For those who have paid attention, no one can be surprised that a wannabe fiction writer who now serves as a deputy national security adviser to the president of the United States was able to create a gold-plated narrative around the nuclear deal with Iran and sell it to a lapdog Washington, D.C., media.
Today, Ben Rhodes’ candid comments to David Samuels in the New York Times Magazine about his ability to do that have created somewhat of a furor, especially among those who did not understand that electing an untested, inexperienced former community organizer to the most powerful job in the world was a dangerous prospect indeed.
After all, then-candidate Barack Obama said he had in mind “fundamentally transforming” America. He didn’t spell out how he’d do it, but the “hope” and “change” spin was easily transferred to a spin-driven White House.
The Beltway media was all in, so it wasn’t a hard sell.
“All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus,” Rhodes said. “Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”