Framing the Threat

These examples suggest that the circumstances made it difficult for Obama’s security narrative to gain prevalence. Instead, Obama’s narrative remained contested and Bush’s narrative continued to be reproduced. In addition, the incidents at Ford Hood and the Detroit airliner further fanned a climate of fear. This led to “much impassioned media commentary,” and in the end “bad news was simply outpacing the positive” (King 2014: 79). At least during Obama’s early presidency, his security narrative hardly ever gained preponderance in the public’s view. What The New York Times reporter Richard Stevenson stated in more general terms, seems also to be true for Obama’s security discourse, that “a year into his presidency, Mr. Obama has lost control ...