Within a time frame of three days last week, President Barack Obama symbolically undid many of '43's more controversial policies.
Lifting the ban on federal funding for stem cell research. Check. Ending the "Abortion Gag-Rule," where U.S. monies were forbidden to fall into the coffers of international organizations that provided information about abortion. Check. Signing an executive order closing the Gitmo detention camp and placing a hold on "enhanced interrogation techniques." Check.
MSNBC and CNN's graphic lackeys may toil away on all the "First 100 Days" images they want, but Obama seems intent on sprinting to the arbitrary finish line.
He had such a marathon last week in halting many of President George W. Bush's policies, that I can't watch my favorite television networks anymore. MSNBC and CNN, or the "liberal media elite" as Gov. Sarah Palin labeled them, have gone bonkers with coverage of Obamamania.
So far, CNN's most vocal complaint has been that Yo-Yo Ma's performance at the inauguration was prerecorded.
MSNBC is even worse. On inauguration day, Chris Matthews announced to his audience that MSNBC was now the Obama network.
Of course, MSNBC and CNN are no different from the other standard-bearers in the print-liberal media elite. The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and other bastions of journalism are simply following the political climate: Obama's approval ratings are historically high for an incoming president, and Bush's ratings leaving office are historically low.
Actually, the landscape is strikingly similar to the weeks following 9/11, when President Bush's cowboy demeanor comforted the nation, and his very rash and diplomatically insidious taunts to capture the terrorists "dead-or-alive" only served to shore up his image as the supreme commander in chief. This, of course, made his pleads for Americans to "go shopping" all the more moving.
Journalistic objectivity was lost in the months after 9/11 and in the lead up to the Iraq War in March of 2003. The social and political climate demanded retribution for the horrific attacks - helping FOX News make its name and creating a bias favoring the Bush administration's handling on just about everything. Not to mention securing exclusive interviews with the president and his shifty vice along the way.
Now, just as our past presidential election demanded change from the Bush Era, MSNBC and CNN find themselves as the new preferred networks of the administration, willing to sacrifice objectivity for ratings.
It is in this spirit, that for the first time last week, I switched from my preferred liberal media outlet over to FOX News, home of the sniveling and arrogant Bill O'Reilly. Unfortunately, from FOX News, I did enjoy some final objectivity to judge the man - not the superman - sitting in the Oval Office.
Just don't expect me to buy a T-shirt from the online "O'Reilly Store" anytime this decade.
Matthew Christ is a political science freshman. His column appears on Mondays.
