Obama's thin skin

Among its many shortcomings too numerous to recount in one meager editorial, the Obama administration in general and the president more specifically have added another imperfection to the list: a thin skin.



This is an administration and presidency rapidly morphing into Nixonian territory by its war on the one media organization that has not prostrated itself before the Obama throne, namely Fox News. In recent weeks Obama and his yes-men have publicly attacked, bullied and threatened Fox, declaring that it is not really a news organization but an evil purveyor of opinions masquerading as real journalism. Not satisfied by the swooning support from the likes of NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, Headline News, not to mention The New York Times, Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek and Time, the White House is embarked on a crusade to undermine Fox News, going so far as to call upon other news organizations to exclude Fox from White House press pool coverage. That petty, petulant assault failed to enlist the usually worshipful mainstream press in its crusade, which rejected the entreaty out of hand, realizing there are limits to its loyalty.



Before the White House declared its fatwa on Fox, it singled out popular conservative radio commentator Rush Limbaugh for inclusion on its enemies list, but that only served to strengthen Limbaugh's ratings. Obama has been perfectly content to accept the acrimonious and vile rants of the likes of Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann on MSNBC (which along with the other cable news channels is far behind Fox News in viewing audience). Compared to that crowd, Limbaugh and Fox News' commentators are beacons of sensitivity and fairness.



With the exception of Richard Nixon, no recent president has waged war on a news organization with the vigor as Obama and his surrogates within the administration and Congress have done. Most presidents have bitten their tongues, kept quiet and took their medicine rather than engaging in a urination contest with the press. It's bad enough to listen to Obama's perpetual whine about his predecessor's "mess" that he inherited; now he has found another straw man in Fox to add to the "blame Bush" playbook.



This is all part of a disturbing pattern shown by Obama dating back to his presidential campaign when he expressed his disdain for certain Americans "who cling to guns and religion," and as the historian Victor Davis Hanson describes it in a recent commentary, "At one time or another, Obama and his supporters have, rather scurrilously, insulted doctors, insurers, the police, tea-partiers and town-hallers, opponents of his health care plan, non-compliant members of the media, and a host of other groups as either greedy, dishonest, treasonous, unpatriotic, mob-like, racist, or in general worthy of disrespect." Add to that Obama's childish declaration once he was elected president that opponents should shut up and get out of his way because "I won" and he can and should do whatever he wants.



None of this behavior resembles voters' perception of presidential candidate Obama as a uniter, healer, post-racial and post-partisan messiah . Instead, what we see is a vindictive, nasty, self-serving and petty president governing as a Chicago gangster. So much for perception and a well-honed "Mister Clean" image now clashing with reality.



What we see is no longer a commander-in-chief but a whiner-in-chief. Not a pretty picture.