ANOTHER FREE PASS FOR OBAMA – AT 11:28 A.M. ET:  We've said before, we say again, that some of the British columnists have provided the sharpest commentary on the Obama administration.  It was some of these same Brits who first identified flaws in this administration that our our mainstream media ignored.

And the mainstream media is in the "ignoring" mode again.  Nile Gardiner notes it in London's Telegraph:

...the WikiLeaks scandal to date has not resulted in demonstrable consequences for the Obama presidency or for the president himself. This despite the fact the Obama administration appears to have done little to halt the latest leak, even though this is the third unlawful disclosure of government documents this year.
The Obama team has been spectacularly caught napping by America’s enemies like a deer in the headlights. As Marc Thiessen noted in a superb piece earlier this week:

Because of its failure to act, responsibility for the damage done by these most recent disclosures now rests with the Obama administration. Perhaps this latest release crosses a line that will finally spur the administration to action.

And...

There will certainly be Congressional hearings into the leaks, and the US administration’s handling of it, with both the House and Senate seeking answers to a massive security breach. Should these hearings produce clear evidence the Obama administration was culpably negligent, the administration will then no longer enjoy the benefit of the doubt, and will suffer the political consequences it is due.

No such benefit of the doubt would have been accorded to the previous president of the United States, however. Imagine what the response would have been if George W. Bush was president and not Barack Obama? The Left would have been up in arms with pitchforks at the ready, demanding the resignation of his Secretary of State and key intelligence officials, and all but putting the administration on trial.

You can, if you close your eyes, almost hear those voices:  Couric, Olbermann, Matthews, and the ever-boring Christiane Amanpour. 

President Obama, on the other hand, has been given a free pass so far, and has not even felt the need to comment personally on this latest scandal, which happened directly on his watch. Is there a blatant double standard which the Left, and the overwhelmingly liberal “mainstream” media, applies in the United States? Absolutely. And the WikiLeaks fiasco just further confirms it.

COMMENT:  Nile is right, as he usually is.  Despite all the failures of this administration, the double standard still exists, and will be reinforced in time for the 2012 election.  The mainstream media reflects the last gasp of the sixties generation, and will not give up its illusions easily.

I suspect that there are a number of thoughtful people in the media who are troubled by the leaks, and the way The New York Times has exploited them.  But there is fear in media, as in any other business.  There is careerism.  There is a "go along" mentality, the better to assure one's future. 

My dean at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism, Edward W. Barrett, once recommended that journalists try to establish a "go to hell" fund, so they could resign in protest if they saw something they couldn't accept.  It's a good idea.  But don't look for too many resignations in protest, even among those who might have such a fund.  Life in some institutions is just too cushy to allow for much dissent.

December 4, 2010