The mainstream media appears to be pushing the narrative and the criticism of the Obama Administration over subpoenas and investigations directed at the media
NBC ‘s Chuck Todd slammed the Obama Administration’s over the seizure of reporters’ emails and phone records. NBC’s chief White House correspondent appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program said that “[T]hey want to criminalize journalism.... You can't look at this and see it as anything other than an attempt to basically scare anybody from ever leaking anything ever again.” ( See “CHUCK TODD: OBAMA WANTS TO 'CRIMINALIZE JOURNALISM' ” by Wynton Hall, 5/22/13 [http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/05/22/NBC-WH-Chief-Reporter-Obama-Wants-To-Criminalize-Journalism]).
The New York Times Editorial “Another Chilling Leak Investigation” opened with this momentous statement: “With the decision to label a Fox News television reporter a possible ‘co-conspirator’ in a criminal investigation of a news leak, the Obama administration has moved beyond protecting government secrets to threatening fundamental freedoms of the press to gather news.” (See “Another Chilling Leak Investigation” By THE EDITORIAL BOARD 5/21/13, NY Times/Editorial [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/opinion/another-chilling-leak-investigation.html?ref=todayspaper&_r=2&]). After a lengthy description of the case involving Fox News and its reporter James Rosen, the Times concluded with this: “Obama administration officials often talk about the balance between protecting secrets and protecting the constitutional rights of a free press. Accusing a reporter of being a “co-conspirator,” on top of other zealous and secretive investigations, shows a heavy tilt toward secrecy and insufficient concern about a free press.”
And in the Washington Post, progressive columnist Dana Millbank made the following charge against the current team in the White House: “The Rosen affair is as flagrant an assault on civil liberties as anything done by George W. Bush’s administration, and it uses technology to silence critics in a way Richard Nixon could only have dreamed of.” (See “In AP, Rosen investigations, government makes criminals of reporters” by Dana Millbank, 5/21/13, Washington Post [http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-in-ap-rosen-investigations-government-makes-criminals-of-reporters/2013/05/21/377af392-c24e-11e2-914f-a7aba60512a7_story.html]). “.... [The Obama] administration’s actions shatter the president’s credibility and discourage allies who would otherwise defend the administration against bogus accusations such as those involving the Benghazi “talking points.” If the administration is spying on reporters and accusing them of criminality just for asking questions — well, who knows what else this crowd is capable of doing?”
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UPDATE: Leaks scandal percolating up to CIA Director Brennan and President Obama — in 2010, White House leaks probe wanted to “go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda”
INTERNAL EMAIL OF KEY INTELLIGENCE CONTRACTOR MENTIONS WHITE HOUSE LEAKS INVESTIGATION ON 10/21/10 — SAYS ANTI-TERROR ADVISER BRENNAN BEHIND SEARCH FOR LEAKS — EVEN THE FBI IS SHOCKED
“A little over a week after President Barack Obama’s reelection, Wikileaks released an email dump of global intelligence files from the private intelligence company Stratfor. One particular email, dated September 21, 2010 discussed President Obama’s ‘Leak Investigations’.” ( See “STRATFOR EMAIL: BRENNAN BEHIND 'WITCH HUNT' OF JOURNALISTS REPORTING LEAKS” by Kerry Picket, 5/22/13, Breitbart [http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/05/22/Wikileaks-Stratfor-E-Mail-Brennan-Behind-Witch-Hunt-of-Journalists-Reporting-Leaks]). According to the internal Stratfor email, “Obama Leaks Investigation... *** Brennan is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources. *** Note – there is a specific tasker from the WH to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode... ”
NEW YORKER MAGAZINE HAS QUESTIONS FOR OBAMA
According to a piece in the New Yorker, it’s good to know that the President believes that journalists should not be prosecuted for doing their jobs, but that hardly clears up the questions surrounding the Administration’s attitude to the First Amendment in leaks cases, which are legion. “Ultimately..., it is up to President Obama to provide the country with an explanation for a set of actions that the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank has called “as flagrant an assault on civil liberties as anything done by George W. Bush’s administration.” (See “THE LEAKS SCANDALS: QUESTIONS FOR OBAMA” by John Cassidy, 5/22/13, The New Yorker [http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/05/the-leaks-scandal-questions-for-obama.html]). Cassidy listed seven specific questions that the President of the United States needed to answer concerning the issues raised by the leaks scandal.
BACKFILL: The wind is already shifting in the main stream media on the IRS scandal; and the weather vanes in the left wing media, though willing to concede that the IRS is a badly run agency – possibly even a sort of rogue operation – think that there was no direction whatsoever from the White House with respect to the special attention that had been given to right wing groups' 501(c)(4) applications and/or other IRS audits aimed at conservatives. Those that attempt to trot out the evidence and the reasoning behind asserting such a possibility are already being dismissed as believing something far-fetched, at best, or, at worst, suffering from some form of delusional anti-Obama swamp fever ( See “The IRS Scandal Is Becoming a Conspiracy Theory” by Jonathan Chait, 5/22/13, New York Magazine [http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/irs-scandal-is-becoming-a-conspiracy-theory.html]).
Chait’s take on the current IRS situation is simple and straight forward, and it goes like this: “The Internal Revenue Service scandal remains alive and well as an agency screwup story. But agency screwup stories, even ones centering on the agency Republicans most despise and deliberately hobble, have limited political utility. What Republicans want is for the IRS story to be an Obama scandal. And as an Obama scandal, the IRS story is quickly following the same trajectory as the Benghazi story: a fever swamp obsession, in which understanding the fundamentally sinister character of the Obama administration is the predicate for interpreting all information or lack thereof, and the term becomes a code phrase shared by true believers to stand for deeper currents of left-wing machinations invisible to those outside the tribe.”
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