Thursday, February 28, 2013

White House Staff Clashes With Veteran Washington Post Reporter Bob Woodward

Interesting how liberals claim to be all about "speaking truth to power" right up until the liberals are the ones in power.

Bob Woodward, the Washington Post investigative journalist who (along with colleague Carl Bernstein) was credited with bringing down the Nixon Administration over the Watergate break-in and cover-up, claims that he's been harassed by senior White House officials over the upcoming sequester deadline. Mr. Woodward, a Washington Post editor who detailed the 2011 deal that led to the imminent spending cuts in his book "The Price of Politics," has said the Obama administration shifted its position by insisting that new tax revenue be part of any agreement to replace the cuts.
President Barack Obama's demand for new revenue is a central reason the two political parties haven't come to agreement on a strategy for replacing the cuts.

The dispute has drawn media attention in large part due to Mr. Woodward's status as one of the nation's best-known journalists, and because he said the White House pushed back aggressively when he questioned the administration's statement about the cuts.

Mr. Woodward has said Gene Sperling, the president's National Economic Council director, went too far by suggesting the journalist would "regret" reporting that the president had changed his position. "It makes me very uncomfortable to have the White House telling reporters you're going to 'regret' doing something that you believe in," Mr. Woodward said on CNN. "It's Mickey Mouse."
Hardly anybody's idea of a right-wing firebrand and bomb-thrower, Woodward has been a vocal critic of Obama's lack of leadership during the 2011 debt ceiling negotiations with the Republican-held House of Representatives, accusing the Administration of "moving the goalposts" on the terms of any budget or continuing resolution deal.

Woodward said he spoke out because he felt certain that this conduct from was limited to him and was likely used to control the conduct and writing of much younger and inexperienced journalists

Woodward is not alone- on Thursday, former Clinton aide and Washington Times columnist Lanny Davis said in a radio interview on WMAL that a senior White House official called his editor at the Times and threatened to revoke the White House press credentials of reporters from the newspaper if Davis continued writing columns critical of the President [pretty interesting considering that Davis' criticisms of this Administration has been much more mild and subdued compared to Woodward's- NANESB!].

To hardly anybody's surprise, Barack Obama's media cheerleaders have decided that despite his distinguished career, Woodward clearly didn't know what he was talking about and was in the wrong.

This would not be the first time the Obama Administration has attempted to deny access to reporters or media outlets that they deem hostile. In May 2011, the White House Press Office denied the Boston Herald access to a Massachusetts fundraiser after the newspaper published an op-ed on the economy and misery index authored by eventual Republican challenger Mitt Romney. A month prior, the White House had allegedly threatened to exclude the San Francisco Chronicle from covering any presidential events in the newspaper's coverage area after a Chronicle reporter videotaped a group of women who demanded the release of Wikileaks suspect Bradley Manning interrupting one of the President's speeches at a Bay Area fundraiser. During the 2008 campaign, Obama also had reporters from three newspapers that endorsed Sen John McCain kicked out of his campaign's press pool, claiming there was no longer any room for them on the campaign's aircraft. Yet shortly after the reporters from the Washington Post, Dallas Morning News and New York Post were kicked off, the campaign reportedly made room for reporters from Ebony and Essence magazines.

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