By Don Irvine ——Bio and Archives--December 7, 2010
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Former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather says President Obama’s caught in a “political nightmare” over the likely extension of the Bush tax cuts for another two years. Rather, speaking on MSNBC’s Jansing & Company said an extension of those cuts will infuriate the left and lead to a Democratic primary challenge against the president in 2012:Mainstream media liberals like Rather have been struggling as of late with the Obama presidency as they have watched their high hopes from November 2008 disintegrate into a sweeping loss in last month’s mid term election that has greatly weakened the president. While Rather may not be as influential as he used to be he can still grab a few headlines when he speaks and in this case he is mostly on target as he issues his wake up call to Obama. Besides the issues that Rather mentioned Obama received more bad news today when it was revealed that his approval ratings had dipped below those of president Bush, who limped out of office two years ago. All the liberal media bias in the world can’t hide the poor performance and bleak outlook for Obama and that’s a real problem for the administration.This is a political nightmare for Barack Obama as president. The more-left portion of his party hates this with a passion. And politically, within his own party, if this goes through, Barack Obama will be in a position to have his shirttail on fire, his back to the wall, and the bill collector at the door. Which is metaphorically a way of saying he’s almost guaranteed — if this goes through — to have a serious challenge in a Democratic primary for president in 2012.Say what you will about Rather. You’ve gotta love those “Things are getting hotter than a Times Square Rolex” Ratherisms. But the “back against the wall, shirttails on fire” is a retread Rather first used with Al Gore during the 2000 Florida recount. (For a complete list of Ratherisms, including ever-popular “this race is shakier than cafeteria Jell-O,” go here.) Rather says time is running out for Obama to restore his image among his own Democratic Party base, who are increasingly fed up:The perception of [Obama] is that he won’t fight for anything… Many of the heavy contributors to the Democratic Party are beyond shock about this happening, and are saying to themselves, ‘This guy . . . has about four to six months to turn the perception of him and the party around or we’ve got to start thinking about somebody else in 2012.’
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Don Irvine is the chairman of Accuracy in Media and its sister organization Accuracy in Academia. As the son of Reed Irvine, who launched AIM in 1969, he developed an understanding of media bias at an early age, and has been actively involved with AIM for over 30 years.