September 2012 should be a month of scandal and sure defeat in the upcoming election for any sitting President…

…but we live in a world of pop culture elections, fake noise to distract, and teflon media coverage making it difficult to identify real leadership.

PART ONE of THREE REPORTS

Leadership is not something you hear.  Leadership is not something people say. Leadership is action.

And in America leadership deserves to be reported with honesty and tough probing by the gate keepers of freedom, the free press.

In a world that hadn’t yet followed Alice down a rabbit hole, elections and candidates might be critically analyzed and presented by rational thinking, objective reasoning reporters focused upon facts. If it sounds like some definition of old school journalism, it is. We do live in an Alice’s world where small is big, and big is small, and we have lost sight of “normal.”

In a breath of fresh air Sunday night CBS 60 Minutes offered Mitt Romney a chance to define leadership. The Governor responded:

 “A leader has a capacity, a vision, the ability to see where things are headed, before people in general see those things.  That vision is typically — is a product and part of not just their skill and brilliance but even more their experience; their life experience…”

Capacity, Vision, Ability, Life Experience; these are not something one can buy, but the lack of these qualities in a candidate can be covered up by a complicit media.

ENGINEERING ELECTIONS and HONEST REPORTING

Let’s put the truth in play. The main stream media shows an excessive liberal/progressive bias and agenda in filing and creating their reports for the American consumer of news.

As to elections, America already fell into a third-world status in November 2008 when pop culture and hyperbolic perfidy trumped investigative reason over an obscure candidate who Charlie Rose and Tom Brokaw, two veteran CBS luminaries from the “old school,” openly suggested during a Charlie Rose interview:

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“We don’t know a lot about Barack Obama and the universe of his thinking about foreign policy…“(Tom Brokaw)

and

“I don’t really know, and do we know anything about the people who are advising him?“

(Charlie Rose)

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We  might well ask, “Tom, Charlie, if you knew so little about Barack Obama why didn’t you do some research and report back to us your findings?

Four years later any vestige of journalistic integrity is being tested in an election contest which will determine if not only old-school journalism dies but the United States as leader of the “free world.” We are living in an age where American Idol draws more votes than a Presidential election.

This makes engineering an election by the Democratic party strategists a matter of maneuvering within an ever expanding pop-culture which is being dumbed down by excessive noise and broadcasts of “reality” in forms which are anything but.

Outside of the Spanish speaking Univision interview on September 21st – who challenged Obama on “Fast and Furious” and immigration reform – the leader of the “free world,” has been coated with teflon-like care these 48 months by an American media who seem more concerned that chronic poor leadership doesn’t stick to their preferred office holder rather than investigating if there exists excellence in the leader.

Now combine the engineering by liberal/progressive political strategists and biased reporters who can target an audience of pop-culture consumers fairly easily.

The making of Barack Obama from someone who, “We don’t know a lot about–” as Tom Brokaw said, is a perfect example of creating the person to fit the role of leadership, not finding the qualities in a person to assume the role of leader.

WEEKS OF INTERNATIONAL CHAOS or “While the World Burns”

Only in such an Alice world of upside-down being right-side up would zombie journalists from such prestigious news organizations as the New York Times, CBS, NBC, ABC, and CNN be taking cues from the Obama Campaign itself for talking points, and then criticize Mr. Romney’s Presidential style Press Conference on 9/12 regarding the murders and tragedy in Libya and Egypt.

This, while the President and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were busy getting their Rose Garden press briefing story straight before he, Obama, left the Oval Office for his campaign fundraising party in Las Vegas.

And we know how that turned out. 

Mitt Romney was blamed for presumptive leadership by the main stream media while the Obama Administration’s blame-it-on-the-film for terrorist attacks narrative to mask incompetence, went out for the press to lap up.

Sunday talk shows on September 16th found the American people being spoon fed intentional mis-information by UN Ambassador Susan Rice to only have it back-tracked the following week by the Obama Administration, when the Libyan President, along with independent press sources apparently cleared up the muddled mess for the White House.

For the main stream journalists the real story isn’t leadership, it is about protecting a Presidential candidate from stunning embarrassment:

• Forget about the dead Ambassador and three American citizens.
• Forget about securing the American compound and critical intelligence at risk in Benghazi.
• Forget about 20 other embassies under siege around the Middle East and Asia inflamed by the anti-Islamic film false narrative.
• Make it about Romney!

Making it about Romney was the media in action vs. President in action.

THE POINT: Crisis is the testing of the mettle of a real leader.  

So where are the questions about leadership?  Is this just more of a sample of leadership from behind?

If little old Univision Telemundo can call the President on some of the “details” regarding his leadership, so should CBS, NBC, and ABC.

WHERE IS THE PRESIDENT?

While the Oval Office and Situation Rooms boast chairs of commanding presence, all who enter those rooms give deference to the man sitting in that command position. He is Commander In Chief.

“What chair has the President been sitting in such hours of chaos and incertitude?” We know a partial list includes the following: 

• 9/11 — “Pimp with a Limp”  Radio Show from Miami vs Situation Room while mob violence mounted ending tragically in American deaths
• 9/12 — Las Vegas vs Situation Room while Amabassador’s death and circumstances in doubt
• 9/13 — Colorado campaign stop vs Situation Room as 20 embassies under assault with Marines ordered to keep their weapons unloaded
• 9/18 — Letterman Show seat vs Prime Minister Netanyahu security discussions over the possibility of an attack on Iran which could spark WWIII
• 9/19 — NY fundraising with hip singer Beyonce and the cool but illiterate rapper Jay C netting $4 million

And the list of chairs he will occupy goes on as the news media focuses upon Romney’s bad week.

A BAD WEEK FOR THE WORLD or “Can You Find a Way to Cushion the Polling for the President?”

This week in New York City Democratic Party ”pop culture” strategists will focus upon electioneering to trump leadership once again. They need to find a cushion for the nipping at Obama’s heals in popularity polling by Governor Romney.

“Fake noise” and pop-rhetoric will take center stage as the world leaders descend upon New York City for a tipping point year in General Assembly meeting while the world is in chaos and echos of World War Three sound from despots eager to become important.

> Will Mr. Obama speak with the nuke producing mad man from Persia, Iran’s Amadinejhad as he threatens the destruction of Israel?

Nope.

> Will he sit with America’s strongest  ally, Isreal’s Prime Minister while the Middle East is taking its cues from Egypt’s Morsi and the Muslim brotherhood?

Nope.

> Will Obama sit and meet with any European leaders at an hour that their economy is in a free fall?

Nope.

> Will he sit and mediate between China threatening a war with Japan?

Nope–none of that leadership challenge stuff for this Presidential candidate. He has more pressing engagements and another seat waiting in New York.

Mr. Obama will sit with the ladies of THE VIEW.  

But it’s not going to be a probing interview from Barbara Walters this time. In fact, as we hear more fake noise and spin on disasters facing our hard working President, one sound will ring loudest of all as he sits among adoring ladies and fans so eager to please him… all in an attempt to pad the the polls.

Prediction:  That padding sound will come straight from Whoopi’s cushion, and it sounds just like leading from behind.

James Michael Pratt is a New York Times bestselling author of inspirational fiction and non-fiction, editor and owner of Jerusalem Reports, and frequent contributor to Red State and other conservative sites. His personal website includes biographical and other information regarding his work. He can also be found on FACEBOOK and Twitter.