If your part of the White House press corp and the person you’re covering is unavailable then you don’t have much to report. You think maybe the Obama administration prefers it this way?

Is there hostility between the White House media gang and folks in the White House:

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs met with a delegation from the White House press corps for 75 minutes on earlier this month in an effort to improve frayed relations between the two sides.

Ed Chen, a White House correspondent for Bloomberg News who is president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said he asked for the meeting “to clear the air because in my 10-plus years at the White House, rarely have I sensed such a level of anger, which is wide and deep, among members over White House practices and attitude toward the press.”

Is the White House thin-skinned? Politico reports:
Day-to-day interaction with Obama is almost nonexistent, and he talks to the press corps far less often than Bill Clinton or even George W. Bush did. Clinton took questions nearly every weekday, on average. Obama barely does it once a week.

— The ferocity of pushback is intense. A routine press query can draw a string of vitriolic e-mails. A negative story can draw a profane high-decibel phone call or worse. Some reporters feel like they’ve been frozen out after crossing the White House.

— Except toward a few reporters, press secretary Robert Gibbs can be distant and difficult to reach — even though his job is to be one of the main conduits from president to press. “It’s an odd White House where it’s easier to get the White House chief of staff on the phone than the White House press secretary,” one top reporter said.

— And at the very moment many reporters feel shut out, one paper — The New York Times — enjoys a favoritism from Obama and his staff that makes competitors fume, with gift-wrapped scoops and loads of presidential face time.

Press Secretary Gibbs claims:

“This is the most transparent administration in the history of our country.”

Gibbs said this at a press conference and laughter broke out in the room. Is the press really laughing or crying on the inside?

Mr. Teleprompter Obama rarely has a one-on-one with the press, does not accept comments on the fly and hasn’t had a press conference in over 10-months. Numbers don’t lie. During his first year in office, Bill Clinton did 252 Q&A sessions—an average of one every weekday. George W. Bush did 147. Obama has done 46.

“Too many of the president’s meetings are ‘no coverage’ for my taste,” said ABC’s Ann Compton. “That is a stark reduction in access for us.”

The White House points out that in his first year, Obama gave 161 interviews, while  Bush and Clinton each did about 50. However, these one-on-one interviews are well planned out, the person doing the interview is hand selected and the atmosphere is very controlling. In fact, according to the Politico, playing favorites and singling out the NY Times has happened.

Execept for one interview The Wall Street Jounal has been virtually locked out. Jonathon Weisman has quietly complained and Gibbs responds:

“Jonathan talks to many people, many senior advisers here. He talks to Rahm and [David] Axelrod fairly repeatedly. There may be a little of Mark Twain in this. The mention of his not having access is greatly exaggerated,” said Gibbs, who also noted that Jerry Seib, the Journal’s Washington executive editor, has been in to talk to Obama, for an interview and as part of Obama’s off-the-record lunches.

I can’t count the times I’ve commented on Seib’s column at WSJ and my notes haven’t been favorable. The common thread coming out of Seib’s articles is leaning towards favorable or at the least dancing around the issues and no criticism on issues where criticism is forthcoming. To stay in the graces of the White House one must play the game they want you to play. Otherwise, no interview, no access.

Another event that riled many in the press corps took place March 20. The Washington Examiner’s Julie Mason confronted former Newsweek correspondent Richard Wolffe, author of a highly favorable book about the Obama campaign, when he attempted to join the White House pool on the Saturday before Congress’s big health care vote.

“You’re not in the pool,” Mason recalled telling Wolffe. “You shouldn’t be joining.” Mason said Wolffe claimed that he was there courtesy of “a special invitation from the Obama administration.” Wolffe is working on a second book on the Obama administration.

“Are you working for them officially now?” shot back Mason.

“The White House wants their friend to be in the pool and we don’t know what recourse we have,” Mason later told POLITICO. “It’s just completely unfair to the press corps and flies in the face of the concept of a free press.”

Free press and the Obama White House? Are you kidding? Here’s another example of controlling the message and ABCs Ann Compton is not happy.

One current focus of press corps ire are gauzy video features the White House’s staff videographer cranks out, taking advantage of behind-the-scenes access to Obama and his aides, such as a recent piece offering “exclusive footage” of first lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden touring Haiti.

“I think someone out there might mistake them for news, as opposed to slick publicity handouts for the White House,” said Compton. “To me, they’re mocking what we do.”

Obama and his minions mocking? Imagine that!

“It’s not unusual to have shouting matches or the e-mail equivalent of that. It’s very, very aggressive behavior, taking issue with a thing you’ve written, an individual word, all sorts of things,” said one White House reporter.

“It’s a natural outgrowth of campaigning, where control of the message is everything and where a very tight circle controls the flow of information,” The New Yorker’s Packer said. “I just think it is a mistake to transfer that model to governing. Governing is so much more complicated and is all about implementation — not just message.”

This coming from the Left-Wing New Yorker. You really have to laugh.

Some reporters say the pushback is so aggressive that it undermines the credibility of Obama’s aides.

