There was a bit of a dustup over on the Left side of the American political spectrum last week that I found somewhat amusing.
As most of you know, I have been writing professionally about liberal bias in the mainstream media for most of the 21st century. It had bothered me for my first 15 or so years as a conservative activist (I started during the Reagan administration), so I finally started venting about it online when even getting online was an adventure.
It was a rather fortunate area of focus for me to choose, as I will never run out of material.
Back to the Dems’ family squabble. During one of his many unfortunate off-leash appearances last week, Joe Biden bristled at a reporter’s question, and slurred something about wishing that the reporters would “play by the rules a little bit.”
Oh-oh, Grandpa just let out a secret.
The brave members of our faux journalist class couldn’t let the rubes in the hinterlands believe that those who cover the president were bound by some sort of pinky swear and or blood oath with the Democratic National Committee. A strongly worded press release was issued, which Chris wrote about last Friday:
The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) begs to differ with the president on the “rules” that he insists are there for reporters to follow. NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell, the WHCA president, issued a statement saying as much.
“The White House Correspondents’ Association believes it is in the public interest to make clear that at a presidential press conference, at home or abroad, there are no preconditions regarding question topics,” the statement began.
“While the White House does determine the number of reporters the president will recognize, it is up to professional journalists to decide what to ask,” O’Donnell continued. “Any leader may prefer that reporters ask only one question or ask only about a topic that is of most interest to the president or another world leader, but a free press functions independently.”
She concluded the statement with what sounds like a barb at Biden: “WHCA would welcome more opportunities to pose a range of questions to the president in a press conference setting.”