The Obama Administration's Dangerous Press Precedent

At Real Clear Politics, Salena Zito writes:

A little more than a week ago, Vice President Joe Biden traveled to fundraisers in two battleground-state cities, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.

Neither stop included the White House press corps; requests by local media to cover the events were denied by the vice president’s press office. The Democratic National Committee arranged the events for the Obama Victory Fund.

A number of seasoned political reporters and former White House press-office staffers consider that lack of coverage a dangerous precedent.

“It would behoove the Obama administration to keep its promise of transparency even with fundraisers,” agrees Jeff Brauer, a political history professor at Keystone College. “The United States is a democracy, after all.”

Having press coverage of fundraising events that feature the president or vice president matters for at least two reasons, Brauer explains.

“One, large amounts of taxpayer dollars are being used for personal security at such events. As with all tax dollars, they should be spent with accountability.

“Two, it is important for the public to know what the president and vice president are saying to donors. Is it the same message they are saying to the electorate at large?”

Such knowledge helps citizens judge officeholders’ authenticity and integrity.

The White House press office earlier this month rejected a request by the Boston Herald, a conservative-leaning newspaper, to cover an Obama fundraiser. The press office’s publicly “outed” e-mail said so-called pool reporters are chosen based on whether they cover the news “fairly.”

Several former and current White House correspondents see presidents choosing who covers them as a nightmare scenario. The correspondents also are agitated by Biden’s refusal to be covered by local media, even if that means reporters cooling their heels outside an invitation-only fundraiser.

“What if something happened to him?” is the question they raise.

Fortunately, their malignant case of Emmanuel Goldstein-ism PDS allows the legacy media to ignore all of that and just focus on why Sarah Palin is treating them like “paparazzi.”