Framing The Debate: CNN's SOTU Focuses On Obama Blunders/Disasters
Credit: h/t Heather
December 22, 2013

Joseph Goebbels famously said, "If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth."

Now perhaps it's arguable that it's a flat out lie, but I'll be damned if CNN isn't bound and determined to decree the Barack Obama presidency a failure.

Need proof? Look at the chyron during the "Authors' panel" on CNN's State of the Union this morning. While letting Mark Halperin, Newt Gingrich, Mark Leibovich and Dan Balz pimp their own individual books, the chyron invited audience interaction by soliciting which of President Obama's blunders put their campaign in disaster mode in 2012.

Let's unpack this glorious bit of conventional wisdom hackery, shall we?

Can we start off with the acknowledgment that we're in 2013, not 2012?

And is it possible to stop focusing on campaigns now? President Obama won his second term handily. There was no "disaster mode" in the works. Now, it's true that the White House did go on disaster-control after the horrible ACA website rollout, but that suggests then that CNN wants to implicitly further the meme that the ACA, which has not even been fully rolled out, is a "blunder" and a "disaster". Telling framing, that.

And tell me, why are we focusing on Obama's blunders, instead of Congressional obstruction, the amount of money and energy the Republican majorities have spent shutting down the government, holding the country hostage and chasing faux scandals while ignoring everything the American people want Congress to focus on?

Can you help us out?

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