The Washington Inquirer
The Washington Post is hastening its slide from the preeminent newspaper on national politics to a non-glossy celebrity tabloid. It has been obsessively covering Obama, whom they adoringly call “44,” since his sudden appearance two years ago, amplifying the adulation even more since he was elected. Now, I like Obama as much as the next guy, but this recent article (on their 44-blog) is too much.
A choice quote (emphasis mine)
On Sunday, Obama awoke early for a 7:15 a.m. workout at a gymnasium at a sleepy Marine Corps base on the island of Oahu. Michelle Obama, carrying an iPod and headphones, joined her husband for the 45-minute exercise session, according to a media pool report. As they emerged from the gym, Obama, in a gray shirt soaked with sweat, lifted his right hand to give a quick salute to a couple uniformed Marines standing nearby.
and:
Obama, a left-handed golfer, sported black shades and wore a white polo shirt, brown cargo shorts, short white socks and golf shoes. About midway through the course, Obama stopped by the snack bar, where he purchased two hot dogs, two passion-orange sodas, one Powerade and one Coke. He also bought two Spam musubi, a sushi-like Hawaiian delicacy consisting of Spam and fried egg on a slab of rice, all held together with a dried seaweed wrap. (He paid a total of $17.75, but it was unclear whether the president-elect ate a Spam musubi.)
Please tell me more about the musubi! Did he eat half and save the rest for later. Did he like it? Did it transport him to his Spam-eating days as a child child, frolicking on the beaches of Hawai’i, musubi in one hand, and a dream of changing the world in the other? So many questions, WP, so many questions!
As our economy burns, as the Feds hand over trillions of dollars to whomever asks for it, as thousands of Americans lose their jobs, this is the best original reporting the Post can produce. The newspaper that broke the Watergate scandal, the newspaper with 47 Pulitzer prizes, reads like an unneccesarily verbose twitter feed. The difference is the Post costs $.49/week.
Update (18.06): The comments on the article’s page make me lose even more faith in the WP’s readership.
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Tags: celebrities, media, msm, Washington Post