Posts
"I'm going to have a basic cheddar cheese burger, medium well, with mustard. . . . You got a spicy mustard or something like that, or a Dijon mustard, something like that?"
-- Barack Obama, May 5, 2009
"The reaction proved one thing I already knew: The cult of personality surrounding Obama is real. And many of the cultists are demented, dangerous or both."
-- William Jacobson, May 8, 2009
Congratulations to Professor Jacobson. Traffic at his Legal Insurrection blog, which was about 37,000 visits in February, surged to more than 107,000 in just two days Thursday and Friday, because he dared to point out how dishonest news coverage has become.
The point was not that Obama likes Dijon mustard -- I do, too, as does the man who named it "DijonGate" -- but rather that MSNBC and other major media are no longer in the news business. They're doing public relations for the Obama administration and the Democratic Party.
What was the purpose of Obama and Joe Biden going to Ray's Hell-Burger in Arlington, Va.? It was a photo-op, to show O and Joe bein' Regular Guys, standin' in line, eatin' some burgers.
Obviously, reporters didn't think "Dijon mustard" fit the narrative the White House wanted, and so they fudged the quote -- and NBC even edited its own video -- to omit the offensive French phrase. Jacobson pointed this out, and it was like showing a Rorshach inkblot to Charles Manson.
Obama Mustard Attack Becomes Full-Blown Right-Wing Talking Point
-- Huffington PostIvy League Professor Wingnut Pens Masterpiece About Dijon Mustard
Dijon Derangement Syndrome: Conservative media attack Obama for burger order
-- Wonkette
-- Media Matters
Why was the reaction so hideously overblown? Gateway Pundit, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and others were just doing the same thing they did with John Kerry's ill-fated wind-surfing vacation or any number of other incidents in which prominent Democrats act in ways that conflict with their populist rhetoric.
A burger at Ray's Hell-Burger costs $6.95, so lunch at the Arlington restaurant isn't exactly the value menu at Mickey D's. If the White House believed they could show Obama as a Regular Guy by having him eat at a place where the burgers are seven bucks, maybe they need to work on their definition of populism.
Jacobson's posts, however, pointed out how news organizations were actively involved in the image-shaping function of the Obama P.R. machine. It would be like learning that Fox News provided the "Mission Accomplished" banner at Bush's famous 2003 aircraft-carrier event.
Exposure of the media role in the Obama phenomenon is what the Left fears most because, at some level, they understand that if the press were ever to report honestly on what the Democrats are doing, the game would change. So the Obama cultists, accustomed to only fawning coverage of their Leader, react with fury when the fawning coverage is demonstrated to be dishonest.
Obama's high level of public support is largely a product of his positive image the media have crafted. "DijonGate" exposed how this image-making role is played. And therefore William Jacobson is denounced as a "wing-nut" pushing "right-wing talking points."
Of course, there are no "left-wing talking points," and if you dare suggest that Media Matters and Huffington Post are participating in an orchestrated propaganda effort -- perhaps organized by Astroturf king David Axelrod -- this only proves you are a "wing nut."
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! My second 'Lanche this weekend. I suspect Professor Reynolds was watching what I was watching -- Ross Douthat doing "Q&A" on C-SPAN -- and thought to himself, "If I don't hit him now, there'll be another raving manic e-mail at 4 a.m."
Damned callow pretentious Harvard boy prattling on about Chesterton and Christopher Lasch and skinny-dipping with Buckley . . . well, never mind all that now. The raven's calling your name, Douthat!
UPDATE II: Paco quotes . . . Lionel Trilling? What the hell? Has everybody gone all Douthat on me? "As Jeanne Kirkpatrick once said to Daniel Patrick Moynihan . . . ."
Barack Obama dildo. And what would Jeanne Kirkpatrick have to say about that, huh?
UPDATE III: Hey, remember when John Edwards was the liberal media's idol?
UPDATE IV: The Left won't let it go, will they?
Don't forget the famed 'Journo-List'..
ReplyDelete(and they say the right side of the blogosphere is an echo chamber)
-----
a quick aside..
Ollie's Trolly in DC has some awesome hamburgers too..
