These are my observations and opinions on my continued interest in how the media covers the presidency.

THE LEFT WANTS TRUMP TO FAIL – MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell revealed her greatest fear amid the coronavirus pandemic – Donald Trump’s approval ratings going up.

Mitchell fretted over likely Democrat nominee Joe Biden “having difficulty” getting his message out during the crisis and support for the president “skyrocketing” to their highest levels yet, reported Matt Vespa of Townhall.

‘Some 60 percent approval ratings for the way he’s handling this crisis as he continues to hold these briefings,” Mitchell said, “The briefings are working for the president.  No matter what he says, people seem to be seeing him as a leader, at least more people do.”

“A good chunk of the country tuned you guys out long ago,” Mitchell said to her guest Jim Messina, former Obama advisor.

SO, WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE? – Republicans wanted Barack Obama to fail, too.  I recall cringing when Obama declared “we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”

That should have shaken everyone, but his cheering audience blindly applauded.

“We Americans don’t do fundamental transformation,” writer Paul Kengor said. “We make changes, small and large, but who among us – other than the most radical revolutionaries – actually wants to fundamentally transform the nation?”

Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh saw what was happening and was disappointed in the Republican Party that chose not to take Obama on and warn Americans that Obama has a vision of the government taking control over our daily life.

“I disagree fervently with the people on our side of the aisle who caved and said, ‘we’ve got to give him a chance,’ Limbaugh said. “Why? They didn’t give Bush a chance in 2000. I have been listening to Barack Obama for a year-and-a-half; I know what his politics are.  I know what his plans are, as he has stated them.  I don’t want him to succeed.”

Limbaugh was criticized for saying that, but he said, “why not?” explaining that it was really no different than saying, “I hope liberalism fails, and liberalism is our problem, and it is what’s gotten us dangerously close to the precipice.  Somebody’s gotta say it.”

Initially, Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell indicated he wanted Obama to “change,” not fail, and said during a speech to the Heritage Foundation that Republicans would force him from office in 2012 if didn’t.

As the 2010 election neared, McConnell embraced Limbaugh’s view, and the Republican leadership adopted a posture of obstructionism.

After Republicans picked up 60 seats in the House, taking control of that chamber, and added six Senate seats in the November 2010 elections, in a repudiation of Obama’s first two years, McConnell warned that his party had no plans to compromise with the president.  He asserted the GOP’s No. 1 goal over the next two years would be to deny Obama a second term.

THERE’S A DIFFERENCE, HOWEVER, between reasons we wanted to see Obama fail and those who want President Trump to fail.

With Obama it was that whole fundamental change thing.  His followers had no idea what he was talking about, but it must be good because he’s so smooth.

We saw him criticize America abroad with his apologies for years past and weaken our defense posture in the process.  On the domestic front, our economy suffered greatly, as jobs went offshore.

It was in our culture that we saw the effect of Obama’s transformation, notably in matters of sexual orientation, marriage and family.  Social engineering.  The shift was unprecedented and far beyond anyone’s imagination years ago, Kengor noted.

On the other hand, Trump put it all out there with his vision to make America great again, and he made promises as to how he planned to do it in plain English. His desire to drain the swamp and make government smaller is perhaps the single goal that frightened the hell out of Washington bureaucrats and the Beltway media.  Their world was about to change.

We witnessed a near four-year effort to destroy his presidency from within by the Deep State, each chapter, from Russia, Russia, Russia to the impeachment trial. His resiliency and non-stop work on behalf of his America first program has the left in a tizzy.  Now they see the virus pandemic as their last hope to block his reelection and endeavor to convince voters that he mishandled it.

UNDERSTAND that MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell isn’t the only leftist anchor or reporter disappointed with President Trump’s approval rating.  Her colleagues at MSNBC, and those at CNN, have all long lost their objectivity.  Their aim is to continue their hate campaign against Trump, because their presumptive candidate offers no excitement.  The same is true for most of the print media.

COINCIDENTALLY, as I was writing this, a piece, “The Political Media Are Failing America,” written by David Harsanyi in National Review, in which he opened an admonishment of the media with the statement: “Their ineptitude, bias, childishness, and outright stupidity have become a danger to the health of the republic.”

Noting that Gallup recently reported of the approval rating of the media at 19 points below that of the president, Harsanyi wrote that “This reality is a disaster for a liberal democracy, and much of it is brought on by the press’s own blinkered, sanctimonious, and transparency partisan temperament.  Every day brings an exasperating number of misleading and bad-faith takes by political journalists and ‘fact-checkers.’”

INANE QUESTIONS continue to surface with media during the daily virus task force briefings; those briefings the media dislike because they feature the leadership of the president.  “How many deaths are acceptable?” one of the reporters asked.  Disgraceful reporting.

May God continue to bless the United States of America.