“The willingness to argue that credible information is untrue is at its core dishonest and unfortunately calls into question everything else the press office says,” one White House reporter said.

Robert Gibbs and the White House press office lying? Please, say it ain’t so!

Can we recall all the complaints about the Bush administration, the same people who built a more modern facility for the press corp?

“The access is much poorer than in the Bush administration,” one national newspaper reporter who regularly covers the White House said.

“This is wider than just the White House. I feel like the political appointees in a variety of agencies are more difficult to get to. There are people … you could reach in the Bush administration that now say, ‘That position does not speak to the press. We do not give background. We do not give anything.’’’

ABCs Compton tells us to just wait for a scandal. We may not have to wait much longer, will the press report it?

“They ain’t seen nothing yet,” the longtime ABC reporter said. “Wait till they have to start really circling the wagons when someone in the administration is under attack, wait till there’s a scandal, wait till someone screws up, then it’ll get hostile.”

Yes, we waiting, but what does today’s press feel is a scandal? They completely ignored the past of Obama and if that’s not scandal in a free country what is?

Facts are facts and if you write something unfavorable to White House thinking then you are out.

Last year, colleagues noticed that David Corn of Mother Jones went through a noticeable dry spell at White House briefings, with Gibbs seeming to overlook his raised hand for a period of several weeks or more.

“I remember tangling with David, but I would just say I think David has probably gotten more questions at the briefing in the last few months than he got in the entire last eight years,” Gibbs said. Corn declined to comment. (LC Note: Is Mr. Corn scared?)

“They throw some brush-back pitches every now and then,” one White House reporter for a major newspaper said. “They’ve been pretty heavy-handed and have cut some people off.”

Edward Luce of The Financial Times drew the ire of Obama aides for a couple of articles arguing that decision making in the Obama administration is extremely centralized. Neither piece was a devastating indictment of the White House, but they prompted a furious reaction.

“I was just in awe of the pummeling Ed took from top White House people,” said policy blogger and New America Foundation senior fellow Steve Clemons. He began talking to White House reporters and came away convinced that what he calls an “extremely unhealthy” relationship has developed in which the White House generally cooperates only with reporters who are willing to write source greasers or other fawning articles. (LC Emphasis)

Clemons’s post on his findings, “Communications Corruption at the White House,” was harsh, particularly coming from a policy wonk who tends to agree with most of Obama’s stances.

“Has the bar moved so far that a reasonable piece that gives and takes a little but provides both criticism and applause is something White House has to respond to in such a prickly, thin-skinned way?” asked Clemons.

Poor baby, you’re in agreement with Obama but now you’ve angered them and write about “Communications Corruption at the White House.”

Actually the corruption is flowing both ways and the mainstream media is guilty for not reporting facts in lieu of access and being a true Comrade.  Indeed!

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From Ann in Massachusetts and Betsy in Ohio

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I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it is, as I filled it lovingly with seed. Within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.

But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table and next to the barbecue.

Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table…..everywhere!

Then some of the birds turned on me. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket.

And others birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and night and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.

After a while, I couldn’t even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio.

Soon, the back yard was like it used to be…. quiet, serene and no one demanding their rights to a free meal.

Now let’s see…..

Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, and free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen.

Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families; you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor; your child’s 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn’t speak English.

Corn Flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to “press one” to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than “Old Glory” are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.

Just my opinion, but maybe it’s time for the government to take down the bird feeder. If you agree, pass it on; if not, continue cleaning up the poop!

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Ann and Betsy Thanks!, Indeed!

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Yid With Lid: He was giving the key note speech at a Washington Institute For Near East Policy and started it out with a “joke” that borders on anti-Semitic, teaching the crowd that Jews are just greedy merchants in the same vein as Shakespeare’s Shylock…

According to the Jewish Forward:

After the speech, two participants suggested, in private conversations with the Forward, that Jones’ joke might have been inappropriate. After all, making jokes about greedy Jewish merchants can be seen at times as insensitive.

A prominent think-tank source who attended the event said the joke was “wrong in so many levels” and that it “demonstrated a lack of sensitivity.” The source also asked: “Can you imagine him telling a black joke at an event of African Americans?”

Also from Yid:

Was the Joke Anti-Semitic? Well, the White House must have thought so. The White House transcript sent to reporters after the event conveniently began a couple of minutes into the speech. The video of the event posted on the Washington Institute Web site started right after the Joke, you can even hear the end of the laughter.

Its interesting that the same President that sees racism in the legitimate actions of the Cambridge Police and the State of Arizona, hides the anti-Semitic prose of its National Security Adviser.

UPDATE: I found the video but couldn’t download it. I contacted my friends at Breitbart and thanks to the Scott Baker at Breitbart TV, I was able to get my hands on the video of Jones’ “comic delivery.”

So the “joke” blows up in the face of the Obama administration and they scrub it. However, those pesky right-wing bloggers are able to put the remarks out in the open.

Look at Obama’s treatment of Israel – do you think this is anti-Semitic? Indeed!

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