Liberal Charlotte Observer baps Obama over the head

This is something I never expected to see: My hometown paper, the liberal Charlotte Observer, a paper that has made no secret of its devotion to helping this administration succeed – a paper that is also a branch of the Obama-loving McClatchy news organization, bapping President Obama over the head for his numerous broken pledges since taking the oath of office. In an editorial titled “Change we cannot and do not believe in,” the editors write (via Memeo):

When Barack Obama was running for the Democratic nomination last year and then for the presidency in the fall, one of the most attractive things about his candidacy was his promise of change that we all could believe in.

He campaigned on a promise of change that would mean no more cozy lobbyists-in-government schemes, no more ethically-challenged appointees ignoring laws that apply to everyone else.

Two weeks into the Obama presidency, we like his campaign better than his administration. While Mr. Obama has set the right tone for approaching the monumentally hard work ahead of this government and while some of his appointments are outstanding, others were either badly botched or reflect a half-hearted commitment to the change principle central to his ballot-box success last fall. Consider:

[…]

President Obama has a clear vision of a bipartisan government for which millions of Americans earnestly yearn. We wish him the best – and urge him to be more vigilant about adhering to the promises that won him the White House.

I’d like to say “bravo” to the Observer for printing an editorial that is sure to irritate its majority liberal readership, but I’ll pass. The Observer, like so many other liberal, Obama-endorsing papers across the country, knew well in advance during the course of his two year presidential campaign that Barack Obama’s rhetoric rarely – if ever – matched reality (see here, here, here, and here for just a few examples). In fact, McClatchy looked as though they were waking up back in June, but in the end, it didn’t matter. He was the liberal. He was the charming candidate. Oh, and he just happened to be black and about to make history, so he rec’d the love and adoration of McClatchy and (I suspect) most of their newspapers.

So no, I’m not impressed with the Observer’s about-face on Barack Obama. They knew. They just turned a blind eye to his double speak during the course of the campaign because they liked him and because they wanted to sell papers … and books and photos after he was elected. Their taking him to task now, after he’s been elected, doesn’t change the fact that they – along with other liberal news outlets across the country – chose to look the other way while time after time Obama revealed himself to be duplicitous on issue after issue, while at the same time they devoted more resources to investigating Gov. Sarah Palin’s record as mayor of the little town of Wasilla than Barack Obama’s long history of ties to left wing radicals like Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers, and his entrenchment in the Chicago machine. They were in no small part responsible for the election of Barack Obama, and because of that, now we’re stuck with him for at least the next four years.

And speaking of liberal media outlets, Newsweek’s got a piece published this week that stands as a symbol of how far some in the Obamedia will go to protect “their guy.” Who do they blame for the Obama administration’s rampant incompetency, bad decision making, and poor nominee vetting so far?

The GOP.

I swear, you cannot make this stuff up.

Jim Geraghty has a must-read rebuttal to the Newsweek piece here.