Yesterday, as John noted, President Obama took a swing at Fox News during a conference on poverty. Obama said:
Sadly, I think there’s been an effort to either make folks mad at folks at the top or to make folks mad at folks at the bottom. And I think the effort to suggest that the poor are sponges, leeches, who don’t want to work, lazy, undeserving, got traction. And look, it’s still being propagated.
I have to say that if you watch Fox News on a regular basis, it is a constant menu, they will [present] folks who make me mad. I don’t even know where they find them. They are all like I don’t want to work, I just want a free Obamaphone or whatever. That becomes an entire narrative that gets worked up.
Where did Obama come up with this? Does he watch Fox News “on a regular basis”? Surely not.
I do, albeit for only about 30 to 45 minutes per week day, on average. I haven’t seen a “constant menu” of folks who say they don’t want to work. Indeed, I don’t recall ever seeing one.
It’s quite possible that a “welfare queen” or two has made it onto Fox News. But there is no merit to Obama’s claim that the network is constantly portraying the poor as “sponges [and] leeches who don’t want to work.”
This is vintage Obama. First, he’s dishonest. His assertion about Fox News is an invention.
Second, he’s unpresidential. It’s beneath the dignity of his office for Obama to whine about a cable news network. This isn’t the first time Obama has gone after Fox News. Each time he does, he makes himself more pathetic.
Third, Obama is unserious. Poverty is an important issue. It deserves serious discussion.
To blame poverty, even in part, on the media (Obama said if we are going to end poverty, “we’re going to have to change how the media reports on these issues”) is juvenile. Obama is blaming the messenger. The failure of the liberal approach to waging war on poverty predates Fox News.
Obama made additional comments on poverty that are similarly unserious, as John showed here. It’s astonishing that any president, much less one who spent years thinking (or purporting to think) about this issue, can be this shallow.
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