Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The World's First Media-Generated Religion

The Fourth Estate

Ultimately, this is a story about the news media. In this century, the news is the news. McLuhan's “the medium is the message” takes on a more literal meaning.

Truth for truth's sake has been displaced by advocacy journalism. “Just the facts” faded away with Joe Friday. Today's reporters see themselves as moral arbiters on matters large and small. No longer can we enjoy escape as an unfettered luxury. Yesterday's sportscasters gave us plays and analysis. Today we endure finger-wagging sophists who lecture us on gun policy, spousal abuse, child rearing, the dangers of club drugs and much, much more.

American journalism is still amazing when it wants to be. Case in point, September 11, 2001. Every news outlet provided an accurate narrative. This is what happened and this is how it happened. The only punditry was an echoing of the theme, “we got to wake-up.”

Time passed and the editorial displaced the narrative. The media would prop up the imposition of the Patriot Act, indefinite detention and the creation of a money-burning terrorist organization named Department of Homeland Security. Fingers would point at Bill Clinton for passing at the chance to nab Osama Bin Laden and for hitting the snooze button after the first World Trade Center bombing and again after the suicide bombing of the USS Cole. These charges would be countered with claims that the Bush family and the Bin Ladens were cozier than we had imagined, the president ignored his security briefings and George W. Bush was fundamentally stupid and inherently evil. Objectivity was extinguished and has yet to be reignited.

Some observers have attributed the Fourth Estate's inordinate affection for Barack Obama to political bias and only political bias. It is my position that this is more about zealotry than ideology. I will have to subject the reader to a semantic interlude. Please bear with me.

There is a popular idea that America is an ongoing tug of war between Liberalism and Conservatism. I reject that model for a multitude of reasons and I will briefly summarize. Conservatism is not an ism in the same sense that other isms are isms. Conservatism is a contextual ism.

Conservatism is an attitude that invites respect for tradition, skepticism about untested or unproven ideas and a reverence for those principles, themes and institutions that have worn well over time. Conservatism takes the long view of history. Beyond political philosophy, be it business, finance, art, entertainment, education, the management of athletic institutions, etc., the conservative approach is to be wary of fads and trends and magic beans.

To reiterate, Conservatism in all of its many forms, is contextual. American Conservatism does not equal Russian Conservatism does not equal Iranian Conservatism does not equal Ugandan Conservatism. Their respective histories shape the same clay into vastly different sculptures.

American Conservatives mistake a political coalition for a political philosophy. The Republicans of the Nixon-Reagan era were able to coax four cartels to sleep under the same tent: The national security conservatives, the fiscal conservatives, the social policy conservatives and the law and order conservatives were able to endure each others company long enough to keep the GOP in the White House for twenty of twenty four years. When each group realized that the other groups did not share their agenda, the tent just was not as spacious as it had once seemed.

Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter and Michael Savage love to bash liberals. On a commercial level that is an excellent strategy. Us vs. them. Good vs. evil. One devil only. People have gotten absurdly wealthy off this formula. Accuracy be damned.

The liberal bashers stack the deck. Any and all human vice, flaw and folly is labeled, what else? Liberalism. The Limbaugh world view has some glaring oversights. I attended Catholic schools and most of my teachers were people who had taken vows of chastity, poverty and obedience. Their political beliefs, to the extent that they expressed them, were largely consistent with their vows. They were socially conservative, law and order types. Unlike Limbaugh's caricature, they were suspicious of, if not hostile to, the premise of free enterprise. They did not like warfare and tended to be wary of the Pentagon.

These people were not political anomalies. New Deal Democrats were mostly religious folk who believed in law and order and a strong America. Liberalism is by no means the antithesis of conservatism. In the broadest sense, liberalism is the belief that every person is important. Liberalism, in the John Locke sense of the term, has never been popular.

There are a few liberals around. Let's see, there's Nat Henthoff. There's Alan Dershowitz but he's retiring. There's Bernard Goldberg. I'm sure there are other famous liberals but none come to mind.

There are people who call themselves classical liberals but they are also few in number. There is Richard Epstein and John Stossel and the late F. A. Hayek and the late Milton Friedman and umm...if they held a convention of classical liberals, it could probably take place in an elevator without disrupting the other passengers.

