Obama Citizenship

President-Elect Obama Visits the Supremes Today; Shuts Out Journalists at News Conferences

By Phil

From the AP (Investigating Obama’s write-up):

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden plan to make a preinaugural visit to the Supreme Court.

The Obama transition team said the two will visit the court Wednesday afternoon at the invitation of Chief Justice John Roberts.

It’s something of a tradition for incoming presidents and vice presidents to pay their respects to the court, though not all have made the trip. Bill Clinton and his vice president-elect, Al Gore, called on the court in December 1992, and Ronald Reagan and his vice president-elect, George H. W. Bush, visited in November 1980.

The Obama team said Wednesday’s visit was private, with no press permitted.

Don’t you just love all of the privacy that’s going around? Apparently, as RedState.com reports, the President-Elect is serious about it and will only allow hand-picked reporters into news conferences, picking them based on a pre-determined listing, so why even raise a hand?:

One wonders why journalists are allowing this corralling of the press? Would they have allowed George W. Bush to pre-pick journalists like that? Would they meekly sit by and allow themselves to be systematically ignored, their freedom to ask questions silenced by any Republican? Would journalists so eagerly vie with one another for the favor of Bush like they are Obama?s?

As Chicago Sun-Times journalist Carol Marin opines,

As ferociously as we march like villagers with torches against Blagojevich, we have been, in the true spirit of the Bizarro universe, the polar opposite with the president-elect. Deferential, eager to please, prepared to keep a careful distance.

The Obama news conferences tell that story, making one yearn for the return of the always-irritating Sam Donaldson to awaken the slumbering press to the notion that decorum isn?t all it?s cracked up to be.

The press corps, most of us, don?t even bother raising our hands any more to ask questions because Obama always has before him a list of correspondents who?ve been advised they will be called upon that day.

RedState continues with a great question and observation:

Will the rest of the press retake their manhood and again become the tough guys they have always claimed to be or are they going to stay so smitten by Obama and their love for The One that they will allow themselves to continue being forced into a subservient role?

One has a sinking suspicion that the press is allowing itself to become Obama?s lapdog extraordinaire.

-Phil

Full post as published by The Right Side of Life on January 14, 2009 (boomark / email).