President Obama Takes Down Chuck Todd and His Obama Bashing Book

President Obama had one comment when he saw Chuck Todd’s Obama bashing book in a bookstore. With one word, Obama summed up Todd perfectly.

According to the New York Post (take it with a huge grain of salt),

Shopping at a Washington, DC, bookstore Saturday, President Obama spotted a copy of “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd’s new book about his presidency.

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“Oh, Chuck Todd!” Obama exclaimed. “Let’s see what Chuck has to say here!”

“How is he writing a book already? asked his 16-year-old daughter, Malia. “Sad.”

“He’s just sad,” the president joked in response.

The idea that Todd “wrote” a book is highly debatable. I am working on a review of Todd’s Obama bashing book, and it can be summed up as less of an exploration of the Obama presidency, and more of a dear diary entry from a member of Beltway press centered on why Obama is big meanie who won’t kiss the rings of the D.C. media elite. There is very little in Todd’s book that hasn’t been voiced by President Obama’s critics on the right a million times before.

Chuck Todd is sad. He wasn’t even the first choice to replace David Gregory as moderator of Meet The Press. Chuck Todd was NBC’s safety date, which the network turned to after the people that they really wanted turned them down. Meet The Press is continuing to flounder, because Todd is David Gregory with a love of politics. Notice that I used the terms politics, not policy or journalism.

No one expects the president to be friends with the people who are covering him/her, but the media’s openly hostile treatment of this president has more to do with petty grudges than a job description. The DC media hate this president because he won’t play their game. He doesn’t suck up to them or buy into the whole DC hierarchy. If Obama embraced the symbiotic relationship between the DC media and the White House, the treatment he received would probably be different.

Instead of playing the ego game that the media demands, Obama’s White House has consistently demonstrated how unimportant the DC press are. The most recent example of this came when the president used Facebook to announce his speech outlining his executive action immigration.

Faced with a changing landscape that is making them irrelevant, the Beltway press has taken out their rage on Obama. Chuck Todd is sad, and I would also add pathetic. He is quickly becoming a dinosaur facing extinction, because the way political leaders interact with their constituents is changing and no amount of sad whining can bring back the status that is evaporating for the mainstream press.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association