Often enough, the broadcast media ignores these issues on their own, but in this case the bounds of the television debate were laid out in Sullivan’s article, and what flowed from it was eight minutes of arguing about whether Obama bears a lot of blame or some credit for the economy. And Cooper, trying to press Sullivan on whether Obama is really as good as he says, was reduced to asking questions like, “Where is this long game? A lot of his critics will say, he handed too much over to Congress.” Does anyone else find it depressing that a few weeks after an indefinite-detention bill was signed into law, as detainees languish in a still open Gitmo, as an undeclared drone war proceeds, as the drug war continues apace, as a nuclear Pakistan is gradually destabilized, as Obama asserts the power to wage wars of choice without a declaration and to assassinate Americans in secret and without charges or due process, the broadcast media is debating whether the president has given *too much power to Congress?*
Conor Friedersdorf, “From Newsweek to CNN: The Narrowing of American Politics.”
