It’s easy to forget the bromance between the press and President Barack Obama.
Reporters’ zeal to take down President Donald Trump is so all-encompassing it blocks out an age when news outlets fawned over the commander in chief. Remember the healer in chief, the beer summits and similarly gushing accounts?
Or, in some cases, how reporters and comedians alike rushed to his defense?
Those memories came rushing back this week courtesy of Whoopi Goldberg.
The unofficial leader on “The View” got snippy when she saw a veteran news reporter take the Obamas to task on Twitter.
The problem began when media reports shared how the Obamas let loose at a Jay-Z and Beyonce concert. Pretty innocuous stuff on the surface. CNN’s Jake Tapper shared this tweet atop a media account of the former first couple:
The Democratic Party is the weakest it has been since the 1920s, but ¯_(ツ)_/¯
It’s the same snarky tone we see time and time again from reporters covering the Trump administration. And it caught a bit of social media fire. According to The Hill, “The tweet was replied to more than 6,400 times, retweeted almost 2,000 times and liked more than 7,400 times.”
Goldberg couldn’t let that stand.
“So this is on the Obamas? If the Obamas had gone to this concert, and it had just been the Obamas in the box and Jay Z and Beyonce on the stage and nobody else in the stadium he may have a point,” Goldberg explained. “Everybody’s is partying, why is it on the Obamas?”
What’s funny is that reporters constantly connect innocent actions by Team Trump to negative narratives. One perfect example? The heat Ivanka Trump took for sharing an innocent picture of her child on social media. How dare she attempt such a normal function while children were being separated from their parents along the border!
The fact that similar separations occurred during the Obama years didn’t stop the flow of hate.
Meghan McCain, the lone “View” conservative, well versed in holding liberal feet to the fire, said Tapper’s tweet pointed to the media’s continued affection for the former first couple.
“We miss you,” McCain said, summing up the reaction from certain press outlets to the concert headlines.
She’s right, of course. Reporters do miss the Obamas. They also pine for that eight-year stretch when Speaking Truth to Power wasn’t on the agenda.
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