More on the appalling way Obama officials bully members of the press

This is for anyone who believes Woodward was just blowing smoke when it came to the “regret” threat widely reported last week. Β As the below article notes, the Obama administration’s disgusting treatment of the mainstream media doesn’t just include threats but also disgusting language used about female journalists:

While Woodward spent a lot of the week on cable news going back and forth on whether that was a threat, few reporters, if any, asked why a high-level administration official spent so much time β€” Sperling admittedly shouted at Woodward during a 30-minute phone call, followed by that e-mail β€” attempting to control an opinion expressed in a newspaper.

The answer, say former and current White House correspondents, is simple: This administration is more skilled and disciplined than any other in controlling the narrative, using social media to circumnavigate the press. On the flip side, our YouTube culture means even the slightest gaffe can be devastating, and so you have an army of aides and staffers helicoptering over reporters.

Finally, this week, reporters are pushing back. Even Jonathan Alter β€” who frequently appears on the Obama-friendly MSNBC β€” came forward to say he, too, had been treated horribly by the administration for writing something they didn’t like.

β€œThere is a kind of threatening tone that, from time to time β€” not all the time β€” comes out of these guys,” Alter said this week. During the 2008 campaign swing through Berlin, Alter said that future White House press secretary Robert Gibbs disinvited him from a dinner between Obama and the press corps over it.

β€œI was told β€˜Don’t come,’ in a fairly abusive e-mail,” he said. β€œ[It] made what Gene Sperling wrote [to Woodward] look like patty-cake.”

β€œI had a young reporter asking tough, important questions of an Obama Cabinet secretary,” says one DC veteran. β€œShe was doing her job, and they were trying to bully her. In an e-mail, they called her the vilest names β€” bitch, c–t, a–hole.” He complained and was told the matter would be investigated: β€œThey were hemming and hawing, saying, β€˜We’ll look into it.’ Nothing happened.”

War on women? Not surprising.

National Journal’s Ron Fournier has also stepped forward and talked about how he was bullied and threatened by senior White House officials, as has former Bill Clinton legal counsel Lanny Davis, an Obama supporter who occasionally writes columns for the Washington Times, who says the Times itself was threatened over his columns. Β Davis told radio station WMAL that a “senior official” with the Obama WH was so incensed by some of what he wrote for the Times that the official threatened to revoke the Washington Times’ press credentials if they didn’t stop running his columns.

Wowsers.

Move along here. Nothing to see …

 

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