MATT WELCH: OBAMA WORKS THE REFS: “While hypocritical (given the president’s own slippery relationship with the truth) this critique is strategically clever. For those still inclined to believe it, the message reinforces Obama’s fading image as a truth-telling, above-it-all academic (see the Michigan speech in particular for a bunch of we need to get beyond the tired debate about big-vs.-small-government claptrap). And for the straight-journalism types this is a soothing tongue-bath from the Sensible Centrist in Chief that reinforces their own self-pity/importance and gives them even more motivation to go after the real lying liars: The ones who noisily and hyperbolically oppose the policies of the most powerful man on earth. Back when George W. Bush was president, much hay was made at the fact that 43 didn’t see the working press as particularly representative of the American people, and instead tailored his media communicatin’ (at least somewhat) to the right-of-center mediasphere (or if you prefer, the non-Reality Based Community). Now that Obama is essentially using the same divide-and-conquer strategy, only backing a different side this time, it will be interesting to see if any journalism chin-strokers do anything but applaud.”