Almost as soon as Locke had said his bit about a natural right to life, liberty and property, the movement was hijacked by Leftists. I shudder to use the terms Leftist and Leftism because it implies that its antithesis is Rightism or Right Wing ism. The problem there is that even though Leftism has maintained a consistent meaning, the right wing does not designate a core set of principles. The right wing is a hodgepodge of any and all who are critical of the Left.

I don't know who compiled the first Left/Right political spectrum but I am certain it was a Leftist. How did the Right get stuck with Hitler? He was the leader of The National Socialist Party (NAZI) and all other socialists get stuck on the far left end of the spectrum. Why can't Adolf join Papa Joe and The Chairman on the sinister wing where he belongs? Similarly, why do all racists get filed left except white racists, who are sorted to the right?

Maybe it's our love of duality that makes us preserve the left/right simplism. Richard Nolan designed a two dimensional Nolan Chart to categorize political thought. I have also heard of an eight point chart and one that incorporates religion into the Nolan Chart that expands into three dimensions. More complexity might not be the answer. Who wants to summon GPS to describe their political leanings?

Still, the one directional, one dimensional model is frustrating. I have seen at least three books called “Beyond Left and Right” (usually followed by a subtitle) that now seem to be out of print. As we speak, Amazon lists at least four books entitled “Beyond Left and Right” (all with different subtitles.)

“Beyond Left and Right” is the subtitle to another book. There are variations that incorporate Left and Right into the title or subtitle and one clever marketeer called his book “Beyond Right and Left...” That's the way to distance yourself from the mob.

If a one dimensional political model is necessary then probably the best model would route totalitarianism to one terminus and individualism to the other. The continuum loses its relevance with the playing of favorites, loopholes and the exceptions to rules. For thee and not thou and for thou and not thee turns an arrow into a plate of spaghetti.

I propose a model of centralism/decentralism. Centralism does not equal centrism as defined by the one dimensional model. Those "clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right," "let's put the swing back into swing vote" who are never swayed by extremism in any form and whose lack of bias allows them to spot the flaws in the major political players. That's not who we are referring to.

Across year and mile two characteristics have defined the Left: elitist authoritarianism and authoritarian elitism. That is not mere word play. The two concepts are not identical but they are close enough in meaning that for now, we can lump them together in one bin, the one labeled "authoritarian elitism."

One might be tempted to use the term, herd or flock or school to describe Centralists but those are egalitarian collectives. The caste system Centralism so esteems is more characteristic of a colony or a hive. They consciously embrace hierarchy and to further those ends they produce bureaucracy, celebrity, dynastic political families and legacy admissions to institutions of higher learning.

Centralists naturally believe in Centralism: Central planning, central banking, centralized power, a common core long before there was a Common Core. In Centralist utopia the capitol is the nexus for all capital. Every penny is ideally tracked to the central wheelhouse, where it is then wisely rerouted according to the judgment of the central engineers.

Centralism parts company from believers in natural law or God-given rights. Centralists sanction select freedoms and grant them only to deserving parties. Theirs is a top-down management housed in concern for the less fortunate. However, Centralist compassion is always limited to those demographics who can be used as political pawns.

Centralism is premised on centralized thinking. A muddled but intolerant style of thinking is at the core of Centralism. That style is reflexive, impulsive, visceral, dualistic, simplistic often to the point of silliness and the style is sometimes self-contradictory. The style has infiltrated every facet of the news media. News people, best as they are able, transform the bubbling cauldron of Centralist feeling into text, symbol, pixel and video. What emerges is Fourth Estate Orthodoxy.

Fourth Estate Orthodoxy is the dominant orthodoxy of the day. Its breadth and depth is underestimated, if it is estimated at all. So too is the power of its influence. For most of us most of the time Fourth Estate Orthodoxy is our default setting. If we rarely or never think about a given subject we usually adopt the media consensus viewpoint and adopt that as our own.

Marsha Linehan is a giant in the field of clinical psychology. She formulated Dialectical Behavior Therapy and is highly respected for her work with borderline personality disorder and her work with suicidal people. In one of her training videos she talks about the rationalization of the self-destructive mind. They think things will get better if they kill themselves. They will go to heaven or be reunited with lost relatives. Then Linehan says something that is both ironic and fervently anti-ironic. Addressing the suicidal patient's beliefs, Linehan says she has not read such things in the “New York Times.”

Chuckles ripple but an afterthought never fades. The “New York Times” is indeed the gospel truth for a lot of people, especially educated people. The most powerful and influential people in the country are adherents to Fourth Estate Orthodoxy. That would include most of academia, most elected office holders, captains of industry and dwellers of upscale suburbs. Old media might have lost market share but she still has the attention of movers and shakers and the people formerly known as the best and the brightest.

