Obama TV Has Become a Snore

And what is 'it,' anyway?

(NEWSER) - Jon Stewart has noticed a recurring theme in the coverage of the president’s post-election press conference: The pundits are all eager to know if Barack Obama "gets it," he explained on last night’s Daily Show in a segment titled "The Mourning After." But they’re less than clear on what "it" is. “I mean, as pronouns go, ‘it’ is amongst the vaguest,” Stewart pointed out. “‘It’ won’t even choose a sex.” More»

Sun Valley conference a pessimistic affair

(NEWSER) - The Sun Valley summit of media titans last week was a dour affair, with the CEOs lamenting the poor state of the economy—and how little faith they have in the Obama administration to fix it. In on- and off-the-record conversations with the moguls, Peter Lauria of the Daily Beast reports, they expressed “serious concerns about the administration’s motives” and worried that its policies would do long-term damage to the economy. More»

President loath to look weak, profligate

(NEWSER) - President Obama’s ability to control his image seems to be spinning out of control, with several damaging narratives taking hold in the public consciousness. Politico breaks down the narratives Obama is most threatened by:

• Obama the Big Spender: Though economists cheered on the stimulus, the backlash was severe among independents. Obama intends to stress fiscal discipline in his 2010 State of the Union, but actually clamping down on spending will be tough.

'TV loves a ruckus,' he says

(AP) - President Obama today denounced the media's emphasis on angry protesters at health care town halls, the AP reports. "TV loves a ruckus," he said. Trying to sell his overhaul plan amid an increasingly noisy and partisan debate, Obama told a crowd of about 1,300 in Montana: "What you haven't seen on TV and what makes me proud are the many constructive meetings going on all over the country." More»

Words 'health' and 'economy' dominate president's vocabulary

(NEWSER) - To listen to Barack Obama speak, you might think he was a peacetime president, rather than one with more than 100,000 troops in the field, write Zachary Abrahamson and Eamon Javers for Politico. They pored over nearly every one of the half-million-plus words Obama has said publicly as president, and discovered that he’s uttered the words “health” and “economy” more times each than he’s said “Iraq,” “Iran,” “Afghanistan” and “terrorism” combined. More»