President Obama made no secret of his eagerness for green energy. He campaigned on it and has devoted an important part of his administration to an ambitious green energy plan.
Yet, when earlier this week he called the owner of the Philadelphia Eagles, Jeff Lurie, to commend him for his intent to use alternative energy to entirely power Lincoln Financial Field, home of his Football franchise, the story got twisted. It was literally reduced to what, I am sure, was a preliminary chat during which Obama thanked Mr. Lurie for giving Michael Vick a second chance after his dog fight conviction and jail time.
Chris Matthews, on his Tuesday, December 28 edition of “Hardball”, echoing the conservative talkers, perennial Obama bashers, run with that bone thrown at them by Mr. Lurie. Mr. Matthews didn’t spend a minute talking about the main purpose of the President’s conversation with Mr. Lurie; he rather bashed the President for getting into social or cultural issues. Senseless, futile pandering to a hypothetical, thin conservative audience.
Mr. Lurie knew what he was doing when he talked about this portion of the conversation he had with the President. Not only did the story put his franchise on the spotlight, it also would likely increase its appeal in every sense of the word. Great PR move, and it cost him only a five minute conversation with a reporter.
The side story is what, in my opinion, is symptomatic of the state of the mainstream media. They like to refer to politicians as being in the tank of Big Business when they themselves constantly play naively into the hand of those same businesses. John McCain used to call them his base, Big Business has probably all along called them and is still calling them so, only secretly.
