Steve Benen of Political Animal points out a couple of strange questions posed by corporate journalists—one to each of last year’s major presidential candidates. In this post, Benen quotes an unnamed New York Times reporter (apparently either Sheryl Gay Stolberg or Steven Lee Myers) basically red-baiting Barack Obama: “The first six weeks have given people a glimpse of your spending priorities. Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?” The same reporter, or maybe a different one—I guess they were speaking ex cathedra—later pressed Obama: “If you’re not a socialist, are you a liberal?”
In a later post, Benen ponders Fox News‘ Chris Wallace asking John McCain, “You ever feel like saying ‘I told you so’?” (McCain declined to do so, though he said, “I’m sure that would be a pleasant feeling.”) As Benen notes, it’s not clear what McCain told us, or what in the first six weeks of the Obama administration would cause us to reevaluate it. But as he says, the implication is clear: “Looking back at the presidential campaign, McCain was right about…something.”
Fox sometimes points to Wallace to show that they’re not out of the mainstream of corporate media. The scary thing is that they might have a point.
Well, regardless of their intent, I’d like to know how Obama replied to those questions.
I’m sure he’d run as far away from any positive remark about socialism as his well-toned legs could take him … but how would he define “liberal”?
Inquiring minds want to know.
And I can’t help my imagination entering a parallel universe, in which he responds, “Yeah … I’m a socialist. Any caring and rational person would be.”
“Which lets you off the hook, doesn’t it?”