Eating Their Own

[Ibanez]

I'm not an "Obamabot" and the reverse can be said about Republicans. Republicans still bitch about Clinton. My point is that you can find a picture of anyone with a circular seal behind them and photograph them to make it seem like a "halo" and put the messiah complex on them. It's ridiculous. Now, if you used this fellas policies, his actions, i'd agree. Messiah complex? Yeah, maybe when the US murdered a citizen w/o due process. But a picture? C'mon!

Just one murdered U.S. citizen? Oh, you're not talking about Benghazi.

Anyway, don't you notice the differences in demeanor between Obama and the others?

Oh so now it's down to facial expressions? I think the fact that every time I see Obamas chin up, I think of Mussolini and that is quite troubling. But I don't equate him to a messiah. He clearly isn't the savior of anything other than entitlements and the status quo.

[Baldy]

Now batting...Ron Fournier....

Why Bob Woodward's Fight With The White House Matters to You

The official angered by my Woodward tweet sent me an indignant e-mail. “What’s next, a Nazi analogy?” the official wrote, chastising me for spreading “bull**** like that” I was not offended by the note, mild in comparison to past exchanges with this official. But it was the last straw in a relationship that had deteriorated.

As editor-in-chief of National Journal, I received several e-mails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Politico characterized as a veiled threat. “You will regret staking out that claim,” The Washington Post reporter was told.

Once I moved back to daily reporting this year, the badgering intensified. I wrote Saturday night, asking the official to stop e-mailing me. The official wrote, challenging Woodward and my tweet. “Get off your high horse and assess the facts, Ron,” the official wrote.

I wrote back:

“I asked you to stop e-mailing me. All future e-mails from you will be on the record -- publishable at my discretion and directly attributed to you. My cell-phone number is … . If you should decide you have anything constructive to share, you can try to reach me by phone. All of our conversations will also be on the record, publishable at my discretion and directly attributed to you.”

I haven’t heard back from the official. It was a step not taken lightly because the note essentially ended our working relationship. Without the cloak of anonymity, government officials can’t be as open with reporters – they can’t reveal as much information and they can’t explain the nuance and context driving major events.

I changed the rules of our relationship, first, because it was a waste of my time (and the official’s government-funded salary) to engage in abusive conversations. Second, I didn’t want to condone behavior that might intimidate less-experienced reporters, a reaction I personally witnessed in journalists covering the Obama administration.

[CitadelGrad]

Just one murdered U.S. citizen? Oh, you're not talking about Benghazi.

Anyway, don't you notice the differences in demeanor between Obama and the others?

Oh so now it's down to facial expressions? I think the fact that every time I see Obamas chin up, I think of Mussolini and that is quite troubling. But I don't equate him to a messiah. He clearly isn't the savior of anything other than entitlements and the status quo.

You aren't the first to notice the resemblance to Mussolini.

Regardless of whether others perceive Obama as a messiah, Obama almost certainly does.

[Ibanez]

Now batting...Ron Fournier....

Why Bob Woodward's Fight With The White House Matters to You

The official angered by my Woodward tweet sent me an indignant e-mail. “What’s next, a Nazi analogy?” the official wrote, chastising me for spreading “bull**** like that” I was not offended by the note, mild in comparison to past exchanges with this official. But it was the last straw in a relationship that had deteriorated.

As editor-in-chief of National Journal, I received several e-mails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Politico characterized as a veiled threat. “You will regret staking out that claim,” The Washington Post reporter was told.

Once I moved back to daily reporting this year, the badgering intensified. I wrote Saturday night, asking the official to stop e-mailing me. The official wrote, challenging Woodward and my tweet. “Get off your high horse and assess the facts, Ron,” the official wrote.

I wrote back:

“I asked you to stop e-mailing me. All future e-mails from you will be on the record -- publishable at my discretion and directly attributed to you. My cell-phone number is … . If you should decide you have anything constructive to share, you can try to reach me by phone. All of our conversations will also be on the record, publishable at my discretion and directly attributed to you.”

I haven’t heard back from the official. It was a step not taken lightly because the note essentially ended our working relationship. Without the cloak of anonymity, government officials can’t be as open with reporters – they can’t reveal as much information and they can’t explain the nuance and context driving major events.

I changed the rules of our relationship, first, because it was a waste of my time (and the official’s government-funded salary) to engage in abusive conversations. Second, I didn’t want to condone behavior that might intimidate less-experienced reporters, a reaction I personally witnessed in journalists covering the Obama administration.

