Top Democrat: Media Gave Obama a Free Pass in 2008


(My FOX Philly)

Former Governor Ed Rendell told the Free Beacon this week that the liberal media gave Barack Obama a “free pass” in 2008.
The Free Beacon reported:

A top Obama surrogate said the president will not have to worry about a swooning media or crowds overcome by fainting spells in 2012.

“The media and the population saw him as this transformative figure [in 2008]; he was the first serious black candidate, a new, young, promising figure,” said former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. “People have sobered to that; the newness has faded and people now see him as another practical politician.”

Rendell is known for being blunt, a theme he touches on in his new book, A Nation of Wusses, and a trait that has gotten him in hot water on the campaign trail.

In April, Rendell joined a chorus of disgruntled Democrats, including Newark Mayor Cory Booker and former President Bill Clinton, who dissented from the Obama campaign’s attacks on Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s record as a venture capitalist.

He stood by that position in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon.

“All we said was that the attacks on Bain were over the top and a few Democrats jumped on us for that,” he said. “But to be a good surrogate you need to be reasonable; the independents are not going to believe you’re credible if you try to just say, ‘My guy is an angel; that guy’s the devil.’”

Rendell believes the media gave Obama a free pass in 2008, creating an environment in which the newly elected president received the Nobel Peace Prize nine months into his tenure—“a little ridiculous,” according to Rendell.

“Reporters violated the rule of neutrality,” he writes in the book.

Wow. There are four months to go and already Democrats are writing this election off. It looks like the whole country lost when the media refused to do its job in 2008.

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

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