The Ghost of Snapped Shot

End of a national nightmare?

So the White House has released Barack Obama's long-form birth certificate this morning. I'd love to say that this proves without a doubt that Donald Trump can make people jump through hoops, but I think there might be a slightly different angle here. Says Dan Pfeiffer:

The President believed the distraction over his birth certificate wasn’t good for the country. It may have been good politics and good TV, but it was bad for the American people and distracting from the many challenges we face as a country.

A distraction? Absolutely. But from what?

Zero Hedge provides a clue in today's schedule:

12:30pm – FOMC statement released. The Fed’s website gives the time as “around 12:30pm”, which will come as no surprise to Fed watchers used to twiddling their thumbs for several minutes after the scheduled release time. (Just to keep market participants on their toes, the statement does occasionally come out a minute or two before the scheduled time.)
 
2:15pm – Press conference begins. We expect Fed Chairman Bernanke to make an introductory statement which will feature the FOMC’s projections for growth, unemployment and inflation (but probably not the detailed distribution of these forecasts nor discussion of the staff’s forecasts). An article published today on the Wall Street Journal website (“Federal Reserve Irons Out Details of Post-Meeting Press Conference”, by Jon Hilsenrath) implied that any introduction is likely to be very short. According to the article, additional published information on the FOMC forecasts, along the lines of Table 1 in the Fed minutes from the January 25-26 meeting, will be made available on the Fed website at this time. Assuming this is correct, it would imply that detailed information on the distribution of forecasts, and on the staff’s economic forecasts, would not be revealed until the publication of the minutes (though of course these subjects could surface during the question and answer session).
 
ca. 2:25pm – Question and answer session begins. This is a live session with journalists, who are likely to be well prepared with probing questions. The questions have not been submitted to the Fed in advance.

So instead of focusing on things that actually matter in Obama's crashing economy -- Like the actions of the Federal Reserve, perhaps? -- it seems that Team Obama has guaranteed that we'll be hearing 24 hours of wall-to-wall press coverage of The Great Birth Certificate Controversy. Which is to say that in lieu of actually hearing those well prepared probing questions, we will instead have the pleasure of witnessing carefully-orchestrated drama in its place.

The marshmallows of media outrage instead of the steak sirloin of open financial inquiry, if you will.

Congratulations to the press for continuing to be the most easily-played violin in history.

See Also: Pirate's Cove, Gateway Pundit 2 3, Confederate Yankee, The Other McCain, The Jawa Report, Riehl World View, IMAO, The Blogmocracy, Hot Air 2, Sweetness & Light, iOTW, NewsBusters, Patterico, The American Pundit, Bookworm Room, Atlas Shrugs.

Ace offers some very compelling thoughts on the whole matter.

I'm delighted to point out that Jeff Goldstein picked up on the exact same vibe I did on this co-inky-dink. Good that I'm not the only one!

 Tags: Distractions #EconomicDoom