Two years into his run, and the Obama administration has completely upended Donald Rumsfeld’s famous aphorism: you go to war against the media you have.
“White House: New York Times report ‘100 percent wrong'” the Politico reports:
The White House is pushing back hard against a New York Times report that the president’s political team is considering a national ad campaign that would cast the GOP as taken over by tea party extremists. (See: Tea party dominates the narrative)
The story is “100 percent inaccurate,” a White House official told POLITICO.
Times Washington Bureau Chief Dean Baquet counters that the “piece is accurate.”
But White House complaints have had some effect. Although the Times has not posted a correction or otherwise acknowledged making changes to the piece, it dialed back its claims overnight, changing the headline and the lead sentence of the story to de-emphasize the notion that the White House is weighing an anti-GOP ad campaign. (See: ‘Values voters’ tell Republicans: You still need us)
The initial headline read, “Obama Advisers Weigh Ad Assault Against the GOP,” and the first sentence reported that “President Obama’s political advisers, looking for ways to help Democrats and alter the course of the midterm elections in the final weeks, are considering a national advertising campaign that would cast the Republican Party as all but taken over by Tea Party extremists, people involved in the discussion said.”
So far, the Obama White House has gone to war against Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Fox News in general, Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, the Washington Times, and most recently Forbes.
And now the New York Times. And to paraphrase Stacy McCain, if you’ve lost Pinch Sulzberger, you’ve lost anti-America!
Is anybody in the White House asking why a president thought of as being one of the greatest orators since Julius Ceasar (no, really) by his supporters, and worshiped as a candidate by the MSM, including his self-described ‘non-official campaign’ staff on the JournoList, (including the Politico’s own Mike Allen, who co-wrote the above piece) is constantly being misunderstood by the media these days?
You thought this lady was tired of defending Obama? She’s got nothing on those pour stiffs in the MSM who’ve had to do it day in and day out since 2007. So to paraphrase a line from The Godfather, why is Obama working hard to alienate all of those journalists that he once carried around in his pocket, like so many nickels and dimes?
Update: And speaking of President Vercotti, “Koch Industries Lawyer to White House: How Did You Get Our Tax Information?”
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