Obama Was Banning Unfriendly Media Long Before Trump

Probably not the parallel Trump was looking for, but still.

The year was 2008. The candidate had a big lead in the polls going into election day. And in a preview of how petulant he would be act as Commander-in-Chief, Barack Obama decided he didn’t like what three newspapers were writing about him, so he kicked its reporters off his campaign plane.

Sound familiar?

But instead of simply owning up to not agreeing with the way the Dallas Morning News, New York Post and Washington Times were doing their respective jobs, the president’s team played dumb in insulting everyone’s intelligence in claiming it was simply a matter of suddenly having a limited number of seats on said plane.

“Unfortunately, demand for seats on the plane during this final weekend has far exceeded supply, and because of logistical issues we made the decision not to add a second plane,” said Obama campaign senior adviser Anita Dunn.

Uh-huh. And you’ll never guess which publications somehow still made the seat cut:

Glamour, Jet and Ebony.

Eight years ago, there wasn’t the kind of collective gasps from the media like we’re seeing this week when Donald Trump was equally as childish in stripping the Washington Post of its press credentials. In fact, there was barely a peep about it in 2008. That’s just how selective outrage works. And since it’s 2016 and it’s Trump, his decision — a decidedly wrong one, as pointed out in this space earlier this week– has been met with overwhelming, dizzying dismay.

At least Trump isn’t coy or dishonest when it comes to media outlets and personalities he doesn’t like. The worst part about the Obama camp lying in 2008 is that they were only doing it because they knew their tail-wagging press puppies would lap up the excuse without question. The MSM is so thoroughly loathsome that they provide the only sympathetic moments I have when it comes to Trump. I don’t like Trump, but I really, really don’t like the media.

I also don’t think they should get a free pass on mistreatment (as perceived by me, not Trump) or misrepresentation of Trump just because he’s not my favorite. He is a symptom of a problem; the media has been the problem for half a century.

So hammer them I will.