The Increasingly Toxic
Relationship Between Media and Government”
Obama WH threatens non-sympathetic journalists
Way back when
CBS’ Sharyl Attkisson split from the sycophantic MSM and began frankly
reporting the Fast & Furious scandal in unflinching honesty, Obama’s White
House and Dept. of Justice began harassing her for refusing to ‘do what the
other reporters are doing,’ and putting Obama and Holder in a bad light.
MSM Cover-Up Confirmed by
"Bordergate" Reporter! Whitehouse Furious for Not Complying![/url]
"Misunderstanding, misstatements and all the classic contortions of partisan message management surround the sequester, the term for the $85 billion in ugly and largely irrational federal spending cuts set by law to begin Friday.
What is the non-budget wonk to make of this? Who is responsible? What really happened? …
Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.
Nabors has told others that they checked with the president before going to see Reid. A mandatory sequester was the only action-forcing mechanism they could devise. Nabors has said, “We didn’t actually think it would be that hard to convince them” — Reid and the Republicans — to adopt the sequester. “It really was the only thing we had. There was not a lot of other options left on the table.”
He immediately drew the wrath of not just the White House insiders, but of those in the MSM seeking to re-affirm their allegiance and commitment to all things Obama.
"Appearing on CNN Wednesday, the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward said a “very senior person” at the White House warned him that he would “regret doing this,” referring to his outspoken criticism of President Barack Obama’s handling of the impending forced cuts known as the sequester.
“I think they’re confused,” Woodward told CNN host Wolf Blitzer. Woodward apparently went on to criticize Obama further over the sequester the same day he received the warning from the White House.
“It makes me very uncomfortable for the White House to be telling reporters, you are going to ‘regret’ doing something that you believe in,” he added. “It’s Mickey Mouse.”[/exnews]
[url]http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/27/bob-woodward-very-senior-white-house-official-warned-me-id-regret-attacking-obama-over-the-sequester/[/url]
Of course, those
members of the MSM pro-Obama clique immediately attacked Woodward, instead of
the underlying story!
[exnews]
Progressives are throwing a series of virtual flowerpots at veteran journalist
Bob Woodward, following his stepped-up criticism of President Barack Obama’s
attempt to raise taxes
by hyping the sequester budget trims. …
The
pile-on by the president’s allies follows Woodward’s recent statements that
Obama is walking away from the 2011 budget-deal by calling for more tax
increases, that he is hyping the impact of the sequester cuts, and that he was
allegedly threatened by Obama’s top economic adviser, Gene Sperling.
The
supposed threat came Feb. 22 when Sperling tried to get Woodward to back down
from his conclusion that Obama is “moving the goalposts” from the 2011 budget
deal.[/exnews]
[url]http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/28/woodward-under-fire-as-white-house-allies-seek-to-discredit-sequester-reporting/[/url]
Even so,Woodward
stood steadfast, going so far as to describe the Obama administration’s
behavior as “madness.”
[exnews] "Under the Constitution, the President is commander-in-chief
and employs the force. And so we now have the President going out because of
this piece of paper and this agreement. 'I can’t do what I need to do to
protect the country,'" Woodward said.
"That’s a
kind of madness that I haven't seen in a long time," he said.
Woodward's harsh
criticism came after he stirred controversy last weekend by calling out Obama for what he
said was "moving the goal posts" on the sequester by requesting that revenue be part of a
deal to avert it.[/exnews]
[url]http://www.businessinsider.com/bob-woodward-obama-sequester-republicans-2013-2[/url]
Now, we learn that the Obama
White House was not limited in its anger and vitriol to just one reporter; but,
that it has spread to include others who’ve considered themselves “friends” and
supporters of the Obama administration.
Lanny Davis, President
Clinton’s former aide, has gone ‘on the record’ to recount a similar scenario
of vicious attacks and not-so-veiled threats to their livelihoods and those of
their employers.
[exnews]Lanny Davis, a longtime close advisor to President Bill Clinton, told WMAL's Mornings on the Mall Thursday he had received similar threats for newspaper columns he had written about Obama in the Washington Times.
Davis told WMAL that his editor, John Solomon, "received a phone call from a senior Obama White House official who didn't like some of my columns, even though I'm a supporter of Obama. I couldn't imagine why this call was made." Davis says the Obama aide told Solomon, "that if he continued to run my columns, he would lose, or his reporters would lose their White House credentials."[/exnews]
[url]http://www.wmal.com/common/page.php?pt=WMAL+EXCLUSIVE%3A+Woodward%27s+Not+Alone+-+Fmr.+Clinton+Aide+Davis+Says+He+Received+White+House+Threat&id=8924&is_corp=0[/url]
[url=http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tom-blumer/2013/02/28/longtime-dem-lanny-davis-also-reports-white-house-threat]
Longtime Dem Lanny Davis Also Reports White House Threat[/url]
As if these were not enough,
former Obama ally Ron Fournier, of the same [i]Washington Times[/i], reports
that he too has been subjected to such viciousness that he has terminated his
relationship with a formerly valuable White House insider due to his contact’s
defense of the Obama agenda and verbal abuse and threats.
[exnews] Woodward-gate
is a distraction the White House welcomed, even encouraged, as part of a
public-relations strategy to emasculate the GOP and anybody else who challenges
Obama. It is a distraction that briefly enveloped my reporting last weekend,
when I essentially broke ties with a senior White House official.
Yes, I iced a source– and my only regret is I didn’t do it sooner. I
decided to share this encounter because it might shed light on the increasingly
toxic relationship between media and government, which is why the Woodward flap
matters outside the Beltway.
…
I had angered the White
House, particularly a senior White House official who I am unable to identify
because I promised the person anonymity. … The official angered by my Woodward
tweet sent me an indignant e-mail. “What’s next, a Nazi analogy?” the official
wrote, chastising me for spreading “bull**** like that” I was not offended by the
note, mild in comparison to past exchanges with this official. But it was the
last straw in a relationship that had deteriorated.
As editor-in-chief of National
Journal, I received several e-mails and telephone calls from this White
House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same
phrase that Politico characterized as a veiled threat. “You will regret
staking out that claim,” The Washington Post reporter was told.
Once I moved back to daily
reporting this year, the badgering intensified. I wrote Saturday night, asking
the official to stop e-mailing me. The official wrote, challenging Woodward and
my tweet. “Get off your high horse and assess the facts, Ron,” the official
wrote.[/exnews]
The MSM has not only
abandoned its obligations to “speak truth to power,” but is fighting over who
can remain closest to the White House; which has created its own media
apparatus, “Organizing For Action” (OFA). To curry favor and ensure acceptance
from Obama and his closest advisers, they are ever more resolute in their
determination to join the team of presidential advisers, spin-meisters and
spokespeople.
[url= http://pjmedia.com/blog/the-press-officially-abdicates-its-role/] The Press Officially Abdicates Its Role[/url]
Now, those who’ve abandoned
the chase, and returned to their journalistic roots are paying the price in
loss of opportunity, access and the support of their colleagues.
So, who says “there’s no such
thing as media bias,” now; when even the White House believes it can safely
threaten those who no longer toe the line?
Jw
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