Battered Media’s Cry for Help

Joy Tiz

©2010

Abusive relationships are more difficult to end than healthy ones.  Our relationship to a president who lies to us and betrays the sovereignty of the nation is, unquestionably, abusive.  Bonds formed through traumatic events are far more durable than bonds forged via healthy interactions.  The toady press has a great deal invested in Obama.

People outside of the abusive relationship always ask why the victim doesn’t just leave.  Once you’ve been worked over by an abusive narcissist, you no longer have the will to escape.  Remember, the abuser has done so much fogging that the victim comes to believe that his behavior is entirely normal.  Many victims become convinced that they themselves cause the abuse.  Some are persuaded that they are the abusive ones and their poor innocent partners are the ones in need of compassion.

If you’ve never seen the original version of “Gaslight”, this would be a good time to take a look at it.

Former CBS newsman, Bernie Goldberg correctly refers to the relationship between the mainstream press and Obama as a “slobbering love affair.”  It’s embarrassing.

Fortunately, victims can finally get to the point at which the abuse becomes intolerable and reach out for help:

Obama and the media actually have a surprisingly hostile relationship — as contentious on a day-to-day basis as any between press and president in the past decade, reporters who cover the White House say.

The Politico goes on to describe the character of an abusive narcissist:

Reporters say the White House is thin-skinned, controlling, eager to go over their heads and stingy with even basic information. All White Houses try to control the message. But this White House has pledged to be more open than its predecessors, and reporters feel it doesn’t live up to that pledge in several key areas:

The ferocity of pushback is intense. A routine press query can draw a string of vitriolic e-mails. A negative story can draw a profane high-decibel phone call or worse. Some reporters feel like they’ve been frozen out after crossing the White House. 

Narcissists, who are often domestic abusers, have no tolerance for criticism which is why you should never, ever laugh at one .

Bam is a bully. Bad enough that he bashes Wall Street, but this President has gone farther than any in modern history in putting the wrong kind of  ’bully’ back into what Teddy Roosevelt had called the bully pulpit.

CNBC’s  Dennis Kneale opposes Arizona’s new law which declares illegal immigration to be a crime —but, he is more opposed to Obama’s attack on the governor.  Nobody really suspects Obama has read the bill or would understand it if he did.  In fact, Obama’s reaction hearkens back to the irresponsible comments he made disparaging the Cambridge police.  While conceding he didn’t know the facts—the point at which responsible people quit talking—Obama went on to aver that the police had “acted stupidly.”

Brazenly acknowledging Obama’s lack of familiarity with the U.S. Constitution, Kneale  describes Obama’s reaction to the Arizona bill:  “this is hubris at best and ignorance of the Constitution at worst. The U.S. was founded in part on the precept of states’ rights as an important counterweight to a rapacious federal government.”

Mr. Kneale, I respectfully submit that the answer is all of the above.

All abuse victims know what happens when you upset the abuser: 

And just what happens when you upset the White House?

Among White House reporters, tales abound of an offhand criticism or passing claim low in an unremarkable story setting off an avalanche of hostile e-mail and voice-mail messages.

‘It’s not unusual to have shouting matches or the e-mail equivalent of that. It’s very, very aggressive behavior, taking issue with a thing you’ve written, an individual word, all sorts of things,’ said one White House reporter.  

Battle weary Helen Thomas was ahead of the pack when she snapped out of denial and denounced the president’s heavy handed control of the media:

Nixon didn’t try to do that,’ Thomas said. ‘They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try.’

‘What the hell do they think we are, puppets?’ Thomas said. ‘They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.’

Long before Obama’s reign is mercifully over, someone is going to need an 800 number to call.