Call this a lowering of expectations by a figurehead of the mainstream media.
Newsweek editor Jon Meacham spoke candidly about his expectations for President-elect Barack Obama at an appearance promoting his latest book about former President Andrew Jackson, "American Lion," at the Politics & Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 7.
Meacham was asked to draw a comparison between Jackson and Obama on foreign policy, but told the audience he had doubts has to whether or not Obama was going to live up to the expectations many on the left had, especially when it came to the so-called past misdeeds of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
"I'm serious - I'm not sure how much of all this awful, terrible stuff that Bush and Cheney did he's [Obama] really going to undo," Meacham said. "I don't mean in policy terms, but in terms of the means of power. History tells us that things look a lot differently when you're on that side of the desk."
However, he did suggest that these "terrible abuses" could give Obama and future presidents the opportunity to "strike a blow for liberty."
"You know, suddenly - what was a terrible abuse in one era is a weapon by which a noble president shall strike a blow for liberty and the next," Meacham added.
Meacham once said the media weren't biased ideologically, but biased toward conflict. The difference between the two in this case must be in the eye of the beholder based on his assessment of the Bush/Cheney era compared to his expectations for Obama.
