Appointment in Samarra

President Obama appeared this weekend on five television networks to try and save his controversial healthcare initiative. He appeared on all networks, with one exception-Fox News. The radical left wing of the Democrat party that President Obama heads believes that Fox is biased against the president and its policies.

But what's wet for the cat is dry for the fish, goes the old Russian proverb. And what the socialist wing of the Democrat party sees as bias may be just good, old fashioned good journalism.


The job of a reporter is "to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable." President Obama and the hardcore left continue to see themselves as the victims in this debate (See my post from last week on Jimmy Carter.), deserving of comfort. They'd rather be comforted by the media from what they see as the affliction of talk radio and Fox News. I think most Americans want to hear reporters ask tough questions so they can get to the bottom of an issue that continues to polarize the country.


Mr. Obama thought he was going to be comforted, instead of afflicted, when he scheduled interviews with the broadcast networks. But he had his thinking rearranged when he sat down with former Clintonista George Stephanopoulos at ABC News. Take a look:

Stephanopoulos did what good journalists do: He saw an opening when the president equivocated about whether mandating insurance is a tax, and he went in for the kill. President Obama's handlers will try and paint this as "gotcha" journalism, but it was good, clean reporting. It was the President who came across as defensive, surprised, glib, and condescending at the notion that Stephanopoulos would have the gall to back him into a corner on the issue of taxes.

We've reached a new low in this country when a president tries to control information by restricting who can have access to him. Presidents Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton and the Bushes all confronted their accusers at one time or another. This is another example of how President Obama is ill advised and lacks the instincts and experience to make good choices in how he deals with the American people.

Like the fabled Appointment in Samarra, President Obama fled from one marketplace of ideas, Fox News, only to meet his fate-the devil, in the form of George Stephanopoulos-in another.

Just thought you might like to know.