...react with fury when the fawning coverage is demonstrated to be dishonest.I guess that would explain why the left is always so angry, what with its reporting being completely dishonest hackery.
ReplyDeleteThey can orchestrate and (as Rush so ably demonstrates) parrot the same exact phrase/talking point all over the MSM in the same news cycle but we can't. Heh! Does anyone remember that dingleberry Kerry and his atrocious wife at a Wendy's? That was right down the road from me. She pointed to chili on the menu and asked "What's that?" This schtick of politicians trying to connect with real America is so old and stupid. Like Biden, in fact.
ReplyDeleteYep, you guys go ahead and keep "DijonGate" alive. It's working out soooooooooo well for you.
ReplyDeleteThe Right is becoming more and more irrelevant and clueless avery single day.
Is everyone but me blind to what was truly appalling about Obama's burger? *Medium well*?!?! What kind of man orders his burger medium well? I cry for my beloved country.
ReplyDeleteSO... What we've learned is that the MSM remain awesome even in their decline... they still cut the mustard. From harmless quotes. Losers.
ReplyDeleteHey Peg... Hands-off us old coots, yeh? We may be old, but we weren't borned yessirday!
Hey jasper... Man, that teleprompter of his sure has refined taste! [snickers] Yeh, it'll stay alive. In all 57 States, plus Hawaii and Alaska. Talk about clueless... Have you tried "spell-check"? I mean, nice gov't education you have there pal, but... the software folks have something built-in just for you.
Apparently Jasper doesn't get the point even when it's spelled out for him.
ReplyDeleteSo let me simplify it for you:
It's not the mustard, it's the press fawning over what is a glorified photo op (see MSNBC's 5 minute story on the subject). Jacobson made fun of this with an non-serious post and the left went apoplectic.
Your post and Jacobson's are a muddle of confusion.
ReplyDeleteYour claim first seems to be that neither post was about Obama, but about the media. Then *you* go on to claim that a $7 burger shows how out of it Obama is. In the meantime Jacobson walks back his first confused post about the issue and says, oh, I was talking about the media.... Which he then negates by saying this, not about the media, but about the Obama cultists (cultivated by Obama so presumably a statement more about Obama than the press.)
"The reaction proved one thing I already knew: The cult of personality surrounding Obama is real. And many of the cultists are demented, *dangerous* or both."
Dangerous? People that talk about mustard gate are dangerous? And for lunch, common people don't eat $7 burgers but eat 5 days a week only from the value menus?
I suspect you're both full of shit, but if you're not let's have some cites.
I speak as someone who often does eat from value menus and who can't understand how so many of the common folks can afford 2 or 3 beers at a bar, (or their cars or houses or ...)
Anyway, fuck you.
"Dangerous? People that talk about mustard gate are dangerous?"
ReplyDeleteHey Anon... You did some wonderful poetry back in the 14th Century. Time hasn't done you any favors, man.
Yeah, so people who feel they have to cover-up every potential flaw in a leader's image are dangerous. If they block simple truths, what then will they do to difficult ones? See, man, you should have been paying attention in fourth grade. Hello?
The story is about the media's poor taste. It isn't about how a supposedly private-school Ivy-leaguer asks "You got...?" instead of "Do you have...?" It isn't about covering the burger with Dijon as opposed to, say, French's yellow. It's about the medias skittishness.
The story is also about how weak and vulnerable their lad is. A tough cowboy doesn't need the media covering every perceived goof. See, it shows dear Leader to be a coddle wussy, a spoiled toddler needing Big Mommy's help at every little booboo. That's comically sad, Anon, in the manner of some of your former great work.
I don't know if recommending a good fuck will help you. Have you tried meds?
A real populist would have gone to McDonald's. Or Five Guys.
ReplyDeleteDave, where is this Ollie's Trolley of which you speak? I thought they'd all gone the way of the dodo.
the true story of grey poupon
ReplyDeletehttp://nicolasguillon.lesdemocrates.fr/2009/03/26/obama-et-la-moutarde-de-dijon/
BTW GP is a fake
RS-
ReplyDeleteI've been a fan of your writing but you're getting just plain sloppy of late. I see that in your everlasting search for linky-love and blog-bucks, the real victim is your capacity for writing a well reasoned post defending your indefensible positions. It is something endemic of the Conservative movement as a whole, something that can be aptly called ' Death by Capitalism'. The cottage industry which is Conservatism today is the very reason why the movement is a joke.
