This week, we go into the NewsBusters archive and find that journalists weren’t just content to fawn over Barack Obama, they needed to top each other with superlatives. So the Democratic president wasn’t just simply, he was the best since Lincoln, a “national poet.” It was just three years ago this week, on July 27, 2016, that Andrea Mitchell gushed over Obama’s speech to the Democratic National Convention.
Speaking of Hillary Clinton, Mitchell enthused: “Of course, the challenge now is for her to follow this and I don't think anyone could — perhaps no one expects that she will. That is not her gift. His gift is unique. I don't think we've ever had a President, save Lincoln, who is as great a speechwriter as this man.”
Barely able to contain herself, Mitchell raved, about “the most optimistic speech, the most generous speech, politically, having covered the campaign eight years ago, I could have never have imagined this kind of embrace of Hillary Clinton.”
The day after that example of gush, on July 28, 2016, the New York Times’s Frank Bruni praised Obama as our “national poet”:
It’s hard, frankly, to stop quoting from his remarks because they amounted to one of the most moving, inspiring valentines to this country that I’ve ever heard, brimming with regard for it and gratitude to it.
We’re going to miss this man, America. Whatever his flaws, he’s been more than our president. Time and again, he’s been our national poet.
For more examples from our flashback series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.
A transcript of Mitchell’s comments are below:
MSNBC Democratic National Convention coverage
7/26/16
11:57 pm ET
ANDREA MITCHELL: Extraordinary in invoking the Framers thoughts to form more perfect union, the most optimistic speech, the most generous speech, politically, having covered the campaign eight years ago, I could have never have imagined this kind of embrace of Hillary Clinton. The genuine affection, obviously his legacy at stake, and when he said there's never been anyone, not man or woman, not me, not Bill, as qualified to be president of the United States, he passed that baton. He did it with such — such generosity, as I say, when he invoked the audacity of hope, all of the spirit, all of the creativity of his own brilliant speech writing and conferred that upon her. Of course, the challenge now is for her to follow this and I don't think anyone could — perhaps no one expects that she will. That is not her gift. His gift is unique. I don't think we've ever had a President save Lincoln, who is as great a speechwriter as this man.
