July 24, 2013: President Barack Obama speaks about the economy, at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg, Mo. (AP)
Forget Obama’s enemies. Even MSNBC turned critic after his latest lame economic speech this week.
Of course, that’s easy. Just don’t ask most liberal journalists about the many Obama scandals – IRS, Associated Press, Rosen, Benghazi, etc. – they will claim that the president is scandal free.
Still, you take what little you can get.
On the network’s “Morning Joe,” host Joe Scarborough was joined by NBC’s Chuck Todd skewering the president during post-speech analysis.
Todd, NBC’s chief White House correspondent, agreed that the speech was a rehash of what Obama has done before.
Scarborough kicked off the criticism by asking Todd a simple question: “What new did you hear yesterday that was new?”
“I didn’t hear anything new,” responded Todd. “I remember asking this very question. I always say, remind people the first three letters of the word ‘news’ is n-e-w, right? At the end of the day, a news organization is charged with telling you what's new.”
According to Todd, this was “more of a tactical speech.” But even for an economic speech, it didn’t just focus on jobs and related it issues.
“He spent a great deal of time about health care. And rightfully so. He's got a big challenge ahead of him. But, if you're looking for the new, no, there wasn't new in there,” said Todd, who added that the speech seemed designed to reinvigorate a “flagging” White House.
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Scarborough piled on, even citing a similarly critical column from The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank describing the speech as “a warmed over jobs message.” In his column, the liberal Milbank called it “roughly the 10th time the White House has made such a pivot to refocus on jobs and growth.”
“Reelection does not legitimize you in the eyes of your most vocal opponents and it's got to be frustrating as hell,” said Scarborough. “Dana Milbank wrote about the speech in The Washington Post. He said, ‘a warmed-over jobs message. Even a reincarnated Steve Jobs would have trouble marketing this turkey. How can the president make news and remake the agenda by delivering the same message he gave in 2005? He's even giving the speech from the same place, Galesburg, Illinois.’”
Scarborough then added the Milbank kicker, ideal for summer TV. “And so the president, it seems, is going into reruns.”
Todd has been honest on both NBC and MSNBC about this latest presidential bout of speechmaking.
In the “Daily Rundown” this week, he admitted it was yet another pivot to the economy. “He’s said it all before, so he doesn’t have anything new to say.”
And in an appearance on “Nightly News,” he said the entire trip was designed as a distraction.
“When presidents are in trouble and things aren't going well in Washington they do one thing. They get out of Washington,” explained Todd.
Remember, this was said on the left-leaning network MSNBC. This wasn’t a conservative Joe Scarborough here.
Scarborough was recently profiled by New York magazine which called him, “the liberal’s favorite talk-show host.” The Joe of “Morning Joe” has gone after the NRA, bashed George Zimmerman as a “murderer” and regularly attacked Fox News. But it all added up to a clear assessment that Obama had failed in his job to help others find jobs of their own.
On the media side, it was a rare example of the folks at MSNBC doing any job other than PR for the president.
Now, if only they, or anyone else in the media, would do a little digging into how the IRS chief counsel’s office may have been involved in targeting of Tea Party and conservative groups by our supposedly neutral government.
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