Obama reveals why he doesn’t understand the seriousness of the terrorist threat, and his explanation is a doozy

Oops. That’s the sound of the New York Times editorial staff striking out the text of a potentially embarrassing admission by Barack Obama but — thanks to the internet’s long memory — failing to expunge all the evidence. In fact, that makes the story something of a twofer: Obama says something that betrays his ineptitude, and his pals in the mainstream media betray theirs by bungling the cover-up.

Mediaite’s Alex Griswold has the back story:

If you read The New York Times‘ story on President Barack Obama‘s private meeting with news columnists Friday morning, you may have caught one quote that made the President look particularly bad:

In his meeting with the columnists, Mr. Obama indicated that he did not see enough cable television to fully appreciate the anxiety after the attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, and made clear that he plans to step up his public arguments. [Emphasis added]

The President of the United States failed to understand that Americans were anxious after two major terrorist attacks in Western cities because he doesn’t watch TV? It’s an admission that opponents are sure to use to make the president seem out-of-touch at best, and unconcerned about a serious threat at worst.

The Twitterverse promptly lit up with reactions to both the Times’s duplicity and Obama’s revelation:

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

A minor quibble with Griswold’s observation that Obama “doesn’t watch TV.” No less a source than the same New York Times (via LU) corrects the record on that point:

These days, when Mr. Obama retreats to the White House residence after a long day on the other end of the colonnade, he is working his way through the DVD box set of AMC’s ‘Breaking Bad’….

Friends say Mr. Obama is also keenly awaiting the new season of the Netflix show ‘House of Cards.’…

Mr. Obama is also a devotee of Showtime’s ‘Homeland.’…

And the list of heavies continues. Mr. Obama has told people he is a big fan of ‘Game of Thrones.’… He has raved about ‘Boardwalk Empire’ and the BBC’s ‘Downton Abbey.’… And he has worked his way through the DVDs of AMC’s smoldering ‘Mad Men’ series.

The Times’s Michael Shear, who authored the 2013 piece, also let on, perhaps inadvertently, that Obama governs with one eye on the small screen:

In a speech earlier this month, Mr. Obama pledged the remainder of his presidency to the fight against the kinds of persistent poverty that were depicted in “The Wire.”

“The idea that a child may never be able to escape that poverty because she lacks a decent education or health care, or a community that views her future as their own,” Mr. Obama said, “that should offend all of us and it should compel us to action. We are a better country than this.”

Shorter Obama: We can do better as a country than the fictionalized version of the U.S. I see portrayed on television.

Meantime, with all the hours Obama spends watching TV, you have to wonder when he finds time … to play golf.

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Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy

Howard Portnoy has written for The Blaze, HotAir, NewsBusters, Weasel Zippers, Conservative Firing Line, RedCounty, and New York’s Daily News. He has one published novel, Hot Rain, (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), and has been a guest on Radio Vice Online with Jim Vicevich, The Alana Burke Show, Smart Life with Dr. Gina, and The George Espenlaub Show.

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