Obama Blames The Media

In a wide-ranging interview with liberal New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, Barack Obama lamented being blocked from fully implementing his left-wing agenda. Among the culprits Obama cited for standing in his way was -- I kid you not -- the media. Here's what Obama told Friedman:

"What you've seen with our politics, partly because of gerrymandering, partly because of the Balkanization of media so people just watch what reinforces their deepest biases, partly because of big money in politics, is increasingly politicians are rewarded for taking the most extreme, maximalist positions. Sooner or later, that catches up with you. You end up not being able to move forward on things we need to move forward on. … But because of this maximalist ideological position, we've been blocked."

American journalists are overwhelmingly liberal. They adored Obama. They treated him with kid gloves and helped him defeat Hillary Clinton and John McCain in 2008. Yet he is now complaining about the "Balkanization of media." Translated, this means there are just too many conservative media alternatives like Fox, talk radio and online conservative sites such as Breitbart, RedState, etc.

His second complaint is "big money in politics." That's rich! His campaign shattered fundraising records. Today Obama is attending his 401st fundraiser.

The biggest political donors in the country are liberal billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg. In fact, Forbes notes: "Twenty-six of the top 100 disclosing donors in America are billionaires. Democrats have gotten more money from Steyer and Bloomberg than Republicans have gotten from all 26 billionaires combined."

Media Finally Waking Up?

There's an old adage in politics that foreign policy rarely helps a president but it often hurts him. Foreign wars took their toll on Lyndon Johnson and George W. Bush. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union did little for the elder Bush.

And recent world events are certainly taking their toll on Barack Obama. His foreign policy approval rating is averaging about 38% according to recent polls.

Some left-leaning journalists may finally be waking up to the fact that the presidency is not, as Joe Biden put it, the place for "on the job training." Just consider these statements from some notable liberal journalists regarding Obama's foreign policy fiascos:

Kristen Powers, once described as one of the Democratic Party's "emerging national voices," said:

"[Obama] has not uttered the word 'Christian,' and now suddenly he throws it in with the Yazidis. … [Virginia Congressman Frank] Wolf has taken to the floor, I think, seven days in a row now, pleading with the administration: 'Please help these people.' … The White House has done nothing; they've said nothing. …

"I mean, it's really unbelievable, and he has no right to invoke humantiarianism, because he is not a humanitarian president. A humanitarian president does not sit quietly by, while hundreds of thousands of Christians in Iraq [are uprooted or killed] -- forget about the rest of the Middle East -- and doesn't say a word."

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell said this about Barack Obama's excuse for allowing ISIS to emerge as a threat in Iraq:

"The president, to say he didn't have intelligence -- this is not a hard target. This is Irbil. We have people there. The fact is, there was intelligence. To say they are shocked by Peshmerga on Saturday night is a farce. The White House wasn't listening."

NBC's Chuck Todd said this:

"I've been trying to figure out [Obama's] doctrine now for six years. He doesn't have one. … So look at the way he had intervened early in the Arab Spring and then he realized 'boy that was a mistake.' It's almost like he pushes and pulls between the idea of democracy first versus stability first. And he goes back and forth and messed around with democracy in Egypt, didn't work, in Libya, didn't work."

And there was this stinging rebuke from National Journal's Ron Fournier:

"This is a president that underestimated [ISIS] -- he called them jayvee (J.V.). He underestimated what was going to happen after Libya. He underestimated Putin. He's been the Commander-in-Chief or the Underestimater-in-Chief. … I wish I was more confident that the president really understood the threat to our homeland, though."

Et Tu, Hillary?

In an interview with the Atlantic, Hillary Clinton slams Obama's foreign policy. On Syria, Hillary said this:

"The failure to help build up a credible fighting force of the people who were the originators of the protests against Assad -- there were Islamists, there were secularists, there was everything in the middle -- the failure to do that left a big vacuum, which the jihadists have now filled."

One foreign policy blogger described Hillary's remarks as "very provocative." According to Politico, "Clinton's team gave the White House a warning that [the interview] had taken place."

It is odd watching Hillary attempt to distance herself from the president and his administration, in which she served for four years -- handling foreign policy for him.

But who is telling the truth?  White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes has said previously, "On the broad thrust of our foreign policy, she was fully on board."