Obama's Broken Feedback Loop

How does a president learn and grow, if the press won't criticize him, and instead treats him as a god. Two articles published yesterday on Pajamas Media, taken together shed some light on the topic.

Victor Davis Hanson's The Reckoning is a story about the beliefs Hanson developed while pursing his advance education and how they affected him. He compares his return to run the family farm with Obama's entering the White House

Only someone who has not been in the real world, but only marketed rhetoric without consequences (e.g., if Obama had a bad day organizing, or legislating, was he fired?) could believe such things. In short, Obama reminds me a little of myself-at 26.

In Our Liberally Racist Media T.K. Farrow argues that a news media that desperately wants the nation's first African-American president to succeed has lowered the bar to the point where no honest criticism of any kind is being allowed.

No liberal media member wants to be branded a dissident of Obama, much less be accused of dissenting for racial reasons. So even the liberal reporters who don't think Obama needs the help of the media have justifiable fear of being considered a hindrance to his agenda. And race, of course, is at the center of that fear.

The flip side of the lack of criticism is the hollow praise. Back in February, 2007 in response to a question about whether the media had been piling on George W. Bush, Newsweek's Evan Thomas responded "Our job is to bash the president". This week he called Obama "sort of god."

I worry that a president who receives excessive praise for his speeches while the results of his actions are all being laid at the feet of his predecessor is one who won't ever feel the need to make the transition from fine sounding words to padlocks.

I fear that someone being called a god is someone who may be well along the road to thinking that he is already wise and that he doesn't make mistakes.

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