”, “renewed”, “budget”, “jobs”, “foundation”, “prosperity”, etc.

The Word Cloud showed words of different sizes and, as King explained, the larger the word the more often Obama would use it and the smaller the word the less often Obama would use it (for example, CNN told me you would not hear “pessimistic”; I wonder why a press conference meant to garner support for a budget would not use words that might make citizens doubt Obama’s intentions.)

King and Blitzer both giddily talked up the Word Cloud that was before them and said it was the first time this had ever been done before. It was not the first time the media had reduced an important political event to a gadgetry gimmick.

Is it the media’s job to quantify the statements and words of a president or is it the media’s job to qualify a president’s statements and words by questioning and discussing key issues that are manifesting themselves as a result of the flaws in America’s economic structure?

What next CNN? I suppose next press conference I should expect to know how many E’s and A’s are used? I bet you will tell us he won’t be using the letter Z much.

There you have it---A news network one step away from the point where its reporting is more likely to help you prepare for your upcoming Scrabble tournament (especially those with the theme “Recent Obama Press Conferences”) than inform you on our nation’s most pressing issues.

I'm not the only one who reacted to the "Word Cloud" negatively. Linda Milazzo posted "WORD CLOUD - Your Brain on CNN" . She wrote: 

Any viewers of cable news, who for even one silly second doubted corporate media's desire to fry the brain of its audience and render it hopelessly confused, need only to have seen tonight's bizarro 'WORD CLOUD" on CNN.

She went on to say: 

REAL news isn't fantasy. Real news isn't supplanted images and incomprehensible collages. Real news demands reality delivered factually and comprehensibly. Furthermore, real news doesn't include placing on your schedule hyperbolic megalomaniacs who advance their personal causes - Lou Dobbs being CNN's principal example.

 Reporters Were "Zombies" at the Press Conference

After the conference, Chris Matthews said, “I thought the reporters were zombies out there tonight.”

If you go over the questions, you will notice the press corps is filled with behaviorists. They are interested in talking about how politicians talk and act. They are curious about what politicians do and whether they can get what they want to done. They are interested in whether certain ideas can gain traction or not in Washington.

They are not concerned about questioning the crumbling economic structure in America and the gatekeepers who maintain its crumbling.

That said, not much stood out from the questions that were asked. In fact, the best and most direct question would have to be either the question on procurements in the military budget or the question on the Israeli-Palestinian situation.

One question on the economy that dealt with the fact that 1 in 50 children are homeless was concise and poignant and spoke to a deep issue in America, but that was it.

In the last few minutes of the press conference, an Agence France Presse reporter had the guts to ask what Fox News would probably incorrectly call an "anti-Semitic" question. It was incisive and sharp and was an opportunity for Obama to directly confront Israel: 

“Mr. President, you came to office pledging to work for peace between Israel and the Palestinians. How realistic do you think those hopes are now, given the likelihood of a prime minister who’s not fully signed up to a two- state solution and a foreign minister who’s been accused of insulting Arabs?”

 

It's not surprising that the reporter with one of the best question was foreign. 

Obama refused to take on Israel and address any evidence that U.S. arms have provided support for Israel’s violent actions against innocent Palestinian civilians in the past few months. He did, however, connect the issue of Israel and Palestinians back to the need for economic recovery in America by describing how America needs to “stick to it” and be persistent when working for peace in the Middle East.

OBAMA: I’m a big believer in persistence. I think that when it comes to domestic affairs, if we keep on working at it, if we acknowledge that we make mistakes sometimes and that we don’t always have the right answer, and we’re inheriting very knotty problems, that we can pass health care, we can find better solutions to our energy challenges, we can teach our children more effectively, we can deal with a very real budget crisis that is not fully dealt with in my -- in my budget at this point, but makes progress…

…We haven’t immediately eliminated the influence of lobbyists in Washington. We have not immediately eliminated wasteful pork projects. And we’re not immediately going to get Middle East peace. We’ve been in office now a little over 60 days.

What I am confident about is that we’re moving in the right direction, and that the decisions we’re making are based on, how are we going to get this economy moving? How are we going to put Americans back to work? How are we going to make sure that our people are safe? And how are we going to create not just prosperity here but work with other countries for global peace and prosperity?

And we are going to stay with it as long as I'm in this office, and I think that -- you look back four years from now, I think, hopefully, people will judge that body of work and say, "This is a big ocean liner. It's not a speedboat. It doesn't turn around immediately. But we're in a better -- better place because of the decisions that we made.

Comparing America to a “big ocean liner” is a fair comparison and also a dangerous one. I wonder how many writers/reporters/pundits will cite the Titanic in the next few days of analysis and frivolous dissection of Obama’s statements.

