Totenberg: People in Washington Flocking to YouTube to Watch Obama

April 12th, 2009 8:57 PM

NPR's Nina Totenberg must live in a world of Obama fanatics. But she works for NPR, so that's tautological. Weeks after she relayed how “a friend of mine said, 'oh my God, we have a President again!,'” this weekend she excitedly recounted how, following President Barack Obama's trip to Europe, she “heard...all over Washington” people saying “'I'm going to go on YouTube and watch the President's speech because I heard it was so good.'” She hailed that as “just an amazing thing.”

On Inside Washington, a weekly show produced at DC's ABC affiliate and aired on it and its local all-news cable channel, Totenberg rejected the notion Obama's speeches and remarks in any way celebrated America's decline. Without specifying which speech she was talking about, but most likely Obama's address in Prague or before Turkey's parliament, Totenberg asserted:

He spoke of the modern realities and the modern difficulties that we've had in our relations with other countries. How many times have you heard people say “I'm going to go on YouTube and watch the President's speech because I heard it was so good”? And I heard that all over Washington this week. And that is just an amazing thing.

Totenberg is continuously impressed by Obama. My March 23 NewsBusters item, “'Masterful' Obama Performance with Leno 'Calmed Down' Totenberg,” related:    

Since "I've really been getting pretty upset in the last week, just like every other American," NPR's Nina Totenberg decided to watch President Obama on the Tonight Show "and he calmed me down. And he was presidential. I thought it was just a masterful performance."

My February 27 NewsBusters post, “Nina Totenberg's Friend: 'Oh My God, We Have a President Again!'” reported:

NPR's Nina Totenberg revealed Friday, not surprisingly, that she was enchanted by President Barack Obama's address earlier in the week to a joint session of Congress. "It made me feel pretty good. I thought it was a great speech," she enthused before relaying a contrast with former President George W. Bush: "A friend of mine said, 'oh my God, we have a President again!'" Totenberg added that "in some ways, that's not fair to Bush," but she insisted: "That's the way you felt. You felt this was a guy who was totally in charge."