Charles Krauthammer on Friday marvelously demonstrated just how in the pockets of Barack Obama America's news media are.
After claiming on PBS's "Inside Washington" that we now have a "completely compliant, pliant, supine press accepting every leak out of the White House," he silenced the entire panel by asking them to name one specific cut to entitlements the President has proposed (video follows with transcript and commentary):
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: [The President] talks a good game. “Oh, I’m prepared to do entitlements, I’m ready to do entitlements.” Not once has he ever enunciated in public - other than all these leaks which I don’t trust for half a second – one structural change in entitlements, and without that, everybody over the age of nine knows we are not going to get a handle on the debt. So let’s hear him say it in public once.
NINA TOTENBERG, NPR: So why is it when he offered the big deal, the $4 trillion deal…
GORDON PETERSON, HOST: The grand bargain.
TOTENBERG: …the grand bargain, Republicans backed away from it?
KRAUTHAMMER: When did he offer that?
TOTENBERG: He offered that last week.
KRAUTHAMMER: Where?
TOTENBERG: In, he did it, publicly and in negotiations.
KRAUTHAMMER: In your leaks? What’s in the $4 trillion?
TOTENBERG: But Charles.
KRAUTHAMMER: Give me a number. Explain to me what’s in it.
TOTENBERG: Why is it, in two, in matter of two days, Republicans backed away from that and said we don’t want it?
KRAUTHAMMER: You accept everything he says, a $4 trillion deal, if you don’t have a single item in it that you can enunciate.
TOTENBERG: Well, I’m not at the table. Perhaps you are, but I’m not.
TOTENBERG: He actually said I’m going to get heat from my own people.
Moments later when others on the panel continued with similar rhetoric concerning the President’s so-called plan to reduce entitlement spending, Krauthammer struck again:
KRAUTHAMMER: My colleagues are demonstrating a point I’ve been trying to make about how you have a completely compliant, pliant, supine press accepting every leak out of the White House. Tell me, we have been told, I’ve heard it again and again that the President’s prepared to do, to make cuts in entitlements. Name me one.
PETERSON: Charles, a complete and compliant supine press. I love that.
KRAUTHAMMER: Yeah.
PETERSON: Let’s move along.
KRAUTHAMMER: I’ve got, I’ve got other adjectives, but we’re short on time.
PETERSON: Yes, and we have to keep it on the air.
Once again, Krauthammer demonstrated a fabulous point.
For weeks the media have been telling Americans the President's big budget plan offered cuts in entitlements, but none of them can actually name what those cuts are.
Seems like that would be an important part of a report on spending cuts - specifically identifying what was going to be cut and by how much.
But that hasn't been important to the Obama-loving media during this debt ceiling debate.
If the President says his plan includes cuts to entitlements, that's good enough for them.
