When former president Barack Obama starts bragging about his record as president, sounding remarkably egotistical, the networks seem to ignore it. New York Times reporter Peter Baker reported on a Houston event where Obama sat next to former Bush Secretary of State James Baker (no relation to Peter) and boasted about how America's oil boom is all his doing:
Mr. Obama used the opportunity to defend his presidency, noting that energy production and stock markets increased on his watch.
''That whole suddenly America's the biggest oil producer -- that was me, people,'' he said. As for Wall Street tycoons who complain that he was anti-business, Mr. Obama said, ''Have you checked where your stocks were when I came to office'' and where they were when he left? ''What are you complaining about? Just say thank you, please.''
Mr. Baker repeated one of his favorite laugh lines when asked his most important accomplishment: ''Leaving Washington unindicted.''
Mr. Obama played off that. ''Not only did I not get indicted, nobody in my administration got indicted,'' he said. ''And that was the only administration in modern history that can be said about.''
A quick Nexis search for "America's the biggest oil producer" shows that neither The Washington Post nor USA Today found this exchange, and neither did ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, PBS NewsHour, CNN, or MSNBC. The Associated Press had nothing. Fox News aired clips and fact-checked it.
My colleague Rich Noyes reminded me that CNN "fact-checked" Obama for his boast that U.S. oil production was higher than ever in a 2012 presidential debate: " much of this was set in motion years before Obama took office. While Obama has taken some steps to encourage production, he cannot claim as much credit as he would like."
The same Obama-excusing trend happened for Obama on November 20, at an Obama Foundation event in Chicago, when he complained we can’t take significant action on global warming because we’re still bitter clingers. He actually said “The reason we don't do it is because we are still confused, blind, shrouded with hate, anger, racism, mommy issues.” So much for "when they go low, we go high."
Racism and "mommy issues" are stopping us for taking action on global warming? A quick Nexis search for the colorful term “mommy issues” came up blank for all these same network shows and newspapers and AP. Only Fox News aired the video. (NBCNews.com carried a small story.)
Obama economic adviser Robert Wolf told Fox the remarks were "tongue in cheek" and were designed for an audience of "about 500 community organizers, civic leaders, and those people who are about promoting good." Taking action on climate is "the path of doing good." So mocking the "evildoers" gets a pass, apparently.