''Can't Afford to Demonize Every Investor or Entrepreneur"

Perhaps, the section that will be most memorable from this press conference is the part where he showed how he is straddling a growing divide between Wall Street and the American population, a divide that is the result of the disastrous economic policies during the Bush Administration which created vast income inequality in America.

OBAMA:…You know, there was a lot of outrage and finger-pointing last week, and much of it is understandable. I’m as angry as anybody about those bonuses that went to some of the very same individuals who brought our financial system to its knees, partly because it’s yet another symptom of the culture that led us to this point.

But one of the most important lessons to learn from this crisis is that our economy only works if we recognize that we’re all in this together, that we all have responsibilities to each other and to our country.

Bankers and executives on Wall Street need to realize that enriching themselves on the taxpayer’s dime is inexcusable, that the days of outsize rewards and reckless speculation that puts us all at risk have to be over. At the same time, the rest of us can’t afford to demonize every investor or entrepreneur who seeks to make a profit. That drive is what has always fueled our prosperity, and it is what will ultimately get these banks lending and our economy moving once more…

Watch a few minutes of Congresswoman Maxine Waters questioning Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner yesterday and consider whether it is possible for Obama to maintain his calculated position and succeed.

Can he continue to ensure Wall Street has a significant say in what path America takes to economic recovery or will the American people make it untenable for him to keep inviting members of Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and other entities who benefited from the deregulation in the ‘90s and who created this mess to the table?

When considering how he dealt with the question on Andrew Cuomo, I don’t think Obama is prepared to be transformative and take on Wall Street like he should.

Ed Henry asked a question about anger toward AIG: 

QUESTION: …Thank you, Mr. President. You spoke again at the top about your anger about AIG. You’ve been saying that for days now. But why is it that it seems Andrew Cuomo seems to be, in New York, getting more actual action on it? And when you and Secretary Geithner first learned about this, 10 days, two weeks ago, you didn’t go public immediately with that outrage. You waited a few days, and then you went public after you realized Secretary Geithner really had no legal avenue to stop it…

Henry went on to ask a second question, which led the politically savvy Obama to ignore his first line of inquiry.

…QUESTION: So on AIG, why did you wait -- why did you wait days to come out and express that outrage?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: I --

QUESTION: It seems like the action is coming out of New York in the attorney general’s office. It took you days to come public with Secretary Geithner and say, look, we’re outraged. Why did it take so long?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it took us a couple of days because I like to know what I’m talking about before I speak. (Laughter.) All right?

Actually, it’s not alright because there are serious problems with Geithner and his connections to Goldman Sachs, which was a top donor to Obama’s presidential campaign.

Geithner’s chief of staff, Mark Patterson, an “embattled point man in the Obama administration's endeavor to undo the notorious AIG bonuses,” is, according to Mother Jones, “a Washington influence-peddler who worked against Obama's effort to limit excessive corporate pay is now a key member of the Obama administration team that is supposed to contain excessive compensation in the AIG case and in general.”

The “Geithner Plan” is troubling, to say the least. Dean Baker describes how Obama may be risking his presidency in a last ditch effort to save the banks on Wall Street that will hurt taxpayers and ultimately result in another bailout later on down the line. 

Matthew Rothschild writes about the Public Private Partnership Investment Program at the center of the Geithner Plan, which most likely seeks to maintain “a financial system that is run by private shareholders” and “managed by private institutions” at the expense of the American taxpayer. 

Laura Flanders reminds Americans of Geithner’s connections to Larry Summers who is partly responsible for this mess which has resulted from “bad bets upon bad bets” and “cost-free betting” on derivatives, something Summers’ support for deregulation and repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act made possible. 

Obama may like to know what he’s talking about before he speaks, but what he should know is that he is allowing Wall Street influence and Wall Street lobbyist (I thought the Obama Administration wasn’t going to have any of those) influence to pervert plans for economic recovery.

What Is the Role of the American People in America's Economic Recovery Plan?

The American people are becoming more knowledgeable about what’s making this administration’s economic plans for recovery tick and who is pulling the strings. And, so, it’s good that Obama explained what he would like Americans to do right now in this time of financial turmoil.

OBAMA: …What I’m looking for from the American people to do is that they are going to be doing what they’ve always done, which is working hard, looking after their families, making sure that despite the economic hard times that they’re still contributing to their community, that they’re still participating in volunteer activities, that they are paying attention to the debates that are going on in Washington.

And the budgets that we’re putting forward and some of the decisions that we’re having to make are going to be tough decisions, and we’re going to need the support of the American people, and that’s part of why what I’ve tried to do is to be out front as much as possible, explaining in very clear terms exactly what we’re doing.

