Obama Signals That He Wants To Be Compared To Reagan: MSM Eagerly Complies

This would be funny if it wasn’t so sickeningly predictable.

For the past month or so, Obama has been ostentatiously advertising his desire to be compared to Ronald Reagan, a President he formerly detested.

Andrea Tantaros noted in her NY Daily News piece on Jan. 6:

Before departing on his Hawaiian holiday, Obama sought advice from Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein and David Gergen, an image adviser to both Reagan and Bill Clinton. While on vacation, his press secretary strategically announced over Twitter that his beach reading consisted of Lou Cannon‘s Reagan biography, “The Role of a Lifetime.” Obama aides are busy making comparisons between the two men – emphasizing Reagan’s troubles in his first term, and his rebound thereafter – with the hope of refurbishing Obama’s brand after a bruising midterm election cycle.

Today, Kyle Drennen reports at Newsbusters: All Three Networks Agree: Obama Sounded ‘Reaganesque’ in State of the Union:

During coverage of President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, all three broadcast networks, CBS, NBC and ABC, managed to compare the tone of the speech to that of Ronald Reagan. Reporters and pundits uniformly praised the supposed optimism of Obama. [Audio available here]

On CBS, Evening News anchor Katie Couric touted how political analyst Jeff Greenfield thought it was “down right Reaganesque” and that “some” have argued “this could be his Reagan moment.” Greenfield himself declared: “He kept talking about winning the future and that was always a big theme about Reagan….the constant reiteration of optimism….he was clearly striking rhetorical notes that reminded me of Mr. Reagan.”

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Meanwhile, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams noted how “The President [is] very sensitive lately, highly bothered by any kind of defeatism…that’s part of what he went after tonight.” Correspondent Andrea Mitchell chimed in: “That’s exactly what he was trying to get after and I think he was trying to invoke the optimism, the can-do spirit that brings to mind Ronald Reagan in these settings.”

As Brent Baker earlier reported on NewsBusters, ABC This Week host Christiane Amanpour proclaimed that Obama’s address was “full of sunny optimism, very Reaganesque, on and on about American exceptionalism in many, many instances and full of Kennedyesque encouragement to break a new frontier. That Sputnik moment was remarkable.”

Watch video here: http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/eyeblast.swf?v=hdqGuzkUkU

I should note that Raymond Arroyo held a “Who was the biggest Media Suck-Up” contest while he subbed on the Laura Ingraham Show, this morning, and  Amanpour won, hands down.

But there are plenty of suck-ups to choose from, and most of them are comparing Obama to Reagan, (just like he wants them to).

UPDATE:

Just by amazing coincidence:

President Obama met with several top news personalities and pundits on Tuesday before his State of the Union Address.

Per a White House pool report, the president met with the group for lunch at the White House this afternoon.