"It would be like learning that Fox News provided the "Mission Accomplished" banner at Bush's famous 2003 aircraft-carrier event."
Really dude? Is that the best you can come up with?
Not to mention that the analogy is not even appropriate! Your quote suggests that the media itself thought of the burger photo-op, and the the OB admin followed suit.Now you know that isn't true. I call bullshit on you, sir!
These kind of photo-op stunts are politics as usual. Remember that clown Reagan horseback riding with his red kerchief and cowboy boots? A modicum of political fiction.... And what about GW chopping wood on his ranch? Didn't see enough of that on Fox the last 8 years....
Face it, this is the Cons latest attempt at political alchemy--the desire to turn shit into gold.
It's gold alright, but at the expense of Conservatives....
"Face it, this is the Cons latest attempt at political alchemy--the desire to turn shit into gold.
ReplyDeleteIt's gold alright, but at the expense of Conservatives...."
Like trying to convert trillions upon trillions of borrowed and inflated dollars into Prosperity? Or like trying to convert trillions of dollars of private property into public "wealth"? Or blanket apologies into national security?
Then again, Youngster was trying to convert a statist blog comment into something rational. Ghawd, I love comedy.
The Ollie's Trolley was in DC..
ReplyDeleteAs to the exact where?
I can't say.. I stumbled across it with my family when we visited there early last year.
Ollie's, 12th at E St, NW.
ReplyDeleteEVERYONE on the left is either irrational, immoral, or a ghastly combination of the two.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post!
Of course, there are no "left-wing talking points," and if you dare suggest that Media Matters and Huffington Post are participating in an orchestrated propaganda effort -- perhaps organized by Astroturf king David Axelrod -- this only proves you are a "wing nut."
ReplyDeleteOr Journalist sent out the orders and the independent leftist went right to work.
This incident is the merest hint of what's to come in the lead-up to the next election. The Obamedia will go full bore because they know a major Republican comeback in the midterm will stifle The One's agenda. They will do everything they can to help the Dems retain unchecked power.
ReplyDeletesomewhat ott, but the new leftist meme is that the GOP=Whigs & we're slated for kulak like liquidation by the One's True Party
ReplyDeleteThe real cover up is using the mustard as a diversion so people don't see how annoying Obama is at ordering. Jon Stewart even made fun of it, pointing out that in NY even the president couldn't order that way without getting "feedback".
ReplyDeleteReally, it's lunch, it's a recession and the guy who stood in line with the menu in plain sight is not prepared when it's his turn to order? Everyone hates that guy.
Djiongate has been a great test of the Left's ability to take a joke.
ReplyDeleteThey failed.
So, to sum up:
ReplyDeleteThe point of DijonGate wasn't that Obama is a fancy-mustard eating elitist, but instead that he's a fancy-mustard eating elitist, and the media refused to make it the lead story on the evening news.
That's so much better.
And do you seriously think that a $7 lunch is "elitist"? These are hard times, but real live working Americans sometimes do not only pay for lunches, but eat things that aren't handed to them through their car windows.
Is Applebee's an elitist frou-frou restaurant? They have meals starting at $6, which can be as much as $1 more than a McDonald's lunch - it's basically like eating caviar off of a platinum spoon. They even have a French Dip sandwich!
"If the White House believed they could show Obama as a Regular Guy..." they ought to have left the Secret Service behind, so the Inflated One and 'Me Too' Joe could have received their proper adulations from the proles.
ReplyDeleteNo, Jesse, you missed the point.
ReplyDeleteThe point isn't that Mr. Obama asked for Dijon mustard. The point is that MSNBC thought they had to cover up his asking for Dijon mustard.
It reveals a press that is (a) very concerned about how the president is portrayed and (b) a press that is so out of touch that it thinks that the general public would laugh at him for ordering Dijon mustard.
