Here is the beginning of this morning\’s lead story in the New York Times:
TOKYO- President Obama encountered setbacks to two of his most cherishedforeign-policy projects on Thursday, as he failed to achieve a tradedeal that undergirds his strategic pivot to Asia and the Middle Eastpeace process suffered a potentially irreparable breakdown.
Mr.Obama had hoped to use his visit here to announce an agreement underwhich Japan would open its markets in rice, beef, poultry and pork, acritical step toward the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the proposedregional trade pact. But Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was not able toovercome entrenched resistance from Japan\’s farmers in time for thepresident\’s visit.
InJerusalem, Israel\’sannouncement that it was suspending stalemated peace negotiationswith the Palestinians, after areconciliation between the Palestine Liberation Organization andthe militant group Hamas, posed yet another obstacle to restarting atroubled peace process in which Secretary of State John Kerry hasbeen greatly invested.
Thesetbacks, though worlds apart in geography and history, speak to thecommon challenge Mr. Obama has had in translating his ideas andambitions into enduring policies. He has watched outside forcesunravel his best-laid plans, from resetting relations with Russia tomanaging the epochal political change in the Arab world. On Thursday,as Russia stagedmilitary exercises on the border with Ukraine, Mr. Kerrydenounced broken promises from the Kremlin but took no specificaction.
Does the Times remain a hopeless apologist for Obama? Yes it does. Please note that his failures are always someone else\’s fault (e.g. Japan\’s farmers, Palestinian Arabs – a major surprise, since the Times usually blames Israel – and “outside forces” whatever that means). But at least there is an acknowledgement that the failures exist at all.
By constrast, consider this morning\’s Today show. It had no stories on either of these major-league failures. But we did find out that Michael Phelps is swimming competitively again, Seth Meyers will host the Emmies and the latest on the British royal family….all breathtakingly important, I\’m sure; far more so than the US trade failure or the middle east peace failure, or the Ukraine, where, so far, we have done nothing that would deter putin.
The rest of the world continues to show how little regard, or respect, or concern it has for Barack Obama….while a major paper like the Times continues to find the blame elsewhere, and a major news network like NBC continues to just plain hide it from viewers altogether.
I talk a lot about media bias in here. This is why.
