NBC Showcases Alter Hailing Obama's Best Presidential Smackdown Since Truman; 'Rubik's Cube in His Brain'
Another sycophantic book about President Barack Obama, another
showcasing of it by NBC News. Five weeks after three NBC News shows featured
David Remnick to promote 'The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack
Obama,' Friday's NBC Nightly News aired a first-person recitation, from
Newsweek's Jonathan Alter, of a laudatory anecdote about Obama told to
him by self-interested members of Obama's staff and contained in Alter's
new book, 'The Promise: President Obama, Year One.' (Earlier in
the day, Alter was provided with a friendly
forum on the Today show.)
"We have a preview tonight of exclusive reporting about the inner
workings of the Obama White House during the President's first year,"
trumpeted fill-in anchor Lester Holt, relaying how "Alter describes a
particularly dramatic confrontation in the run-up to the President's
announcement about troop levels in Afghanistan, after he summoned
Pentagon brass to the Oval Office to dress them down for Generals
speaking out of school."
Alter proceeded to recount how Obama supposedly lectured those who
dared criticize him, saying they "did a, quote, 'disservice,' to men and
women in uniform to have Generals speaking out of turn when the policy
had not yet been set." Alter continued his fawning story:
He dressed them down in more direct terms than had been used by a President toward the military, I was told, than any President since Truman fired MacArthur. There was a sense that the Pentagon was testing him. He was a young President, a Democrat, no military experience. And were they toying with him? Maybe not, but they were testing him. And what they found was that he pushed back, and he pushed back hard, and in ways that we haven't learned about until now.
The promotional language issued by publisher Simon & Schuster, and posted by Amazon and Barnes & Noble, reports Alter, a Senior Editor
at the financially-distressed Newsweek, relates the claim Obama has a
"Rubik's Cube in his brain" and other hyperbolic contentions about
Obama's fantastic deeds:
....What is the president really like on the job and off-hours, using what his best friend called "a Rubik's Cube in his brain?" These questions are answered here for the first time. We see how a surprisingly cunning Obama took effective charge in Washington several weeks before his election....
Alter takes the reader inside the room as Obama prevents a fistfight involving a Congressman, coldly reprimands the military brass for insubordination, crashes the key meeting at the Copenhagen Climate Change conference, and bounces back after a disastrous Massachusetts election to redeem a promise that had eluded presidents since FDR....
What an inspiration.
My April 6 NewsBusters item, "NBC
Nightly News: Mohammad Ali, Walt Whitman, Annie Oakley and Now...Barack
Obama," began:
NBC News is certainly enthralled with David Remnick's new book, 'The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama.' After giving him a guest slot on Meet the Press and an interview on Monday's Today show, NBC Nightly News on Monday showcased Remnick in an "In His Own Words" segment to expound on his admiration for Obama's racial identity journey, starting with how Obama follows in the tradition of Annie Oakley...
Earlier Friday: "Newsweek's
Alter on Today: You Have to 'Respect' Obama for His 'Thoughtfulness'"
Alter's segment on the Friday, May 14 NBC Nightly News, transcript
provided by the MRC's Brad Wilmouth:
LESTER HOLT: We have a preview tonight of exclusive reporting about the inner workings of the Obama White House during the President's first year. NBC News contributing correspondent and Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter has written the first book about the Obama presidency. It's called 'The Promise,' and in it Alter describes a particularly dramatic confrontation in the run-up to the President's announcement about troop levels in Afghanistan, after he summoned Pentagon brass to the Oval Office to dress them down for Generals speaking out of school.
JONATHAN ALTER: This was described to me as a, quote, "cold and bracing" meeting. The President was in a cold fury. He told them he wanted to know here and now whether they would change their behavior, stop boxing him in, and that he was exceedingly unhappy about the way things were going, and that it did a, quote, "disservice," to men and women in uniform to have Generals speaking out of turn when the policy had not yet been set.
He dressed them down in more direct terms than had been used by a President toward the military, I was told, than any President since Truman fired MacArthur. There was a sense that the Pentagon was testing him. He was a young President, a Democrat, no military experience. And were they toying with him? Maybe not, but they were testing him. And what they found was that he pushed back, and he pushed back hard, and in ways that we haven't learned about until now.
HOLT: Jonathan Alter, author of 'The Promise: President Obama, Year One,' which goes on sale early next week.
- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow him on Twitter.
