PROTAGONIST OF THE U.S.A.: Limbaugh Theorem in Action: NY Times Front Page: Obama ‘Seethes’ at Government Ebola Failures.

The story is on the front page of Saturday’s edition of the Times with the headline, Amid Assurances on Ebola, Obama Is Said to Seethe.

This is in line with the Limbaugh Theorem that says Obama maintains popularity by portraying himself as opposed to the actions of his government and always trying to be seen as fixing them.

It’s also in line with Ace’s observation of press coverage in his 2013 post, The MacGuffinization of American Politics:

This is a movie. And Barack Obama is the Hero. And the Republicans are the Villains. And policy questions — and Obama’s myriad failures as an executive — are simply incidental. They are MacGuffins only, of no importance whatsoever, except to the extent they provide opportunities for Drama as the Hero fights in favor of them.

Watching Chris Matthews interview Obama, I was struck by just how uninterested in policy questions Matthews (and his panel) were, and how almost every question seemed to be, at heart, about Obama’s emotional response to difficulties– not about policy itself, but about Obama’s Hero’s Journey in navigating the plot of President Barack Obama: The Movie.

As with a MacGuffin in the movie, only the Hero’s emotional response to the MacGuffin matters.

Again and again, Matthews and his panel focused not on weighty questions of state, but on what toll these important-sounding MacGuffins took upon the Star of the Picture, Barack Obama.