Top US "journalists" helped Obama hone his speech on ISIS

[HomerRamone]

http://news.firedoglake.com/2014/09/16/obama-vetted-isis-speech-in-off-the-record-meeting-with-establishment-media/

How much additional evidence is really needed at this point to show that the establishment media are courtiers to power not independent journalists? Well, here is a little more anyway.

According to Michael Calderone at the Huffington Post, President Barack Obama met with over a dozen “journalists” in an off-the-record meeting to get input on how he should sell his war against ISIS to the American people...

"The group, which met in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in an off-the-record session, included New York Times columnists David Brooks, Tom Friedman and Frank Bruni and editorial writer Carol Giacomo; The Washington Post’s David Ignatius, Eugene Robinson and Ruth Marcus; The New Yorker’s Dexter Filkins and George Packer; The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg and Peter Beinart; The New Republic’s Julia Ioffe; Columbia Journalism School Dean Steve Coll; The Wall Street Journal’s Jerry Seib; and The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky, a source familiar with the meeting told The Huffington Post."...

Not surprisingly, the speech President Obama gave after meeting with the group of “journalists” was inaccurate, hyperbolic, and manipulative. Apparently no one told Obama to just be straight with the American people and tell the truth, but then why would you need to be off-the-record to give that advice?

[NYC_SKP]

1. Rubbish and flamebait. I see this article is being repeated by some Obama hate sites:

http://patriciabaeten.blogspot.com/2014/09/want-truth-about-9-11-and-isis-follow.html

And others.

What whining bullshit.

I'm glad Obama meets with the press before a press release.

[Spider Jerusalem]

2. That's...really kind of grotesque, and I can't imagine it happening here in the UK. Or in Canada.

Or Australia or Germany or France or any other liberal democracy, really.

[NYC_SKP]

3. No, it's not. It's another distraction. People would be shitting bricks if he DIDN'T meet.

The replies at FDL are as sickening as anything at freerepublic.

And, I'm pretty sure you're kidding.

[PSPS]

5. I know! How dare people not want all the spin that can be mustered!!11!1!

[Spider Jerusalem]

9. Maybe the NYT is a more credible source?

http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/17/off-the-record-session-with-the-president-on-isis-raises-concerns/

And no, I'm not kidding. The press in democracies which aren't the USA are far less deferential. They'd be unlikely to get that kind of access in the first place and not expected to keep it off the record (because informed debate in a democracy isn't compatible with that sort of thing).

[Cha]

12. Oh it's so "grotesque"..

So what?.. he met with the press.. aren't journalists among those who were the tragic victims of the "terrorists" who call themselves ISIS? I'd say they're involved in this.. and as far as "selling it to the American People".. did President Obama "sell it" to Bernie, Elizabeth Warren, and Jimmy Carter, too? Do they not have minds of their own?

Steven Sotloff and James Foley~ RIP~

[HomerRamone]

4. That people here think the press should be helping to sell a war

rather than questioning its justification is horrifying to me

[PSPS]

6. It's the swooners -- the same people who think the NSA law breaking is "a big fuss over nothing."

[Cha]

11. Yeah, "the swooners" like Jimmy Carter, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren..

Jimmy Carter.. "I think we need to attack ISIS. I'm really concerned about them."

"Is the bombing of ISIS justified? I say yes. And I hope President Obama has every possible success in getting allies to join with us, some with ground troops effected inside Syria."

FrodosPet http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5566788

Bernie stands with the President on this "Enormously complicated issue".. as he calls it. He disagrees with staying out of ISIS like some around are clamoring on about.

As he stated it's an "International effort" and guess what.. "they have to put money in it too."

Hartman and he talked about one republiCon saying.. they'll "blast him if it doesn't work and ask why he didn't do it sooner if it does." Sounds like a familiar whine.

Senators Warren and Sanders are on board with the President..

FrodosPet http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5527989

Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she supports President Obama's decision to authorize airstrikes in Iraq

BOSTON — Warning against a new U.S. war in Iraq, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Friday stood by President Barack Obama’s decision to authorize targeted airstrikes to help defend Americans in Erbil, Iraq, and provide aid to a religious minority taking refuge in the Sinjar mountains.

“It’s a complicated situation right now in Iraq and the president has taken very targeted actions to provide humanitarian relief that the Iraqi government requested, and to protect American citizens,” Warren told reporters. “But like the president I believe that any solution in Iraq is going to be a negotiated solution, not a military solution. We do not want to be pulled into another war in Iraq.”


Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said she supports president Barack Obama's decision to authorize new airstrikes in Iraq but cautioned against U.S. involvement in a new war in the Middle East.

http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/08/sen_elizabeth_warren_warns_abo.html

[stevenleser]

7. Given that the press was one of the institutions attacked by ISIS, it seems appropriate to me.

Fuck people who kidnap and kill journalists doing their work in the field.

[Cha]

13. Exactly, Steven.

[moondust]

8. Ridiculous.

These news organizations are not all going to be on the same page no matter what page it is. Some or all of them have reporters in the field paying attention to what is happening on the ground there. I heard a Daily Beast reporter on a phone interview a couple days ago saying he speaks to Free Syrian Army leaders all the time. Etc.

The more informed inputs the President has the better.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

14. this

This is the correct response.

It is horrifying. Imagine Bush doing this.

[Cha]

10. Did President Obama "sell it" to Bernie, Elizabeth, and Jimmy Carter, too?

So what if he talked to the press.. they're involved in this.. poor things.

"I think we need to attack ISIS. I'm really concerned about them."

"Is the bombing of ISIS justified? I say yes. And I hope President Obama has every possible success in getting allies to join with us, some with ground troops effected inside Syria."

FrodosPet http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5566788

Bernie stands with the President on this "Enormously complicated issue".. as he calls it. He disagrees with staying out of ISIS like some around are clamoring on about.

As he stated it's an "International effort" and guess what.. "they have to put money in it too."

Hartman and he talked about one republiCon saying.. they'll "blast him if it doesn't work and ask why he didn't do it sooner if it does." Sounds like a familiar whine.

Senators Warren and Sanders are on board with the President..

FrodosPet http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5527989

Sen. Elizabeth Warren says she supports President Obama's decision to authorize airstrikes in Iraq

BOSTON — Warning against a new U.S. war in Iraq, U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Friday stood by President Barack Obama’s decision to authorize targeted airstrikes to help defend Americans in Erbil, Iraq, and provide aid to a religious minority taking refuge in the Sinjar mountains.

“It’s a complicated situation right now in Iraq and the president has taken very targeted actions to provide humanitarian relief that the Iraqi government requested, and to protect American citizens,” Warren told reporters. “But like the president I believe that any solution in Iraq is going to be a negotiated solution, not a military solution. We do not want to be pulled into another war in Iraq.”


Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said she supports president Barack Obama's decision to authorize new airstrikes in Iraq but cautioned against U.S. involvement in a new war in the Middle East.

http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/08/sen_elizabeth_warren_warns_abo.html

[HomerRamone]

15. Carter, Sanders, Warren, and you are not the press

That they or you are in favor of bombing yet again does not relieve the press of its obligation to consider all sides, NOT be government propaganda *sources*