Aptly Put

I loved this at The Reality-Based Community:

So--let me get this straight.

Ryan Lizza writes, if not a hatchet job, a distinctly unflattering piece on Obama in the New Yorker.

The next week, Lizza — along with the majority of other reporters — does not get a seat on Obama's plane during his Middle East tour.

And suddenly every reporter and his brother-in-law are shocked — shocked — that maybe Obama would be engaging in payback.

"This is not the change we have been waiting for," sniffs Jeff Goldberg.

Rachel Sklar wrings her hands and calls it a "worrisome signal."

Joe Gandelman lectures, "If this was [sic (sniff)] mere happenstance, then it’s an example of poor and short-sighted staffing."

Give. Me. A. Break.

First, it's not clear that there was any payback here, but please: the press got this from the Bush Administration every day for eight years, and only now it's getting the vapors? Please.

And no, it's no good to say, as Gandelman does, "Some partisans will invariably say: 'Well, this happens under Bush.' And then talk about change."

I realize that this will come as news to the privileged reporters of the Beltway elite, but: change is not about you.

Change is about the nation's priorities. It is about policy. It is about whether the President cares about the thin slice of the super-rich, or about the broad American working class. It is about whether we will face up to the upcoming climate crisis, or ignore science in the face of the energy industry's agenda. It is about whether we look at facts in foreign policy, or pretend that what we want is what exists.

It is not about whether elite reporters get their favorite donut flavors aboard Air Force One.

Exactly.

See the whole article here.