Obama Pimps The Press

First he takes them to dinner, then, he drops by for a visit.  Then, it’ll be time for his “bitches” to pay.  In the midst of his pre-inauguration David Axelrod designed, Astroturf manure-spreading press push, President-elect Barack Obama made nice with the gushing, quivering, sycophantic pseudo-journalists of the Washington Post, who have already publicly admitted their unprofessional love.  According to reports, legs were appropriately set a-tingling, considering their integrity-deficient kinship with their inordinately helpful brother in shlock.  Anyway, the unseemly hoopla was duly recorded by the diligent WaPo “journalists,” like Chris Cizilla:

President-elect Barack Obama has arrived at the Washington Post for an interview with the editorial board and White House team — including The Fix!

WaPo later reported on New York Times reporter Helene Cooper’s pool report, as did Politico’s Michael Calderone.  Got that?

After three and a half hours at his transition office, PEOTUS obama took another 6 minute ride through washington, arriving at 157 pm at the nondescript soviet-style building at 15th and L street that houses the washington post.

Around 100 people–Post reporters perhaps?–awaited PEOTUS’s arrival, cheering and bobbing their coffee cups.

Pool is holding in a van outside, while Mr obama does his washington post interview, and will exercise enormous restraint by ending report before saying what really thinks about this turn of events.

Helene Cooper
The New York Times

Calderone speculates that Cooper’s snarkiness is a result of the Times’ petulance at not yet getting a traditional pre-inaugural interview.  WaPo’s David Nakamura also relates the euphoria attendant to the Obamessiah’s descent among the unworthy:

Barack Obama visited the Washington Post to meet the editorial board and national staff, but his tour of the 5th floor newsroom nearly stopped the presses.

Staff writers, photographers, editors and employees from other departments lined the hallway after word spread that the President-elect would be walking through the newroom.

At about 3:15 p.m., Obama entered through a back hallway and began shaking hands, as professional newsmen and women reached over to shake his hand and take pictures. Obama was trailed by advisor David Axelrod, assistant Reggie Love, Post Chairman Donald Graham, Publisher Katharine Weymouth and Editor Marcus Brauchli.

Calderone further chronicles the resultant media hysteria, and the expressions of mock outrage issued by indignant WaPo staffers disputing the “cheering loonies” (my take) characterization…

“There’s no reason to think there were any reporters cheering,” said a Washington Post spokesperson, adding that there are “a lot of people who work in the Post building who don’t work in the Post newsroom.” Of course, those cheering could also have been bystanders gathered outside.

…but Ed Driscoll’s site provides a quote from the same WaPo broken link to a Howard Kurtz article Politico and the Post provided:

Camera phones flashed as Obama, trailed by Post Co. chief executive Donald Graham, began his stroll around the fifth-floor newsroom’s perimeter, shaking hands and greeting nearly 200 staffers.

Inside, as Obama finally came full circle around the warren of offices and cubicles, he declared: “All right, back to work!” And he had correctly analyzed the situation: All work in The Post newsroom had stopped.

Driscoll also left us a reminder of another example of Obama Porn (obscenely obsessive ObamaLove) from the primaries, featured in the following video.  When will somebody tell this guy there’s more to being president than spokesmodeling?  Then again, maybe there isn’t.