Obama's White House, 2009: 'Don't Pretend' Fox News Is a 'Legitimate News Organization'

Donald Trump refused to take a question from CNN reporter Jim Acosta today, labeling Acosta’s employer as “fake news.” Since then, mainstream media and celebrities are hyperventilating over Trump as if he bears the same viciously totalitarian impulses as, say, Fidel Castro — and that Trump is SCARY and GOING TO GET THEM.

As comforting as tweeting one’s victimhood status to millions appears to be to today’s left — and as ironic as exercising one’s free speech to millions via Twitter to claim the death of the First Amendment is to everyone else — this reactionary response sure doesn’t look good for the left in terms of ideological consistency.

Or sanity. For example, here’s one-percenter Patton Oswalt, who I’ll assume is tweeting from an in-home hyperbaric chamber:

And just like that, Trump isn't funny anymore. That press conference was…terrifying. We're fucked. Go be with your families. Hoard food.

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) January 11, 2017

Oswalt presumably wasn’t so frightened back in 2009, the first year of President Barack Obama’s administration. Yet back then, Obama’s Communications Director Anita Dunn gave an interview to the New York Times during which she proclaimed Obama’s administration had adopted as policy that Fox News was fake news.

Did the New York Times fear freedom of the press had been eradicated? No, the headline was simply that “Fox’s Volley With Obama” was … “Intensifying.”

Ironically, current CNN host and Trump critic Brian Stelter wrote the article.

It begins:

Attacking the news media is a time-honored White House tactic but to an unusual degree, the Obama administration has narrowed its sights to one specific organization, the Fox News Channel, calling it, in essence, part of the political opposition.

“We’re going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent,” said Anita Dunn, the White House communications director, in a telephone interview on Sunday. “As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don’t need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave.”

In 2009, the White House’s position on Fox News was that it was “an opponent,” at “war(!)” with the White House. And that they were not, in fact, a legitimate news organization.

They were to be treated as fake news. It was White House policy.

Here’s Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post:

The open punishment of news organizations who report things Donald Trump doesn't like is a dangerous prececent

— Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) January 11, 2017

Any citizen of this country should be worried about this exchange https://t.co/0eoCgKCH71

— Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) January 11, 2017

John Harwood of NBC:

Trump, at news conference ripping press, on his attitude toward First Amendment: "great respect for freedom of the press, and all of that"

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) January 11, 2017

CNN really wanted to slip “First Amendment” into the discussion — first with their official response, and then with this tweet from CNN’s social media head:

"We are fully confident in our report. It represents the core of what the First Amendment protects. " CNN statement on our Trump reporting https://t.co/EeIwQMykBT

— Samantha Barry (@samanthabarry) January 11, 2017

Here’s a Slate.com writer:

This is a real threat posed by Trump: The humiliation of the First Amendment. https://t.co/XeV6FZsjrV

— Phil Plait (@BadAstronomer) January 11, 2017

Mother Jones:

This is dangerous stuff. Trump said to CNN's @Acosta: "Your organization is terrible…you are fake news." –> https://t.co/V0nSUV3ucA https://t.co/5hdyX4smov

— Mark Follman (@markfollman) January 11, 2017

Media Matters:

Trump's treatment of CNN's Jim Acosta should be yet another indicator to the press that they need to stand together: https://t.co/Lhv6NuVwod pic.twitter.com/9GhTlnd3zV

— Media Matters (@mmfa) January 11, 2017

And here’s the ever-present George Takei:

Trump has banned the Washington Post from the press corp, and now he won't take questions from CNN. This is simply "unpresidented."

— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) January 11, 2017

Now, here’s a more insightful take: since Obama’s done it since it his first year in office; since Obama went two entire terms without taking more than a handful of questions from any center-right outlet, never mind singling out just one; and since not being one of the lucky dozen or so people out of 300 million Americans who gets to ask the president-elect a question does not infer that your rights have been violated, this tweeter brings some sanity whether you’re a Trump supporter or not: