The Media Research Center spent the first couple of nights of the Democratic National Convention whining about how it was pointed out that the DNC was a lot more fun than the Republican National Convention. The MRC also had a meltdown over Barack and Michelle Obama speaking at the DNC. Jorge Bonilla launched a personal attack on a reporter by pretending to read her mind:
As we indicated earlier, the unofficial theme of Night 2 of the 2024 Democratic National Convention was the transfer of the mantle of Hope and Change on to Kamala Harris, with the Obamas personally conducting the transfer. Night 2’s subtheme is the manner in which the Regime Media fell over themselves in pining for that Obama Restoration.
Consider ABC’s Mary Bruce, for example. Known for her sycophantic coverage of the Biden White House as ABC’s Chief White House Correspondent. Watch as Bruce absolutely fawns over the Obamas’ convention speeches:
[…]If you look closely enough, you can see Bruce struggling to maintain that fine line between “analysis” and opinion, almost forcing herself to drop some variant of “the Obamas said” in between her hot takes. This was Mary Bruce at her Mary Bruciest, and that’s saying a lot. ABC World News Tonight anchor David Muir reinforcing Michelle Obama’s call to action, in a manner reminiscent of his pre and post-framing of every political story wherein he delivers a brief before and after whatever the correspondent puts out.
In another post, Bonilla whined that “The Regime sycophants at MSNBC, consumed by their collective desire to imprint the Harris candidacy into the American psyche, have now proclaimed Harris to be ‘the future’,” adding” “This stuff is the coverage equivalent of the creepy Shepard Fairey poster. Everything is a contrived callback to “Hope and Change”.
Bonilla was still at it in yet another post, whining that CNN’s John King accurately pointed out that Obama didn’t start any “big wars” during his presidency:
What is King even talking about here? No major wars? Did Osama bin Laden shoot himself in the face? Did the drones just launch themselves? In order to re-elevate Obama to secular godhood, King is compelled to make stuff up. Active disinformation in furtherance of a political narrative.
King speaks here as if the American people themselves did not move on from Obama’s divisive politics (despite Obama’s personal popularity), and as if they forgot his original authoritarianism (siccing the IRS on Tea Party-adjacent groups, suing The Little Sisters of the Poor, prosecuting journalists).
Bonilla seems to have forgotten that the killing of bin Laden effectively ended a war, not started one. And as we’ve pointed out, the Obama administration did not sue the Little Sisters of the Poor, and in fact, had nothing to do with that litigation — in 2017, then-California attorney general Xavier Becerra sued the Trump administration in 2017 over broadening exemptions to contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act, and the Little Sisters of the Poor later filed to intervene and chose to become a party to the suit.
Right-wing team player Curtis Houck freaked out:
ABC’s Good Morning America has always been a team player for the left, so that meant on Wednesday they had to have on-air Obamagasams to get their points across about how Barack and Michelle Obama were an “electrifying” and “forceful one-two punch” with “political and personal” speeches “pummeling Donald Trump in blistering terms..as dangerous, divisive, and petty” on a night that felt “genuinely new”.
Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos salivated right off the top, remarking to co-host Robin Roberts: “What a rocking night at the Democratic National Convention.”
Chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce was predictably ready to run through a brick wall for her fellow Democrats.
[…]She also saved some valentines for Michelle, gushing of her “rare return to the political center stage” and “contrasting the candidates in stark terms…saying they know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of Trump’s attack” and “argu[ed] Kamala understands average Americans the way Trump never will”.
Notice how deep cuts by Democrats are treated in the press as positives or factual statements while any sniff of mere basic criticism from Republicans are seen as personal attacks.
Houck cited no example of inaccurate “deep cuts” against Republicans or any personal attack against a Democrat that was merely a “basic criticism.”
Alex Christy served up his own glass of whine:
MSNBC chief political analyst Chuck Todd twisted himself into a pretzel on Wednesday’s Jose Diaz-Balart Reports as he recapped former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Tuesday address to the Democratic National Convention. Todd argued that every four years, Obama reminds the country “she’s probably the best nonpolitical speaker in the country.” That those reminders always line up with the political calendar appeared to go right over his head.
Co-host Ana Cabrera led Todd with a clip of Obama declaring that “We cannot get a goldilocks complex about whether everything is just right, and we cannot indulge our anxieties about whether this country will elect someone like Kamala instead of doing everything we can to get someone like Kamala elected.”
Houck’s freakout over the Obamas continued:
With co-host, Democratic donor, and Obama family friend Gayle King helming CBS Mornings, Wednesday’s show was packed to the brim with adulation among King and a host of pals for the “virtuoso performance” by Barack and Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention Tuesday in what they insisted will be remembered as not only an “energetic” and “phenomenal” “one-two punch”, but a “cultural moment”.
King got things started in the “Eye Opener”: “The crowd roars for both of the Obamas as they make the case for Kamala Harris and against Donald Trump.”
[…]Fast-forwarding to the top of the second hour (and past another classic Dokoupil man-on-the-street piece), King had more fawning praise for the “very energetic day at the DNC in Chicago, former First Lady Michelle Obama,” who “was greeted like a rock star, and rock star is the word before she even opened her mouth and made the case for Vice President Kamala Harris”.
“You know who else had a great night, I thought, was the Second Gentleman, Doug Emhoff, which ordinarily we’d be talking a lot about because I thought he was also knockout, but the Obamas were so strong. Michelle Obama in particular, it’s hard to not speak about her performance last night,” she added.
Houck also served up yet another complaint that the DNC was too much fun:
Co-host Tony Dokoupil agreed “it really was a party” and gushed “[t]he roar of the crowd may still be echoing off the walls here at the United Center” from “that huge speech from Barack Obama, but yes, maybe even a bigger one from former First Lady Michelle Obama”.
Adding “there were just so many quotable moments” ripping Trump, Dokoupil boasted Barack “blend[ed] nostalgia with inspiration” and gently ribbed him for making a veiled reference to Trump’s manhood.
Clay Waters grumbled about Obama (well, that others don’t reflexively hate the guy as much as he does) as well:
The “excitement” began right from the introduction of PBS’s coverage of Night Two of the Democratic National Convention from Chicago, which featured consecutive speeches by Michelle and Barack Obama.
Co-anchor Geoff Bennett set up this T-ball of a question: “And former president Barack Obama speaks to the city that helped launch his political career.”
Next, in a staged soundbite, someone off-screen (a PBS producer?) shouted to a row of seated delegates, “Who are you guys excited to see tonight?” They answered in unison, “Obama!”
Tim Graham made his own contribution to the whinefest in his Aug. 21 podcast:
Through two days of the Democrat [sic] convention, we’re buried in praise of the “electricity” and the “energy,” and that was before the Obamas magically ascended to the stage. Every four years, we’re reminded of the term “Obamagasm.” From inside their Obama bubble, do they really get to say Trump has a “cult”?
Of course the Trump cultists at the MRC deny they’re in a cult.
Christy, also the MRC resident comedy cop, took umbrage at people finding an Obama joke funny:
NBC’s Seth Meyers reacted on Wednesday’s edition of Late Night to former President Barack Obama’s speech to the Democratic National Convention by claiming that “the best Obama is stand-up Obama” as he reveled in Obama’s jab at Donald Trump’s crowd sizes, which was a euphemism for saying Trump is “bad at sex.”
Following discussion of Michelle Obama, Meyers introduced a clip of Barack Obama by being thankful that, “In addition to calling Trump dangerous and weird, Democrats are also treating him like the whiny little loser he is, and then it was her husband’s turn to somehow follow that. And he got everyone talking when he took a jab at the size of Trump’s crowds.”
In the clip, Obama declared, “Here’s a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago. It has been a constant stream of gripes and grievances that’s actually been getting worse now that he’s afraid of losing to Kamala. There’s the childish nicknames, the crazy conspiracy theories, this weird obsession with crowd sizes.”
Meyers loved it, “I mean, he did it—he did it without even saying a word. Just a tiny hand gesture. I’ve said it for years, and I’ll say it again, the best Obama is stand-up Obama.”
He disapprovingly summarized the other late-night shows weighing in on the humor: “In other late night Obama-Trump news, Meyers’s fellow NBC-er, The Tonight Show’s Jimmy Fallon used the opportunity to make word-related jokes with politicians such as Mike, Ron, and Hank Johnson. Meanwhile, The Daily Show was torn between appreciating Obama’s anti-Trump jokes and admitting that it undermines Democrats’ claims that they are the more mature, adult-like party.” Despite being America’s comedy cop, Christy didn’t explain why weren’t supposed to find Obama funny.
The MRC has been suffering outbreaks of Obama Derangement Syndrome for years, which have continued well after he left the presidency.