Is that a double or a home run hit? I wouldn't start a war with the press. Imagine the backlash from a jilted Press Corps and a jilted Media industry.

[kalm]

Now batting...Ron Fournier....

Why Bob Woodward's Fight With The White House Matters to You

The official angered by my Woodward tweet sent me an indignant e-mail. “What’s next, a Nazi analogy?” the official wrote, chastising me for spreading “bull**** like that” I was not offended by the note, mild in comparison to past exchanges with this official. But it was the last straw in a relationship that had deteriorated.

As editor-in-chief of National Journal, I received several e-mails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Politico characterized as a veiled threat. “You will regret staking out that claim,” The Washington Post reporter was told.

Once I moved back to daily reporting this year, the badgering intensified. I wrote Saturday night, asking the official to stop e-mailing me. The official wrote, challenging Woodward and my tweet. “Get off your high horse and assess the facts, Ron,” the official wrote.

I wrote back:

“I asked you to stop e-mailing me. All future e-mails from you will be on the record -- publishable at my discretion and directly attributed to you. My cell-phone number is … . If you should decide you have anything constructive to share, you can try to reach me by phone. All of our conversations will also be on the record, publishable at my discretion and directly attributed to you.”

I haven’t heard back from the official. It was a step not taken lightly because the note essentially ended our working relationship. Without the cloak of anonymity, government officials can’t be as open with reporters – they can’t reveal as much information and they can’t explain the nuance and context driving major events.

I changed the rules of our relationship, first, because it was a waste of my time (and the official’s government-funded salary) to engage in abusive conversations. Second, I didn’t want to condone behavior that might intimidate less-experienced reporters, a reaction I personally witnessed in journalists covering the Obama administration.

The butt hurt runs deep on both sides of this one.

[kalm]

...and pretend journalist Ron Fournier goes down swinging.

I wrote earlier today about Bob Woodward's revealing criticisms of the Obama White House as part of the trivial but increasingly bitter fight between the White House and the DC press corps. But now, there's an even more extraordinary outburst from National Journal's Ron Fournier, formerly the Washington bureau chief for Associated Press. Fournier has written this incredibly petulant column today where he whines in paragraph after paragraph about being criticized in an unpleasant tone by an anonymous White House official over his reporting. Fournier is very angry about how he has been spoken to and instructed the official never to email him ever again: such fragile flowers they are. Fournier then makes the following confession about why he won't reveal the identity of this mean person; I know it's a bit naive, but I actually found this slightly shocking:


"Going back to my first political beat, covering Bill Clinton's administration in Arkansas and later in Washington, I've had a practice that is fairly common in journalism:

"A handful of sources I deal with regularly are granted blanket anonymity. Any time we communicate, they know I am prepared to report the information at will (matters of fact, not spin or opinion) and that I will not attribute it to them."

That's a blanket, automatic grant of anonymity extended in all cases for the benefit of the most powerful political officials in the country. They don't even have to ask for anonymity. There are no negotiations over it. They automatically get it. Fournier eagerly serves as an information dump: White House officials feed him what they want the public to hear; he dutifully goes forth and regurgitates it (when he deems it to be "fact"); and in all cases, he shields their identity from public knowledge. Whatever that's called, it isn't journalism - though I have no doubt, as he says, that it's an incredibly common practice in how the DC media ingratiates itself with the President and his top advisers.

The only similar confession I can recall is when Tim Russert was forced by a judicial proceeding to admit that when any senior government official calls him, his communications with them are presumptively off the record. In other words, by virtue of the limits he voluntarily imposed on himself, Russert was only free to report what he heard if these government officials give him advance, explicit permission to report it. As Dan Froomkin, then of the Washington Post, put it at the time: "That's not reporting, that's enabling. That's how you treat your friends when you're having an innocent chat, not the people you're supposed to be holding accountable." In some sense, Fournier's confessed practice is worse: he doesn't presumptively keep everything off the record: he gives them a standing, permanent offer to say what they want while hiding behind a shield of anonymity and he then spreads it to the world with no accountability possible.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... journalism" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[JohnStOnge]

I think construing what was said as a "threat" is jumping to conclusions.

[Baldy]

...and pretend journalist Ron Fournier goes down swinging.

