Obama blames 24 hour news cycle for America's trouble

US president Barack Obama has sought to blame partly the 24-hour news cycle for the
current mess his country finds itself as its political leaders tend to take decisions which fetch them few moments of high ratings on these news channels.

There is a fundamental weakness in America's political system, Obama said on Tuesday reminding one of his presidential campaign rhetoric that he wants to change the way things work in the nation's capital.

"For too long, too many in Washington put off hard decisions for some other time on some other day. There's been a tendency to score political points instead of rolling up
sleeves to solve real problems," Obama said.

"There is also an impatience that characterizes this town - an attention span that has only grown shorter with the twenty-four hour news cycle, and insists on instant gratification in the form of immediate results or higher poll numbers," he said.

"When a crisis hits, there's all too often a lurch from shock to trance, with everyone responding to the tempest of the moment until the furor has died away and the media
coverage has moved on, instead of confronting the major challenges that will shape our future in a sustained and focused way," the president said.

Given the nature of crisis being faced by the US, Obama said this can't be one of those times. 

"The challenges are too great. The stakes are too high. I know how difficult it is for Members of Congress in both parties to grapple with some of the big decisions we face
right now. It's more than most congresses and most presidents have to deal with in a lifetime," he argued. 

"But we have been called to govern in extraordinary times. And that requires an extraordinary sense of responsibility - to ourselves, to the men and women who sent
us here, and to the many generations whose lives will be affected for good or for ill because of what we do here," he said.