Yes, it’s true – Politico is actually trying to claim that the media have gone easier on Obama than they have on Bush:

What’s remarkable is what hasn’t happened. These episodes haven’t become metaphors for Obama’s personal and political character — or consuming controversies that sidetracked the rest of his agenda.

It’s a sign that the media’s echo chamber can be a funny thing, prone to the vagaries of news judgment, and an illustration that, in politics, context is everything.

Conservatives look on with a mix of indignation and amazement and ask: Imagine the fuss if George W. Bush had done these things?

(…)

“We have a joke about it. We’re going to start a website: IfBushHadDoneThat.com,” former Bush counselor Ed Gillespie said. “The watchdogs are curled up around his feet, sleeping soundly. … There are countless examples: some silly, some serious.”

Yes, they actually wrote that with a straight face.  And they actually used “What if Bush had done that?” as their headline.

First of all, as Media Matters points out, a lot of Politico’s examples of things Obama supposedly got away with that Bush didn’t do are… things that Bush did and got away with.  Like declaring war on a news network, and having his top political adviser present at national security meetings.  Politico even nails Obama for playing golf and going on dates with his wife, when Dubya spent almost three years on vacation without drawing much more than the occasional snide comment.

But as long as we’re playing this game, let’s play it right and choose some examples that aren’t ridiculous:

  • What if Obama blew up frogs as a kid?
  • What if Obama had used his connections to get into the Air National Guard to avoid combat, and then just unilaterally discharged himself a year early?
  • What if Obama had a long string of unsuccessful business ventures that had to be bailed out by rich guardian angels?
  • What if Obama completely blew off intelligence reports warning of a possible terrorist attack on American soil, and 3,000 people died in one a month later?
  • What if Obama joked about his war being based on a lie?
  • What if Obama had allowed a pseudonymous male prostitute with no journalistic credentials into the White House press corps to lob softball questions and just generally hang out?
  • What if Joe Biden told a Republican senator to go fuck himself on the Senate floor?  Or shot someone in the face?

I’m not saying all of these Great Bush Administration Moments got zero media coverage.  But does anyone really think that Obama would get off anywhere near as lightly as Dubya did?  The last two bullets alone would keep the media occupied for months, if not years.  But perhaps it’s unfair to focus entirely on “What if Obama…?” scenarios:

  • What if Bush had been born in Hawaii with a father from Kenya?
  • What if Bush had tried to push for universal healthcare?
  • What if Bush vaguely knew a college professor who was in the Weather Underground decades ago?
  • What if Bush had tried to talk to schoolchildren? No, wait, strike that one.  He did, and no one cared.

Also, someone will have to refresh my memory, because I completely forgot all those times when featured on-air personalities at a prominent cable news network called Bush a racist with a deep-seated hatred of black people and culture, accused him of various insane conspiracies, and heavily promoted rallies against him.

But never mind all that – the media didn’t adequately freak out about Obama taking Michelle out to dinner, so they must be in the tank.  Q.E.D.

(Note: If Hugh’s List were still online, this post would be ONE MILLION WORDS LONG.)


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  5. Covering for Karl and Mark -or- Why I Call It “The GOP/Media Complex”