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“Change” We Can Believe In? Reporters Treated Baddly



 
 

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via American Conservative Daily by J.J. Jackson on 2/21/09

It is Saturday and I wanted to clean up a couple items sitting on my desk today. One of them is an item from the 6th of February which didn't seem to garner too much attention as news outside of the blogosphere and which I have been pushing off talking about in lieu of other stories. It seems that the "change" we can believe in from the Obama administration may be happening. Although it is not "change" we may desire.

In his short time in office, Obama and his staff have not exactly had a very welcoming relationship with the press corps. Obama has, on a couple occasions, gotten upset by reporters either trying to ask him questions when he is not properly briefed on his own actions or been asked questions that did not fit topics he wanted to discuss.

Well, there was another incident as well. This one involved the forcible restraining of a reporter trying to ask a question of Leon Panetta:

Following Leon Panetta's confirmation hearing Thursday, several reporters approached the CIA director-designate in the hallway outside room G-50 in the Dirksen Building.

There, CongressDaily reporter Chris Strohm — upon asking a question — was physically restrained by a man who accompanied Panetta at hearings both days.

Strohm, when reached by phone Friday, said he was unsure of the man's role.

"I felt this hand grab my right arm and push me aside," Strohm said.

By his account, Strohm told the man, "Please don't touch me" more than once. Eventually, the man let him go.

This was not just Mr. Strohm's account either. Other people witnessed the event and were at least a little surprised by the actions.

Tim Starks, a reporter for Congressional Quarterly, said he witnessed Strohm approach Panetta and ask a question, just before the man began "grabbing him by the arm and moving him away."

"I said to the guy, 'That's not the way you do it,'" recalled Starks.

Starks said that he's covered the CIA for years and had never seen a reporter strong-armed that way before, adding that the agency is typically respectful of journalists.

Some people thought "change" under Obama would be getting even with the the rich while getting their gas tanks filled, a house over their head at taxpayer expense and even a forced increase in benefits for working at McDonalds. How many of you really thought though that "change" under Obama would be such open hostility to the press?


 
 

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