Fourth Estate Orthodoxy is broad in its scope. Religions should be seen and not heard. Paranormal activity does not exist. The Warren Report is infallible. Social scientists are experts on just about everything. Men are bad unless they act like women. Racism is good and noble and just unless it is practiced by white people and then it becomes the very worst of evils. Guns are not to be treated as inanimate objects. Drugs either. Global warming exists and if it doesn't we will call it climate change and pretend that it does. And on and on and on. The Laws of Leviticus were nowhere near as extensive.

Let us return for a minute to the term “right wing.” As previously stated, that term has always been a catch-all, quite unlike the authoritarian elitism that has always defined what was called the Left. In the past decade the media have stepped up the use of the “right wing” label. A social conservative is called a right winger. So too is the constitutionalist. The LaRouchian. The conspiracy theorist. The self-identified conservative. The libertarian. The Golden Dawn political party. The anti-illegal immigrationist, the anti-abortionist, the Tea Party activist, the global warming denier....

These might look like unaffiliated and even unrelated entities but to the Centralist mindset, they are one and all “Not Us.” The tightly compressed Centralist hive sees every outlier and straggler in every direction, as a giant collective Gaijin. In the philosophical realm, the antithesis of Centralism is Decentralism. In the real world the opponents of Centralism are Non-Centralists or “Not Us” or “Right Wingers.” The Fourth Estate has dutifully identified the barbarians.

Years ago I wrote a little essay called “The Three Universal Biases of The News Media.” I recycled the column a couple of times, the last time at my blog, Post Obotomy Syndrome on June 29, 2009. The essence holds up but times have changed my perspective. I had underestimated the Cult of Obama's influence on The Fourth Estate.

The original three universal biases were:

1. Bias for simplicity.
2. Bias against dissent.
3. Bias against resistance.

To that I would add a fourth bias that now eclipses all else. We are now witness to Bias for The Divinity of Barack Obama.

Let's review the status of the original biases. The bias for simplicity has evolved for lack of a better term. Yes, there is still a bias for simplicity but there has emerged an even stronger bias for simplism. We have already made that distinction elsewhere so I won't rehash that now. I am reluctant to classify simplicity and simplism as separate biases because it is usually a matter of degree, not kind.

The bias against dissent has strengthened beyond belief. We find a Cheryl Atkisson here and there but they are aberrations. Never before has the all for one/one for all, circle the wagons, we are all in this together mentality bounded the media so tightly. Unity is achieved! Consensus on all matters! We will never expose the Obama Halo and the Fainting Woman theatrics and of course we will not discuss voter fraud, the Benghazi cover-up and the IRS scandal—the biggest scandal in United States History! We are Borg!

Bias against resistance. That has changed. There was a time when Jimmy Olsen charted the course of lesser resistance. Grab a big enough megaphone and you were as a border collie unto a stray lamb. That changed with Barack Obama. Despite dwindling audiences and competition from the Fifth Estate, the news media have remained loyal to Obama. How is it that possible? The emergence of a fourth universal bias.

The fourth universal bias of the news media is the bias for the divinity of Barack Obama. More specifically, the belief in the unique metaphysical qualities of Barack Obama. That bias is, as the pundits say, a game changer.

To review the four universal biases of The Fourth Estate:

1. Bias for simplicity (Has gotten more extreme. Simplism often displaces simplicity.)
2. Bias against dissent (Stronger than ever.)
3. Bias against resistance (Not what it once was but let's not shroud him just yet.)
4. Bias for the divinity of Barack Obama (This bias now eclipses all others.)

Before we move on, I would like to single out one book that captures the hows and whys of the emerging Fourth Estate Orthodoxy. “The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS” by Michael Fumento is not one more AIDS theory and it is not even a little bit homophobic. Written in 1993, it is an analysis of the media coverage of a tragic epidemic.

Fumento identifies significant trends. One, the triumph of advocacy journalism over truth. Two, the rise of political correctness, which is Fourth Estate Orthodoxy in its most ridiculous manifestations. The bias for simplicity, the bias against dissent and the bias against resistance are displayed in vivid detail.

Most importantly, Fumento meticulously illustrates how an elaborate hoax can be advanced without the telling of one overt lie. Half-truth and the willful omission of significant fact are all that is needed to distort reality in a big, big way. There are parallels to the media coverage of the AIDS epidemic and yes, their later coverage of the life and times of Barack Obama.

