White House Threatens Legendary Journalist, Bob Woodward

Can you believe this …. person is our president for four more years? God help us.

And Bob Woodward in not one to be trifled with. He’s not backing down and he’s not shutting up.

Here’s the interview Bob Woodward gave to Wolf Blitzer, today on CNN, where said “a very senior person” at the White House had warned him that he would “regret doing this” regarding his reporting on Obama’s handling of the sequester.

This is absolutely stunning:

Video via Greg Hengler, Townhall Tipsheet.

Via John Sexton at The Conversation, Woodward told Politico that the White House aide had “yelled at me for about a half hour” on the phone before he received the threatening email.

These types of threats and intimidation from Obama’s henchmen are  designed to silence his critics and have been going on since (at least) the ’08 campaign.

Very early in Obama’s presidency, on February 19, 2009 to be exact, I wrote a  post about how this thin skinned president was poised to silence critics of his regime.

We already knew about Obama’s history of intimidation, and character assassination.  We knew how he had tried to destroy his political enemies – at least regular readers of this site know, because I covered it while it was happening, here, and here, and here. While projecting an outward appearance of near messianic magnanimity, his underlings, lawyers, and political allies were always working feverishly to steamroll over critics, (and plaintiffs).

***

Fast forward over two years later, and nobody even bats an eye at White House enemies lists, lies, threats, intimidation, bullying, corruption, and  opposition research of anyone who looks like a threat to His Highness.

This is the new normal.

And his attack dogs in the left-wing media always trip over each other in their rush to sic these critics. Woodward is the latest “refusenik” getting the treatment:

The Left has been taking pot shots at Bob Woodward for a week over his stance on the sequester, but following Woodward’s claim on CNN tonight that a senior White House official told him he’d “regret” calling out the president on “moving the goal posts,” Obama’s water carriers had to kick  into high gear their campaign to discredit Woodward.

You may recall that  Sharyl Attkisson told Laura Ingraham on her radio show in October, 2011, that “a guy from the White House literally screamed” at her and “cussed” at her over the phone. She told Ingraham that person was WH communications flack,  Eric Schultz.

But Bob Woodward indicated that the culprit is a “very senior person” at the White House, so that eliminates Schultz.

Here’s Obama’s top White House staff:

• Chief of Staff Denis McDonough
• Deputy Chief of Staff Rob Nabors
• Deputy Chief of Staff Alyssa Mastromonaco
• Counselor to the President Peter Rouse
• Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett
• Senior Advisor Dan Pfeiffer

Let the guessing games begin!

UPDATE:

The shouter and threatening emailer has been identified as Gene Sperling, head of the National Economic Council.

 Woodward’s account of his recent testy exchange with the White House points to continued sensitivity over the issue of whose idea the sequester was.

A White House official said in an emailed response to Reuters that no threat was intended by the comment.

“The email from the aide was sent to apologize for voices being raised in their previous conversation,” the aide said. “The note suggested that Mr. Woodward would regret the observation he made regarding the sequester because that observation was inaccurate, nothing more.”

The BuzzFeed news website identified the official who tangled with Woodward as Gene Sperling, head of the National Economic Council. The White House did not respond to a request to confirm the identity of the official.

Yes, the Buzzfeed story was written by Ben “nothing to see here” Smith.