Video: White House Tries To Exclude Fox News From Pay Czar Interviews

This is just amazing. I thought that after having most respectable news organizations condemn the Obama administration’s recent attempts to delegitimize Fox News, some even calling it “Nixonian”, team Obama might back off a little bit.

But I was wrong:

My first impulse is to praise the White House Press Pool for standing with Fox on this. It’s no small thing for a country to have a free press, and we still do.  Thank God for that.

But as Allahpundit noted:

The other networks deserve the praise they’re getting for standing up to the Baby-in-Chief, but if they had acquiesced in this freezeout, a precedent would have been set that would have been eagerly used by future Republican presidents to close them off too. And don’t think they weren’t all keenly aware of it.

Drew M. at AoSHQ had this to say:

It’s amazing we are in the position we are. We have a President who is more interested in talking to murders around the world but is affraid to face a reporter who isn’t enthralled with the crease of his pants.

Wonderful.

Dan Riehl is  taken aback:

This weak administration is now certifiably insane. For the first time in my life I’m actually uncomfortable knowing that this guy has control of our military and Federal police forces. If he thinks he can simply shut down a member of the press on a whim, how long before he goes full Chavez?

(It’s not just me then…thinking along those lines).

Other media outlets rallied around Fox News so it didn’t play. And I would certainly hope the editorial pages around the country mirror that sentiment this weekend, though I’m not sure we can even trust them. Still, no matter what, I can’t see this playing with the American people at all. This guy’s approval ratings are already terrible. Don’t be surprised if they go down the tubes after this outrageous conduct.

Cassandra says, “The bloom is off the rose”….

You may want to check out her “Descent of Obama” photoshop, too.

William A. Jacobson, of Legal Insurrection, says the Obama administration has been acting like a schoolyard bully.

Yep, the kind of bully that picks on one particular kid out of  malevolent  jealousy, and tries to convince all the other kids not to play with him.

Doug Ross:

Perhaps the White House will next try to pull Fox News’ press pass.

That would be entirely consistent with the Hugo Chavez-style of government that President Axelrod and his advisers are trying to install.

I’m patiently waiting for the ACLU to stand up for freedom of the press and complain to President Obama about quashing Fox’s First Amendment rights.

My own photoshop effort: