The fight against what many upstanding members of the media have called “disinformation” has gained a new ally.
Now enters former President Barack Obama.
Obama appeared last week at The Atlantic’s conference on “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy.” Sounds pretty serious. While speaking about the dangers and harm of disinformation campaigns, Obama defined it as “a systematic effort to either promote false information, to suppress true information, for the purpose of political gain, financial gain, enhancing power, suppressing others, targeting those you don’t like.”
That’s a pretty good definition. It’s also a rare moment of self-reflection from the former president.
Obama also got the fluff treatment on this topic from CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, a reporter who spends most of his days wandering around Trump rallies with a microphone searching out those with kooky beliefs. It’s a practice not new to CNN. Sullivan states how “Eric Schultz, an Obama adviser, said the former President views disinformation as a ‘through line for all of the challenges we face right now,’ including the pandemic, climate change and racial injustice. And for Obama, Schultz added, the ‘arc of this issue also tracks the arc of his public life’ — while social media helped get Obama elected in 2008, the misinformation that spread on different platforms also accelerated during his time in office.”
The poor former president lamented “the degree with which information, disinformation was being weaponized” during his time in office, facing everything from questions about his birthplace to associations with legal and ethically questionable cronies.
The fact that prominent media outlets such as The Atlantic and CNN are enlisting Obama’s help, without a hint of irony but with a straight face, evinces everything that is wrong with the news industry. Don’t believe me? Let’s briefly recap some of Obama’s greatest hits.
When he spoke at George Mason University in March 2010, Obama uttered the fateful line, “If you like your doctor, you’re going to be able to keep your doctor.” This came in reference to concerns about how Obama’s massive healthcare overhaul might affect access to preferred doctors. Of course, Obamacare went on to become law. And thousands of people saw their healthcare plans phased out and their doctors move out of network.
How about what Obama said in Portland, Maine, in April 2010? “If you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you. It hasn’t happened yet. It won’t happen in the future.” Obama stated this line repeatedly. It wasn’t true.
Indeed, Politifact, certainly no friend to the political Right when it comes to biased agenda-driven “fact-checking,” labeled this whopper the “Lie of the Year.”
Perhaps more seriously, directly after the Benghazi consulate attacks in September 2012, both Obama and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton placed much of the blame for the terrorist attack on an inflammatory video. It became a lightning rod between the president and the intelligence community and something lampooned in the media.
These are just a few examples of weaponized disinformation that the former president engaged in — ones he has not explained to this day. But they explain why, at least until he does offer such an explanation, only fanboy journalists will truly celebrate his contribution to this debate.
Stephen L. Miller has written for National Review, the New York Post, and Fox News and hosts the Versus Media podcast. He can be found on Twitter @redsteeze.