Barack Obama might not be remembered for anything presidential other than his record deficits that will be felt for decades. The ACA will either be repealed or trimmed to a scale model of itself or it will collapse under its own weight. There will be nothing like a Hoover Dam to honor Obama's legacy. No moon landing. No Pax Americana. The country is on course for eight years of stagnation.

Where Barack Obama leaves his mark will be seen in his impact on the Fourth Estate. We will lay witness to a startling pair of “Before” and “After” snapshots. Whether or not anyone shouts out, “Ill take a bottle!”remains to be seen.

Idolatry Versus Ideology

The news media do not usually cover news media. They are a club. Theirs is perhaps the most insular profession in America. There might be pecking orders and rivalries and jealousy galore but they are good at keeping their grievances in-house. They like to refer to one another as colleagues.

Bernard Goldberg reminds us that there is no secret handshake. None is needed. In this finely-screened guild, dissidents are not recruited or welcomed. Club members often graduate from good schools but nonetheless they do have dimwits in their ranks. They are not necessarily stupid but they will deliberately promote stupidity when duty calls.

Members of the news media are haughty and cavalier and every word in the thesaurus for both haughty and cavalier accurately describes them. No exceptions. They are parochial and provincial and every word in the thesaurus for both parochial and provincial accurately describes them. No exceptions.

Smugly superior, tirelessly loyal to their clan, secular in the extreme.

Secularists are notoriously vulnerable to cult leaders. Offbeat religions have much better success recruiting at Harvard or Yale than at Brigham Young or Oral Roberts. The Cult of Obama would find the ranks of the secularist media to be their Happy Hunting Ground.

Observers might denounce media bias but they often mistake loyalty to proper noun for loyalty to principle. In the case of Barack Obama, idolatry is often mistaken for ideology. The Obamacist media practice unconditional love for their beloved leader.

A purely objective press has never existed. We have discussed press prejudices and how they have evolved over time. Yes, there has always been a bias against dissent, an endorsement of pack journalism for the good of the pack. What was absent until until 2008 was an ongoing consensus on behalf of matters related to one man and his agenda.

The news media might have been chummy and sniffy but they were also independent. Even during times of war—World War II being the possible exception—news media expressed diverse viewpoints. That is no longer the case.

“Mysticism is unifying. Reason is divisive. “ So says Thomas Szasz. Ideology has its limits. An idea as simple as “the government should help the poor” immediately encounters an obstacle course. How do we help the poor? Should we first help those who help themselves? Should we first help those who cannot help themselves? Should we first help those who will not help themselves in hopes of lifting their spirits? Should we help poor people find work or just give them cash? Would it be better to give poor people food stamps and free education and subsidized housing than to give them cash? Should we help intact families more than single mothers or vice versa? Reason divides.

George Patton said, “If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.” To that, our news media reply in unison “Yes we can!” For many journalists, Obamacism is their first religious experience. For most journalists, Barack Obama is the only deity they love and revere. For all members of the Fourth Estate, Obamacism is the only religion that matters.

Issues do not matter to the Obamacist. Candidate Obama excoriated President Bush for his profligacy, “two wars on a credit card.” ,”..Bank of China credit card...” more references to credit cards, calling deficits unpatriotic, etc. President Obama would ultimately spend more rapidly and more recklessly than any president in history, arguably with little or nothing to show for it. The press are behind their deity all the way, They are zealots, not ideologues.

President Obama bears no resemblance to Candidate Obama in 2008 or even Candidate Obama in 2012 when the press adroitly assisted the incumbent in running against his own record. Republicans. The Tea Party. Congress. His rivals who acted as rivals. Rush Limbaugh. These entities all served as scapegoats for the Administration's ongoing failure. Never is anything the president's fault. Never.

The Obamacist media mob praised the Affordable Care Act without reading it. Through executive order and Secretarial fiat, the ACA morphed and shape-shifted and evolved into something much different from its legislative form. The chorus backed their deity every step of the way. Changes in law were but words on paper. Love and worship of their leader is all that mattered.

Previous executives waffled or flip-flopped. Barack Obama pivots and grows and evolves. Never indecisive, always reflective. One Obamacist even coined a term to prop up their divinity: He leads from behind. Unconditional love. Unending loyalty. Consensus achieved.

