How Journalists Give Obama A Pass: Part 285746342

◼ The other day Jay Carney said (and the professional stenographers collectively called “The White House Press Corps” reported*) that any deal to avoid the fiscal cliff had to include tax rate hikes. Not just additional revenues but rate hikes, specifically. Aside from one example*, I didn’t see anyone else in the stenographer pool press Carney on the “Why?” question. - The Right Sphere

It would be easy: “Why do we have to increase tax rates? Why is that absolutely necessary?” Then they could throw in some other W’s like, “What is the economic theory behind this necessity to increase tax rates? Keynes wouldn’t advocate such a thing. Where is the economic case for rate hikes when the economy is only growing around 2% annually?”

But no, the stenographer corps* simply jots the comments down and nods along. I pressed some of them on Twitter and received no response. All I did was ask them if anyone asked Carney why the rate hikes were absolutely mandatory for any deal. They chose to ignore the question.

Today, Obama held a meeting of CEO’s and made some remarks to the press. Of the stream of provable lies that spewed from the podium, one was that, according to Obama, there was no way to raise enough revenue by simply eliminating loopholes, etc. Once again, the case was being made that tax rate hikes had to be part of the deal. Had to.

Now, you would think that journalists reporting on this event and the President’s remarks would think to themselves, “Why?” But you’d be wrong. You’d also think that when presented with video of Obama contradicting the very comment he had made, a journalist, and especially one who had just tweeted / reported Obama’s comments to his thousands of followers, would welcome the opportunity to show that the President was contradicting earlier pronouncements. I mean, isn’t that what a journalist is supposed to do? Question authority?

*Jake Tapper was the only one who pressed Carney about the tax rate hike nonsense which is why he remains the only mainstream media journalist in the country I actually respect. And that’s sad.