I wrote earlier today about Bob Woodward's revealing criticisms of the Obama White House as part of the trivial but increasingly bitter fight between the White House and the DC press corps. But now, there's an even more extraordinary outburst from National Journal's Ron Fournier, formerly the Washington bureau chief for Associated Press. Fournier has written this incredibly petulant column today where he whines in paragraph after paragraph about being criticized in an unpleasant tone by an anonymous White House official over his reporting. Fournier is very angry about how he has been spoken to and instructed the official never to email him ever again: such fragile flowers they are. Fournier then makes the following confession about why he won't reveal the identity of this mean person; I know it's a bit naive, but I actually found this slightly shocking:


"Going back to my first political beat, covering Bill Clinton's administration in Arkansas and later in Washington, I've had a practice that is fairly common in journalism:

"A handful of sources I deal with regularly are granted blanket anonymity. Any time we communicate, they know I am prepared to report the information at will (matters of fact, not spin or opinion) and that I will not attribute it to them."

That's a blanket, automatic grant of anonymity extended in all cases for the benefit of the most powerful political officials in the country. They don't even have to ask for anonymity. There are no negotiations over it. They automatically get it. Fournier eagerly serves as an information dump: White House officials feed him what they want the public to hear; he dutifully goes forth and regurgitates it (when he deems it to be "fact"); and in all cases, he shields their identity from public knowledge. Whatever that's called, it isn't journalism - though I have no doubt, as he says, that it's an incredibly common practice in how the DC media ingratiates itself with the President and his top advisers.

The only similar confession I can recall is when Tim Russert was forced by a judicial proceeding to admit that when any senior government official calls him, his communications with them are presumptively off the record. In other words, by virtue of the limits he voluntarily imposed on himself, Russert was only free to report what he heard if these government officials give him advance, explicit permission to report it. As Dan Froomkin, then of the Washington Post, put it at the time: "That's not reporting, that's enabling. That's how you treat your friends when you're having an innocent chat, not the people you're supposed to be holding accountable." In some sense, Fournier's confessed practice is worse: he doesn't presumptively keep everything off the record: he gives them a standing, permanent offer to say what they want while hiding behind a shield of anonymity and he then spreads it to the world with no accountability possible.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... journalism" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Sticking with kalm's baseball analogy.

Mario Mendoza just criticized Buster Posey.

[JohnStOnge]

You aren't the first to notice the resemblance to Mussolini.

So true.



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xxgRUyzgs0[/youtube]

[kalm]

You aren't the first to notice the resemblance to Mussolini.

So true.



[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xxgRUyzgs0[/youtube]

If he resembles Mussolini, you conks should love him.

[JohnStOnge]

If he resembles Mussolini, you conks should love him.

No, because "Conks" don't believe in central government control. There's something you need to come to grips with and it is this: The philosophy of the modern "Liberal" movement in the United States is much closer to fascism than the philosophy of the moderl "Conservative" movement in the United States is because it's the modern "Liberal" movement in the United States that believes in a centralized government that controls things.

The modern "Conservative" movement in the United States clearly promotes weakening the central government in favor of distributing the power to more localized jurisdictions. That is the opposite of fascism.

[BlueHen86]

You can do that with anyone that has a seal of office posted behind them.

Yes, but would they all have facial expressions that indicate narcissism, arrogance -- and a messiah complex?

Obama has a different facial expression in most of those pictures. This isn't about his facial expressions, it's about you not liking the way he looks.

[BlueHen86]

I think construing what was said as a "threat" is jumping to conclusions.

Perhaps, but I don't think it's unreasonable for Woodward to do so.

[houndawg]

If he resembles Mussolini, you conks should love him.

No, because "Conks" don't believe in central government control. There's something you need to come to grips with and it is this: The philosophy of the modern "Liberal" movement in the United States is much closer to fascism than the philosophy of the moderl "Conservative" movement in the United States is because it's the modern "Liberal" movement in the United States that believes in a centralized government that controls things.

The modern "Conservative" movement in the United States clearly promotes weakening the central government in favor of distributing the power to more localized jurisdictions. That is the opposite of fascism.

For the same reason that bank robbers don't want more cops.

[kalm]

If he resembles Mussolini, you conks should love him.

No, because "Conks" don't believe in central government control. There's something you need to come to grips with and it is this: The philosophy of the modern "Liberal" movement in the United States is much closer to fascism than the philosophy of the moderl "Conservative" movement in the United States is because it's the modern "Liberal" movement in the United States that believes in a centralized government that controls things.

The modern "Conservative" movement in the United States clearly promotes weakening the central government in favor of distributing the power to more localized jurisdictions. That is the opposite of fascism.

I would really like to believe this. I really would.

I probably won't vote Democrat for the rest of my life in national elections, but which party favors the notion that corporations are the same as people. Which modern politician smacked down the SCOTUS for suggesting such?

Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.

Benito Mussolin

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