Obamacism is a media-created, media-generated, media-fed religion. A land of skeptics found its savior. Finally, there was someone worthy of their deference. We will examine the techniques of persuasion and deception that made Obamacism possible. We need to reemphasize Obamacism's universal support from the Fourth Estate. Their unanimous, total and unending loyalty has made the impossible a reality.

Journalists: If You Can't Beat Them, Buy Them

We can speculate about The Fourth Estate's motives and loyalties and our conclusions can be dismissed as partisanship but two facts scream bias. 1. The Obama Administration has hired a record number of mainstream reporters to work for them. 2. The Obama Administration has employed at least four relatives of high level news people.

Let's examine the second statement first. David Rhoades is the president of CBS News. His brother, Ben Rhoades is a White House national security battle.

Virginia Mosely is a CNN Vice President and Washington Bureau Chief. She is married to Tom Nides, a Deputy Secretary of State in the Obama Administration.

Former White House Press Secretary, Jay Carney, is married to ABC News senior national correspondent, Claire Shipman.

Another president of a network news division, Ben Sherwood of ABC News, is the brother of special adviser to Barack Obama, Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall.

<http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/09/07/mainstream-media-honchos-related-towhite-house-officials>

In the old days, we would call this graft. This behavior might be legal but it is highly unethical. Whatever credibility the Fourth Estate might have had left in its account, it has squanderd it in the Obama Administration.

Not quite as egregious is the Obama Administration practice of hiring journalists on a scale never before seen. That practice has a long tradition and I am not of the opinion that reporters should be blackballed but the Obama Administration exceeds with excess.

On May 5, 2009 Ed O'Keefe of 'The Washington Post” wrote an article on the bumper crop of administration jobs awarded to news people. Eleven lucky recipients not counting David Axelrod, who is a former reporter at “Chicago Tribune.” One of the mentioned was a Bush Administration holdover, Geoff Morrell.

Warren Bass: Former deputy editor of The Post's Sunday Outlook now serves as an adviser and speechwriter for U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice.

Rosa Brooks: The former Los Angeles Times op-ed columnist now advises Michelle Fluornoy at the Defense Department.

The aforementioned Jay Carney: The former TIME Magazine Moscow bureau chief and campaign chronicler (and husband of ABC's Claire Shipman) now serves as communications director for Vice President Biden.

Linda Douglass: Former Congressional correspondent for CBS and ABC and writer/editor at “National Journal” left journalism last year to serve as traveling press secretary for the Obama campaign. She'll help guide the administration's communications efforts during this summer's battle over health care reform, working out of the Department of Health and Human Services and the White House.

Peter Gosselin: The former “Los Angeles Times” reporter now writes speeches for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

David Hoff: The “Education Week” reporter and blogger started yesterday on the communications staff at the Education Department.

Beverley Lumpkin: A former Justice Department reporter/producer for ABC and CBS, she left journalism, worked for the Project on Government Oversight and joined DOJ last month as press secretary, turning sources into colleagues.

Geoff Morrell: A holdover from the Bush administration, the former ABC newsman became spokesman for Defense Secretary Robert Gates in 2007.

Rick Weiss: Former Washington Post science reporter left for the Center for American Progress and now serves as communications director and senior policy strategist for the White House Office of Science and Technology.

Jill Zuckman: The former Washington correspondent for “Chicago Tribune” works with Ray LaHood as communications director at the Department of Transportation.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta: The CNN/CBS reporter and Atlanta-based neurosurgeon threw his hat into the ring for the surgeon general job, but eventually withdrew because of the "timing."

The previously medntioned David Axelrod: President Obama's senior adviser once worked as a Chicago Tribune reporter.

On February 17, 2012 Paul Bedard of the “Washington Examiner” listed 19 reporters and news executives who had gone to work for the Administration. Bedard reported that to be a record number of news people hired by an administration.

Records are made to be broken. On September 12, 2013, Elspeth Reeve reported at The Wire that the Obama Administration had hired its 24th journalist, former “Time” managing editor, Rick Stengel.

The following list is from Reeve's column. We will omit Hoff, Zuckman, Weiss and Douglas.

Douglas Frantz, decades-long media hack at “New York Times” and “Los Angelas Times” went to work for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 2009. In May, 2012 he went to work as “Washington Post” national security editor. In September, 2013 he was employed by the State Department.

In January 2013 “Boston Globe” online politics editor Glen Johnson went to work for Secretary of State John Kerry as a senior adviser.

