NYT reporter: Obama admin “most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered”

hotair.com ^ | October 5, 2013 | ED MORRISSEY

[ilovesarah2012]

Remember when the media rushed to talk about transparency in the Barack Obama “Hope and Change” era? Good times, good times. Leonard Downie, who once worked as the executive editor of the Washington Post and wrote a novel about Washington corruption and the Iraq War, finds a bigger and non-fictional problem in the successor to George W. Bush. Downie gives the Post a preview of his report from the Committee to Protect Journalists which outlines the Obama war on reporters and their sources:

“A memo went out from the chief of staff a year ago to White House employees and the intelligence agencies that told people to freeze and retain any e-mail, and presumably phone logs, of communications with me,” Sanger said. As a result, longtime sources no longer talk to him. “They tell me: ‘David, I love you, but don’t e-mail me. Let’s don’t chat until this blows over.’ ”

Sanger, who has worked for the Times in Washington for two decades, said, “This is most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered.”

Many leak investigations include lie-detector tests for government officials with access to the information at issue. “Reporters are interviewing sources through intermediaries now,” Barr told me, “so the sources can truthfully answer on polygraphs that they didn’t talk to reporters.”

The investigations have been “a kind of slap in the face” for reporters and their sources, said Smith of the Center for Public Integrity. “It means you have to use extraordinary measures for contacts with officials speaking without authorization.”

[Tax-chick]

“This is most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered.”

But he supports it 110%, and anyone who has any objections is racist.

[SueRae]

The commies are among us.

[skinkinthegrass]

!

[American Constitutionalist]

He is closed minded and not in touch with the people.

[knarf]

yeah .. well ... he’s YOUR guy ...

[RayChuang88]

If they New York Times reporter is willing to take off the rose-colored liberal glasses, the reporter will find out some pretty frightening truths about the Obama Administration:

1. They--unlike the Nixon Administration--actually wielded the frightening powers of the IRS to suppress conservative 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) political groups.
2. It was the Obama Administration that may have given the NSA the green light in 2011 to tremendously expand its warrantless tapping of the Internet.

No wonder why people are realizing it's so hard to sometime get things out of the Obama Administration.

[bert]

This tale is the press equivalent of the IRS audit of Dr Ben Carson after he ripped the president at the prayer brekfast

[Doogle]

paranoia only grows as the veil lowers

[McGavin999]

And yet they get on their knees and kiss his butt. They are destroying this country with their cowardice and failure to do the job.

[Tax-chick]

Anything is acceptable, even praiseworthy, in pursuit of the progressive utopia. People who can excuse the deliberate starvation of millions aren't blinking at a little government obstruction of the press, really.

This guy was probably told he could vent a little annoyance to deflect the charges of the press's being wholly owned by the Democrats.

[ilovesarah2012]

He has no interest in being “in touch with the people”. He has an agenda to enforce and come hell or high water, he and his evil minions will see that it is carried out. No one - not the press, not congress, not the American people - can stop him. Everyone is scared to death of Obama, and perhaps for good reason. I cannot believe what has happened to my once-great country in such a short time.

[Liz]

O-o-o-o-o, Eddie don't worship Oboner. Valerie's gonna getchou.

[Puppage]

Exactly!

[Erik Latranyi]

It was the Obama Administration that may have given the NSA the green light in 2011 to tremendously expand its warrantless tapping of the Internet.

I assure you that we will learn the Obama Campaign of 2012 had NSA data-mining assistance.

The Obama campaign was awful showing little "eye of the tiger" for re-election while absolute confidence they were going to win.

That election was over before Romney accepted the nomination.

[American Constitutionalist]

Neither is he in touch with reality, only the figment of his ego.

[Popman]

OMG....the poor guy...wakes up from his "hope and change" dreamland and find out his masser Obama is a tyrant...

My heart bleeds for him...NOT

A pox on them and their ilk...

The question is "What are you Mr. NYT reporter going to do about it" except whine?...Nothing is my guess...

[Doogle]

The narcissist's paranoid streak is likeliest to erupt when he lacks Narcissistic Supply. The regulation of his labile sense of self-worth is dependent upon external stimuli - adoration, adulation, affirmation, applause, notoriety, fame, infamy, and, in general, attention of any kind.

...crank up the bus Gus, let's find a crowd that wants free phones,free everything,....blocking people from enjoying what is theirs didn't work....so let's hit the road..."I'm finding it harder to get that glow"...did any other black schools get back to us about me speaking?

[sneakers]

Bttt

[liberalh8ter]

Welcome to reality, Sanger. I respect your right to disagree with others and support your candidate but that's not what happened here. You and your cohorts deliberately conspired to cover up what was right in front of your nose in order to get your guy in office and now that he's done what the sane have predicted all along and turned on you, you finally open your mouth. As I said, you had your right to disagree with others, but you didn't have the right to obfuscate, lie and drag the rest of us through your painful learning experience.