Corporate Media's Latest Lies: Obama and the Dow Jones

The day after President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress in February, the Dow Jones was down about 2% by mid-day. Drudge, hoping to assign blame to the president, ran a headline: "Was it something he said?" A couple of hours later, the Dow had rallied, so Drudge changed the headline: "Stocks rebound." And an hour later, the Dow had gone back down again, causing Drudge to change the headline back to the original Obama-blaming message.

Putting aside what this tells us about Drudge's "standards," this was another reminder of the over-emphasis on Wall Street watching in the political world.

There's a perception that the markets are akin to focus-group dials. If the White House's economic agenda is sound and effective, investors will feel confident and the indexes will rise. If Obama is headed in the wrong direction, the markets will drop. This is especially true of the Dow Jones because, well, news outlets say so.