Former “The Washington Post” Federal Diary columnist Stephen Barr went to work for the Labor Department as senior managing director of the Office of Public Affairs in February 2012.

Shailagh Murray of“The Washington Post” became the Vice President's communications director in March 2011.

Rosa Brooks of “Los Angeles Times” was counselor to undersecretary of defense Michele Flournoy from April 2009 to July 2011.

Former “The Washington Post” film critic Desson Thomson went to work as a speechwriter for the U.S. Ambassador to UK, Louis Susman.

Roberts Baskin, TV journalist and Cneter for Public Policy administrator went to work at HHS in August 2009 as a senior communications adviser.

Washington Post Outlook section deputy editor Warren Bass was hired by then-UN ambassador Susan Rice as director of speechwriting in 2009.

Former CNN senior political producer Sasha Johnson became a spokesman for Department of Transportation in May 2009. she later became chief of staff for Federal Aviation Administration.

“New York Times” reporter Eric Dash went to work for The Treasury Department's public affairs office in 2012.

MSNBC producer Anthony Reyes also went to work at The Treasury Department's public affairs office in 2012.

Aneesh Raman left CNN to work for Obama's campaign in 2008. He would later be employed as an Obama speechwriter.

CNN national security correpondent Jim Sciutto went to work for U. S. Ambassador to China Gary Locke as chief of staff from 2011 to 2013.

“San Francisco Chronicle” reporter Kelly Zito went to work for the EPA's public affairs office in August 2011.

Samantha Power went from reporter to working for Senator Obama to working for president Obama to ambassador to the United Nations.

Not mentioned in any of the articles listed above are the graduates who went to work in media. Robert Gibbs was hired at MSNBC before founding The Incite Agency. His successor, Jay Carney ended up at CNN. Peter Gosselin went from “Los Angelos Times” to speechwriter for Timothy Geithner to Senior Healthcare Analyst for “Bloomberg Government.”

The miasma of Ted Baxters serving the Obama Administration was rationalized by a poor economy and mainstream media's vanishing audience in both print and electronic media as well as the opportunity to participate in the highly noble mission of creating the most transparent administration in US History (insert laugh track here.) But it does seem in the examples of Gibbs, Gosselin and Carney, that old media has plenty of opportunity for Obama loyalists.

The Vow Of Silence

To the extent that I have thought about how America might someday succumb to a cult leader, it never occurred to me that the hijacker would be a diminutively-talented middle aged man who would never hold a real job until he would be fast-tracked to the White House. Over the years I have enjoyed dystopian novels like "1984", "Alongside Night", "This Perfect Day" to name a few. I enjoy radio and Internet talk show hosts who entertain half-baked conspiracy ideas.

When the topic of mind control would arise in pop culture—novels, movies, late night talk radio—it always involved elaborate methods: pinpoint radio waves, subliminal programming, psychedelic drugs, soporific drugs, something in the water supply, mass hallucination...who knew that such sophistication would not be necessary?

With the cooperation of one hundred per cent—not 99.999% but 100%--of the news media, America would become Jonestown. Have 100% of the Fourth Estate participate in the conspiracy to promote the deification of Barack Obama? No. Did 100% of the Fourth Estate practice a vow of silence? Yes.

Obama's handlers promoted his deification through techniques that were cheesy, sleazy, tawdry and so loudly deceptive as to be insulting. They were also highly effective.

The Obama Halo

A handful of loyal photographers and editors advanced the Obama Halo. That is, they made sure that only the citizenry who waded in the shallow end of the information pool only witnessed their deity with a contrived image of cicular illumination swirling around the subject's head. The following techniques were used for this chicanery.

1. Candidate Obama was repeatedly photographed with the Obama campaign logo as a backdrop in such a way as to make the logo look like a halo.
2. President Obama was repeatedly photogr with the Presidential Seal as a backdrop in such a way as to make the seal look like a halo.
3. Barack Obama was photographed with the Colorado State Flag as a backdrop in such a way as to make the flag look like a halo.
4. Other circular objects and decorations werre used a backdrop to make them look like a halo.
5. Flash from cameras often appeared above and around Barack Obama's head.
6. Barack Obama was frequently photographed silhouetting extreme illumination of unknown origin.
7. Post-production touch ups were used in a similar manner to make Barack Obama appear to have a visible aura.
8. Barack Obama was frequently photographed from a toe view that gave him a towering presence and provided ceiling lights as a backdrop. Ceiling lights and chandeliers were often used to provide a halo effect for Obama.
9. Publications like "New Republic" and "Newsweek" employed false irony to display Barack Obama with a halo. The accompanying adulation usually revealed their true editorial perspective, which is to say reverence in the extreme.
10. Campaign posters of Barack Obama often featured drawings of Barack Obama emanating beams of light. Journalists were enthusiastic about displaying these images in their publications.