(a) shows a press that acts more like a PR firm; (b) shows a press that is so out of touch with normal people that it doesn't realize that you can buy Dijon in a grocery store under the store brand.
And then there is (c), people who are so determined to protect Mr. Obama that they go off to websites and insult the host while displaying a monumental ignorance about the actual subject of the post.
yrs,
Mikey NTH
Oh Dijon-Gate!
ReplyDeleteThank you for exposing the wing-nuts for what they are....
A bunch of hapless losers in search for an explanation to what they deem an inexplicable loss of power in DC.
And their answer to this conundrum? Its the media's fault!!!
Yes losers. It is the media who is keeping you from your rightful place.The tables have been set, folks.
Any loss and failure on the part of the Conservative/Republican party is the fault of the media.Some adults, apparently, still need their pacifiers...
Lame.
Spin all the nuance you like. You're still bitching about mustard and blaming 'the media'.
ReplyDeleteIt combines a 30 year old Republican neo-liberal lie with condiments.
Whatever keeps the resentment junkies happy.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete"The point ... [is] that MSNBC and other major media are no longer in the news business. They're doing public relations for the Obama administration and the Democratic Party."
ReplyDeleteEr -- does Robert Stacy McCain remember the last eight years?
.
ReplyDeleteThe Left is just keeping this 'Mustard story' alive, the Right had a chuckle and moved on. There are many much more important things to criticize this administration about. The Left doesn't want people focusing on the big stuff, because that's where it's most dangerous to them. The Truth will bring them down, God willing.
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
deify your dear leaders
they are supernatural
with magical qualities
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
don't protest tax increases
or support states' rights
YOU RIGHT-WING EXTREMIST
.
A seven dollar lunch is now elitist? Really? And how much did you spend on lunch today Stacy?
ReplyDeleteI think MSNBC didn't cover "Dijongate" and edited the video because it didn't fucking matter that he ordered Dijon mustard. Only the right wing would care enough about a condiment and would try to use it as "proof" of "elitism." This is America. We're allowed to order whatever condiment we want, and if we want to spend 7 WHOLE DOLLARS on a good burger we're allowed to.
Ironically this call of elitism is coming from the same people who don't want rich people's taxes raised. An actual elitist stance, or mere left-wing smearing?
A perfect case of (vis-a-vis the mainstream media's PR role) "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain."And, really, the leftie trolls spent an awful lot of cycles pointing out how Dijongate wasn't worth the cycles, ne c'est pas?
ReplyDelete"And then there is (c), people who are so determined to protect Mr. Obama that they go off to websites and insult the host while displaying a monumental ignorance about the actual subject of the post."
ReplyDeleteAnd to emphasize this, along comes
Young 4 eyes.
Well done!
yrs,
Mikey NTH
Really, whether Obama and Biden slather Dijon mustard over their gourmet burgers is really small stuff. They are both wealthy men and are entitled to eat whatever they like. It may even save taxpayers who would otherwise foot the bill for Obama eating in.
ReplyDeleteThe point, of course, is that the media would edit that portion of the narrative out when such details would interest its readers. It is a small but telling example of the media bias that has propelled this unqualified and unvetted state senator into the highest reaches of power. The trolls on this board who don't see this point are willfully blind.
Never go full-wingnut.
ReplyDeleteAs a liberal Democrat, I am begging you to please continue to spend your time and energy on pushing this issue. Form a PAC and put out a book of essays. This issue will get your movement everything it deserves.
ReplyDelete"I think MSNBC didn't cover "Dijongate" and edited the video because it didn't fucking matter that he ordered Dijon mustard."
ReplyDeleteThey EDITED the video because it DIDN'T matter? Man, my head could explode trying to understand Lefty logic.
Me, I like ketchup. All the fanciest ketchu- Dijon ketchup!!! Mmmmm!
I eat little conservatives like you for breakfast. $6.95 for a lunch? Who is this? Thurston Howell Hussein Obama III?
ReplyDeleteIs everyone but me blind to what was truly appalling about Obama's burger? *Medium well*?!?! What kind of man orders his burger medium well?After eight years of E. coli conservatism, who could blame the guy?
ReplyDelete