Anyone who follows politics knows that the mainstream media has two sets of rules: one set for conservatives and another set for liberals. Conservatives spend most of their time correcting smears and trying to explain to the public what they really believe. Liberals, on the other hand, can count on the press to hide their unpopular beliefs and put the best spin possible on everything they do. This is why you often hear Republicans say, "Imagine what they'd say if a Democrat had said that," while you almost never hear Democrats say, "Imagine what they'd say if a Republican had said that."
Those two separate sets of rules shape how politicians behave, how they're perceived, and the issues that they spend most of their time talking about. In Barack Obama's case, the media would be focusing on an entirely different set of issues if he were a Republican.
1) This guy is way too stupid to be President of the United States! Poor Dan Quayle was forever branded as stupid for misspelling the word potato. It's not often noted, however, that the card that he was given by the school had misspelled the word. Then there's Obama, the man who stammers without a teleprompter, the guy who won't release his college records. How does Quayle's gaffe compare to Obama thinking there are 57 states? Duhr! How about Obama walking into a window at the White House? Duhr, duhr! What about signing a guest book 2008 in 2011? Duhr, duhr, duhr! Obama's stupidity would be a staple of late night talk show jokes if he were a Republican.
2) Obama's an amateurish cowboy who's wrecking our image around the world! Obama has made Jimmy Carter look like a foreign policy mastermind since he got into the White House. Sure, he gets credit for getting Osama Bin Laden. When the military walked up to Obama and said, "We know where Bin Laden is. Can we go get him?" he made the "gutsy call" to say "yes." Of course, he's also damaged our relations with Britain, Israel, and Pakistan. He's screwed things up so badly with Pakistan that it's endangering the war effort in Afghanistan. His administration gave Russia a "reset button" that actually said "overcharge." The fact you probably don't even know about how badly we screwed things up in Honduras is telling. Then, there's Obama's impulsive and bizarre insertion of the American military into a civil war in Libya. If Obama were a Republican, the media would be telling us we need to get a Democrat in office to repair the damage caused by Obama's blundering.
3) Obama's going to bankrupt the country by giving our money to his corporate cronies! Remember when the media talked about the size of the deficit all the time? Remember when we heard about Halliburton and Blackwater on a daily basis? Oh, yes, that was when we had a Republican President. Now we've got the most wasteful spender in the history of our country in the White House, we're in danger of going bankrupt, and tens of billions in tax dollars have been transferred to corporations that have given money to the Democratic Party. Now suddenly the "fierce watchdogs of the press" have become completely complacent about corporate cronyism and the very real possibility that our country will turn into Greece within the next decade.
4) He's the job-killing, gas-price-raising, economy-wrecking President! Can you imagine the stories we'd see every day if a Republican were President? We'd have daily stories on the people left homeless by the "Obamaconomy," human interest stories about single mothers who can't feed their kids anymore, and we'd hear from experts every day about how Obama is killing jobs, raising costs at the pump, and destroying the economy with his policies. Remember how the press used to slip a reference to George Bush speaking in front of the "Mission Accomplished" banner into every story about Iraq? Well, they'd do the same thing with Barack Obama's empty promises about how his 1.1 trillion dollar stimulus would "save or create jobs." Can you hear them now?
"So, how's the economy looking? Gas prices still high? Are we seeing any impact of the stimulus yet? How many jobs have been 'saved or created' -- and that's a meaningless, made up phrase by the way..."
5) Obama's not an authentic black man. Black conservatives have their "blackness" challenged all the time, often by privileged white liberals who don't know any black people other than the ones who clean their mansions. If Barack Obama were a Republican, he'd be called an Oreo, a half-white house slave, and a white man pretending to be black. On the upside for the Clintons, Democrats would still be calling Bill Clinton the first (and only) black President.
6) He's an arrogant jerk who cares about no one but himself! Vacation, golf, shooting hoops -- the fun never stops for Barack Obama. It would be great if the rest of us could take that much time off, but our jobs keep us too busy. It's also fantastic that Obama finally went to Joplin, Missouri. If you're wondering why it took so long, well, they didn't have a golf course cleared until now. Have you heard that some Republicans have taken to calling Barack Obama "Mr. Spock" because of his "cool" demeanor? Yeah, well, I'm pretty sure Mr. Spock never wore mom jeans, he could talk without a teleprompter, and Bones was around to tell him, "Damnit Spock, it's not logical for the President to ignore the BP oil spill for so long. So, get your Vulcan behind in gear and do something!"