Coupled with the scarcity of pictures of Obama yawning or frowning or otherwise looking human, the Obama Halo became commonplace.

A quick aside. This is being written as an ebook. If it were a paper book I would gather examples to make my case. The presumption here is that if one can download an ebook, one can do a quick search of "Obama Halo" which will yield dozens upon dozens of examples of contrived divinity. One can visit the website howamericabecamejonestown.com to see some examples.

The Obama Halo was one of the most blasphemously clever manipulations of the low-interest, low-information, low-involvement, low-analysis news recipient. If the only image of a candidate a person sees is one of celestial illumination, what chance would his opponent have? It was but a handful of photographers, editors and publicists who gave us the Obama Halo. However, one hundred per cent—not 99.99% or 99.999%--100% of journalists took a vow of silence on this unsubtle put-on.The spirit of Barnum lives on in the Fourth Estate.

Fainting Women:

On thirteen occasions women supposably fainted when Candidate Obama and later, President Obama happened to be speaking. Unless one is seriously committed to willful blindness, it is hard to miss the guide wires. Again, the Fourth Estate has tpledged an oath of Omerta on this flimflam. One hundred per cent! These days it is hard to get a consensus on anything but one hundred per cent—not 99.99% or 99.999%--100% of esteemed colleagues honored a vow of silence.

Here is the List of 13 Obama fainting women cases!
1)Feb 24th 2007 L.A. California
2)Sept. 8th 2007 Santa Barbara Ca
3)Dec 8th 2007 Des Moines Iowa
4)Jan 8th 2008 Hanover NH
5)Feb 4th 2008 Hartford CN
6)Feb 8th 2008 Key Arena in Seattle
7)May 2nd 2008 Charlotte N.C.
​8)April 28th 2009 FBI HQ Speech
9)March 15th 2010 Ohio Rally Speech
10)Oct. 7th 2010 Maryland Speech
11)March 1st 1012 New Hampshire
​12)March 7th 2012 N.Carolina Speech
13)October 2013 Speech in Rose Garden
​Source: Youtube member DAHBOO77 

If the consequences of two Obama terms were not so tragic for so many, Obama's fainting ladies would be laugh out loud hysterical. In the infamous Rose Garden speech our divine president uses eyes in the back of his head to spot a falling damsel. Every faint occurs after Obama starts speaking, never before or after. The victim is always planted near the speaker. On two occassions, Candidate Obama grabs a bottle of water conveniently stashed nearby which he then tosses to the audience to awaken Sleeping Beauty from her untimely slumber. Oh, and the odds of the unconscious party being female thirteen of thirteen times? 8191 to 1.

If these are not hokey, staged events designed to dupe the Obama faithful, we have an even worse situation on our hands: bad judgment in the extreme. Boy Scouts know you do not give water to an unconscious person but the man who is so smart that he is bored with the presidency never got that memo. Another time, the mangod offers a diagnosis from the stage. She just didn't eat. That's why she fainted. Not just amazing recuperative powers but something approaching omniscience is on display. This guy can give medical advice from one hundred feet.

A person can lose consciousness for a multitude of reasons: diabetic shock, seizure, stroke, heart attack, intense pain, shortage of breath...it's a pretty long list. It is the height of irresponsible behavior for a layperson to assess the cause of unconscious from a distance and to provide dangerous instructions to the onlookers. This is perhaps the one time we can be thankful that Barack Obama is a compulsively dishonest human being. No one really fainted so his reckless advice did not matter. Just more deception from a chronic deceiver.

Had Harry Truman attempted a halo or deceived the public with fainting maidens he would have been laughed out of town. The press would have exposed the ruse and the public would be appalled if not outraged. Same with Eisenhower or Kennedy and every other candidate or president or public figure who has ever graced the United States. But with Barack Obama, one hundred percent of journalists have maintained a vow of silence for their beloved deity.

The Obama Halo, staged faintings and rescues and the conspiracy of silence in the press would foreshadow the daily activities of the least transparent, least honest administration in US History.