The domestic policy issues raised by this trip were altogether invisible in the reporting in major news outlets.The news accounts were filled with the long list of items that President Obama was likely to raise with President Hu. There are issues about China respecting the patents and copyrights of US firms. The US has concerns about market access in China for our retailers, our financial firms and some of our manufactured products.And then there are issues about the relative value of the dollar and yuan. Yep, the White House press corps got together the whole list, presented it to the public, and then went home and had a drink.. . .The real job of reporting in Washington last week should have been trying to find out the actual priority that President Obama was assigning to the various items on his list.This is what the public needs to know: different items will obviously matter more to some people than others. Most people in the United States probably don't give a damn if the Chinese pay Bill Gates for making copies of MS Windows.. . .The fact is that the public has no clue as to what the Obama administration's priorities were in negotiating with China – because the media made no effort to find out.
Well, this is not surprising - the White House Press Corps, like much of the Washington media elite, has always been more interested in political wrangling and clashes of personality than in real, substantive policy. Hey, they got theirs; why should they care if someone else doesn't? And politics is such good theater.
Well, I said they got bitchslapped. But the Corps is so numb at this point, I doubt they felt it.
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