Thankfully, Obama did not ask Americans to go shopping.

It’s good that he asked Americans to continue to volunteer and participate in their community. And, it’s great that he wants Americans to pay attention to the debates in Washington. But, what does he mean when he says he needs “support”?

I think most Americans are probably following the “debates” over the economy through news articles and blog postings on the Internet. Some are probably listening to the radio and watching the major news networks. And, others are reading newspapers while newspaper companies can still afford to print them.

The public could not possibly be missing the widespread anger toward Wall Street. And, this anger is not insignificant no matter how much Obama tries to downplay it.

When Obama says “support”, does he want Americans to call conservative Democrats opposing his budget and demand they vote for the budget? Does he want Americans to keep writing newspapers and calling into radio and television shows with comments on the economy? Does he want Americans to continue to participate in Zogby or Gallop polls on his performance thus far?

Or, can Americans give “support” their own meaning? I think the kind of “support” Americans should provide is watchdog support. We should be regularly exposing who is sticking their head into this economic recovery plan and trying to steal cookies from the proverbial cookie jar.

We should be sharing with everyone who is going to leave us, the American people, with an empty cookie jar and no cookies to eat if we don’t raise our voices.

I resent the fact that Obama showed disdain for criticism the public has expressed toward Wall Street investors, bankers, or entrepreneurs. Such criticism is warranted, it’s healthy, and it’s what we need to create the political climate for Obama to not just mend the economy but radically reform the economy. (Get to the root of key problems and ensure they do not happen again).

Addressing & Re-Assessing the Economy 

There are many questions to be asked about our economy. For example, Americans should seriously consider if an economy based on growth can be sustainable.

Another question worth raising repeatedly was raised by Keith Olbermann in his interview with David Axelrod after the press conference.

Olbermann: I don’t know when the president developed his personal flow chart on this---the one in which you take grassroots desire for change, you turn that into political power, the voice of the people at the ballot box, and then you transform the political power back into a kind of grassroots action to make change happen. He said this essentially at my high school in 1991. It’s been a concept in there for a long time. How does it apply now to the American public in a time of economic crisis? What is grassroots action during an economic crisis?

Axelrod: You don’t want the debate to be contained within the echo chamber of Washington where the priorities are sometimes skewed and the emphasis is in the wrong place. You want the voices of the American people to be heard because when we travel around what we hear from the American people are the things that we’re talking about…

…We want to make sure that everybody in this town hears from the American people so that what we do reflects their priorities and not the skewed priorities that sometime come out of the Capitol.

Axelrod also said during the interview with Olbermann, “We need enforceable rules of the road for our financial markets,” when asked about rolling back deregulation.

In closing, tonight’s press conference may have been conceived with the intention of dampening the people’s anger toward AIG bonuses, bailouts, and Wall Street in general, but the people must not allow the Obama Administration to calm their anger.

Channel that anger into curiosity and check out what’s going on by looking up some of these big economic concepts and terms being thrown around in the media and by politicians in Washington.

As Matt Taibbi put it recently in his exceptional Rolling Stone article, “The Big Takeover”:

…As complex as all the finances are, the politics aren't hard to follow. By creating an urgent crisis that can only be solved by those fluent in a language too complex for ordinary people to understand, the Wall Street crowd has turned the vast majority of Americans into non-participants in their own political future. There is a reason it used to be a crime in the Confederate states to teach a slave to read: Literacy is power. In the age of the CDS and CDO, most of us are financial illiterates. By making an already too-complex economy even more complex, Wall Street has used the crisis to effect a historic, revolutionary change in our political system — transforming a democracy into a two-tiered state, one with plugged-in financial bureaucrats above and clueless customers below…

Matt Taibbi was interviewed by Rachel Maddow after the press conference and he offered this sentiment:

 

“It can be proven with scientific certainty that the one group of people that we know, absolutely, is not competent to lead us out of this crisis is that group of people. They’ve got us into this mess and they’ve proven time and time again that their solutions to all these problems are not the right solutions. I think we need a fresh look at this. I think we need to start doing a new approach. We really haven’t done that. I think the Obama Administration has chosen to pursue a policy that represents more continuity with the previous administration and Hank Paulson and all that crowd.”

So, let us make sure Washington hears from the American people whether it be by telephone, mail, email, or through the news media.

Let us make sure they know Wall Street had their chance to set economic policy and their “too big to fail” ideology based upon greed and self-indulgence must no longer be allowed to threaten the well-being of the American citizenry.

Wall Street must no longer be allowed to solely influence America’s economy.

Here's the full transcript of Obama's press conference.