For all of my complaining about what I call the Lame Stream Media, and much of it is deserved, occasionally one of them shows courage and integrity. Perhaps they are beginning to realize how dispensible they have become in this age of the Internet and citizen journalists. But when one of the professionals dares to raise his or her head above the mediocre crowd, it usually costs them and this lady was no exception. Sharyl Attkisson's experience needs telling.
Sharyl Attkisson is an investigative reporter and a senior independent contributor to The Daily Signal. She formerly worked for the CBS, Washington bureau and investigated and exposed 'Fast & Furious' and Attorney General Eric Holders involvement in it. This administration went after her with guns blazing, attempting to get her muzzled by her supervisors by claiming 'poor reporting'. Attkisson eventually left CBS in frustration at the higher ups running interference for the Obama administration for not giving enough coverage to stories like the Benghazi attack and the problems reported with implementing Obamacare. Her book, 'Stonewalled” paints a pretty clear picture of obstruction, intimidation and harassment from the Obama administration, especially by the Justice Department.
Apparently poor reporting is synonymous with truth in reporting to this president. His actions and reactions are about what I would expect from a communist dictator in the old Soviet Union. How dare anyone question his actions or motives or those of his minions. Does he think he's going to get a free pass because he's half black? Or because he's our first non-white president? Sorry buddy. It doesn't work like that. He is nothing special and will be held to the same standards as anyone else, which so far he is failing miserably to come up to. This is just another example of his campaign lies when he promised to have the most transparent administration ever and to protect whistle-blowers. What a liar!
Most presidents have had a prickly relationship with the press but it has gotten far worse in recent times. I remember how Nixon and his flunkies railed at and threatened Ben Bradley for publishing the Watergate leaks and obstructed the investigation at every turn. Clinton certainly was no great fan of the press either as they exposed one after the other of his picadillos, political or otherwise. I suppose Boy Bush was aware of adverse stories about himself, although his pit bull vice president usually dealt with them.
But Obama has been one of the worst presidents to go after the press for any story less than flattering about him. The AP & Fox rape and pillage, as I like to call it, was way over the top. It's just another example of Obama ignoring the Constitution and Bill of Rights. You remember, the laws that guarantee a free press? I thought Nixon was paranoid. This president has gone far beyond suspicious or fearful to obstructive and punitive. I think a presidential comparison is in order.
“Conscious that there was not a truth on earth which I feared should be known, I have lent myself willingly as the subject of a great experiment, which was to prove that an administration, conducting itself with integrity and common understanding, cannot be battered down, even by the falsehoods of a licentious press, and consequently still less by the press, as restrained within the legal and wholesome limits of truth. This experiment was wanting for the world to demonstrate the falsehood of the pretext that freedom of the press is incompatible with orderly government. I have never, therefore, even contradicted the thousands of calumnies so industriously propagated against myself. But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave it to others to restore it to its strength, by recalling it within the pale of truth, Within that, it is a noble institution, equally the friend of science and of civil liberty.” Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Seymour, 1807.
The founding fathers knew how important a free press was to liberty. The press is the only industry protected by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. A free press is the watchdog of politicians, bankers, corporations and more. Or at least they are supposed to be. That's why the elite bought up all the large newspapers in the country and eventually, radio and TV. As an effort to control how much true information the public would be fed, it was a brilliant move. But even with all of that effort, some reporters still know what the job of investigative journalism entails and they are intent on doing their job in the face of draconian push back from totalitarian administrations like Boy Bushes and Obama's.
Attkisson's experience with the Obama administration prompted Chuck Grassley, Senator from Iowa and the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee to postpone any confirmation of Obama's pick, Loretta Lynch, for the Attorney General position until after Attkisson had been heard first, although her testimony was about the previous AG. Allegations that her personal and work computers were hacked during her time at CBS were greatly diluted and brought into question by her former bosses when questioned by the Office of Inspector General. Another case of a good reporter being marginalized for doing her job and an outstanding one. Of course the alphabet agencies don't wiretap or otherwise hack Americans privacy. We have James Clapper's word on that.
Maybe when the committee and the full Republican controlled Senate hear how Attkisson was subjected to surveillance and intimidation, they will reconsider Loretta Lynch replacing Eric Holder. Do we need another of the same ilk? I've read she has a few questions to answer about some fancy judicial footwork as a federal judge in New York. Why would the committee even consider her?
A free press should be doggedly pursuing that lead and informing the American citizens about how people chosen by this president seem to share his same ethics or lack thereof. We don't need another Justice Sonia Sotomayor who claimed under oath that she was open-minded about the Second Amendment. And then, as soon as she was confirmed made it very clear in the Heller case, which didn't even require her opinion, that she had lied under oath. Did these people all study Lenin's handbook for using any lie to come to power?
How far we have fallen from the days of Thomas Jefferson when the term 'free press' meant something, as he believed in and practiced a 'hands off policy' no matter what they published.
www.teaparty.org/sharyl-attkisson-obama-administration-treats-journalists-like-enemies-state-80491/
