Obama in China - An Example of Village Group-Think, In Stark Relief - UPDATED

I really do seriously wonder if our news media will be the death of us.

Remember all the pantswetting in the respectable establishment media about how Obama's trip to China was embarrassing and how Obama didn't seem to be getting much from the Chinese?

Here's a quick wrap-up by Alexandra Fenwick:

In almost every analysis of the trip, Chinese officials were portrayed as optimistic and newly emboldened to stand up to American interests and Obama was cast in the role of the meek debtor, standing with hat in hand. The line is that little was achieved and Obama was stifled, literally by state television and figuratively by the Chinese upper hand in the power dynamic.

All of this which is borne of the pundit caste's puerile obsession with real-time, blow-by-blow, horse-race-style "analysis" that casts everything in the model of "How should this be viewed in terms of its optics today?".

Well, if this is Fail -- Obama keep on Failin':

Today in the NYT: "China Joins U.S. in Pledge of Hard Targets on Emissions"

Today in the Washington Post: "China's backing on Iran followed dire predictions; Before Obama's visit, NSC warned leaders of Mideast turmoil"

Today in the (state run) China Daily: "Mainland may pull some missiles.... Beijing might consider removing a portion of its missile arsenal in South China, a long-held precondition by Taiwan for peaceful cross-Straits ties, a mainland expert said Wednesday."

Today also in the China Daily: "DPRK top leader meets visiting Chinese defense minister"

Along with the failure indicated yesterday, also in the China Daily: "RMB rate fine-tuning is possible"

I'm not sure I understand how we can continue to call ourselves an informed democracy when 50+% of people get their information from a mainstream media that is, on the respectability ladder, two rungs above rabid baby-murdering lemurs.

Update: More from Fallows on Obama's Win/Fail:

From the NYT just now, under the headline, "Iran Censured Over Nuclear Program by U.N. Watchdog":

And his summation:

Seriously, when does an official part of the chattering class -- one of the weekend talkers, someone from the leading newspapers -- look back on these past two weeks in journalism's effort to represent reality and ask how the dominant narrative could have been so wrong, and wrong in a way that was easily noticeable at the time? Just curious.

The guiding motto for the inquiry should be the deathless subhead on Tish Durkin's article: "Even through a veil of censorship and propaganda, the Chinese people managed a clearer view of Obama's visit than the US media did."