Sony, Kim Jong Un, and Obama
December 29, 2014
Sony Pictures recently received wall-to-wall press coverage for its craven and remarkably inept mishandling of the release of a low-brow comedy movie which offended North Korea’s brutal but buffoonish dictator, Kim Jong Un. The film, titled “The Interview,” was scheduled for Christmas Day release until North Korean cyber-thugs hacked Sony’s website and threatened terror attacks against theaters which screened the picture. Sony instantly caved and shelved the release in an attempt to appease their tyrannical tormentors. At long last, Barack Obama, America’s embarrassing appeaser-in-chief, found someone even weaker than he, and he quickly pounced.
The December 20, 2014, Los Angeles Times ran a front-page, above-the-fold article headlined “Obama gives Sony move a poor review.” The reporters noted that “Obama appeared eager to rebuke Sony.” Eager indeed. How unburdening it must have been to finally be able to prove that he is not the least resolute leader on the planet. And oh, how he scolded Sony for its irresolution:
“We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States,” he said. “Because if somebody is able to intimidate folks out of releasing a movie, a satirical movie, imagine what they start doing when they see a documentary that they don’t like, or news reports that they don’t like.”
Wow! That’s pretty tough talk, coming, as it does, from a head of state who is as deferential to dictators as was Neville Chamberlain. And especially so when no president since Richard Nixon has worked so hard to censor the press through such crude acts of intimidation. A quick Google search of Mr. Obama’s shameful hypocrisy in chiding Sony yields links to news stories in the nature of “Obama administration is attempting to silence journalists and bloggers” and “In memo to employees, Ailes blasts Obama admin’s ‘attempt to intimidate Fox News’” and “Your move, media: The Obama administration dares the press to respond to intimidation tactics” and “Leonard Downie: Obama’s war on leaks undermines investigative journalism.”
So it appears that Mr. Obama is as cowardly with Iran as he is thin-skinned with the press. He is, in fact, almost as sensitive to criticism as North Korea’s Mr. Kim Jong Un himself.
Even the comedy writers who scripted “The Interview” couldn’t come up with the farcical narrative which Mr. Obama’s speech writers regularly load into his teleprompter. They have less ironic awareness than their boss. Or perhaps they are justifiably confident that the submissive journalists who cover, and cover for, the president will never call him out for bullying the press the way North Korea bullied Sony. The Los Angeles Times certainly gave him a pass. That is the sort of sorry “journalism” which helped the president conceal Obamacare’s abortion mandates until it was too late to strip them from the bill.