Top Administration Official Threatened Woodward

[MichaelJoeWilliamson]

As Row and his like have demonstrated in this thread, behaving in civil and decorous manner is for the little people.

Jack booted thuggery is the order of the day for this administration and it sycophants. There is no administrative behavior too vile that the sycophants will not defend.

[wgbgator]

Originally Posted by MichaelJoeWilliamson

As Row and his like have demonstrated in this thread, behaving in civil and decorous manner is for the little people.

Jack booted thuggery is the order of the day for this administration and it sycophants. There is no administrative behavior too vile that the sycophants will not defend.

I'm sure we can all be glad though that today's "jack-booted thuggery" invloves profuse apology via e-mail and "threats" so couched that they can't be noticed by those not needing to validate a feeling they already have, and not actual thugs with jackboots.

[gatorman_07732]

Originally Posted by wgbgator

Fortunately, there's some willing media outlets for Bob to have his feelings validated.

Clearly this administration is above threatening anyone

[MichaelJoeWilliamson]

Lanny Davis: The White House Threatened To Deny Me Credentials If I Kept Writing About Them


Ron Fourier: I Got the Same "You Will Regret This"

-----Ace of Spades

[MichaelJoeWilliamson]

A day after Woodward's claim that a senior White House official had told him he would "regret" writing a column criticizing President Obama's stance on the sequester, Lanny Davis, a longtime close advisor to President Bill Clinton, told WMAL's Mornings on the Mall Thursday he had received similar threats for newspaper columns he had written about Obama in the Washington Times.

Davis told WMAL that his editor, John Solomon, "received a phone call from a senior Obama White House official who didn't like some of my columns, even though I'm a supporter of Obama. I couldn't imagine why this call was made." Davis says the Obama aide told Solomon, "that if he continued to run my columns, he would lose, or his reporters would lose their White House credentials."

Thus demonstrating that this Administration feels that the First Amendment is important, except when it is not.

[MichaelJoeWilliamson]

Now National Journal reporter Ron Fourier -- whom I believe to be a liberal in good standing with his paperwork in order -- drops this tidbit:

As editor-in-chief of National Journal, I received several e-mails and telephone calls from this White House official filled with vulgarity, abusive language, and virtually the same phrase that Woodward called a veiled threat. “You will regret staking out that claim,” The Washington Post reporter was told.

Once I moved back to daily reporting this year, the badgering intensified. I wrote Saturday night, asking the official to stop e-mailing me. The official wrote, challenging Woodward and my tweet. “Get off your high horse and assess the facts, Ron,” the official wrote.

I wrote back:

“I asked you to stop e-mailing me. All future e-mails from you will be on the record -- publishable at my discretion and directly attributed to you. My cell-phone number is … . If you should decide you have anything constructive to share, you can try to reach me by phone. All of our conversations will also be on the record, publishable at my discretion and directly attributed to you.” I haven’t heard back from the official. It was a step not taken lightly because the note essentially ended our working relationship.

More

[gatorman_07732]

Originally Posted by Row6

and gatorman's been threatened right here on TH, at least twice today. With what is the proper question, for both he and Woodward.

oooooooooooook

[PSGator66]

Woodward was the only one threatened and I guess this is one step closer to having liberal censorship over all media as the nation slowly falls into oblivion.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013...-articles-too/

[madgator]

scarey how the Obama supporters are so quick in their impulse to immediately attack Bob Woodward rather than question those in power.


why think? why analyze? why not deliberate? just attack anyone who doesn't toe the line.


very troubling

[MichaelJoeWilliamson]

BTW, Sperling's apology and subsequent verbosity suggest that he knows he crossed a line.

[rivergator]

Apparently conservatives are now realizing there wasn't a threat:

Matt Lewis - Bob Woodward trolled us (and we got played)

Erick Erickson - Ok wow. Finally read the email to Woodward. I must now move to the "not a threat" camp.

Brit Hume - On one hand, only Woodward can say if he felt threatened by WH email. On the other, hard to imagine feeling threatened by Gene Sperling.

link

[gatorman_07732]

Originally Posted by rivergator

Apparently conservatives are now realizing there wasn't a threat:

Matt Lewis - Bob Woodward trolled us (and we got played)

Erick Erickson - Ok wow. Finally read the email to Woodward. I must now move to the "not a threat" camp.

Brit Hume - On one hand, only Woodward can say if he felt threatened by WH email. On the other, hard to imagine feeling threatened by Gene Sperling.

link

I'm shocked that you would try to deny there was a threat

[rivergator]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

I'm shocked that you would try to deny there was a threat

Actually, you've got some serious blast-Obama-for-anything conservatives who are saying there was no threat. They admit they were played.
Your turn.

[MichaelJoeWilliamson]

Good, smart commentary;

Tipping Point

Last week, Politico’s feature on the ability of the Obama White House to manipulate the coverage they received generated a heated discussion about whether the supine attitude of mainstream journalists toward the president was the result of clever tactics and not, as they claimed, liberal bias. I agreed that the administration had broken new ground in employing smart ways to bypass and frustrate the working press, but pointed out the obvious fact that these strategies wouldn’t work half so well if the vast majority of the publications and networks that employ the journalists weren’t happy to roll over for Obama. No president has received the sort of adulation and fawning coverage from the mainstream since the halcyon days of John F. Kennedy’s Camelot White House.

While the Woodward rebellion hasn’t really altered that reality, it is a sign that his expectation that he will be treated with kid gloves for four more years may not be fulfilled. That the administration is pushing back so hard on Woodward betrays their worry that if the Watergate icon can get away with saying the emperor has no clothes, lesser mortals will soon be tempted to do it too.

As important as the sequester may be, this spat is about more than just that issue. The White House has assumed all along that its narrative about the budget cuts and the need for more taxes–even after the recent hikes enacted to avert the fiscal cliff as well as the raise in payroll deductions–would never be contradicted by what has been their active cheering section in the press corps.

As Max pointed out, there are good reasons to fear the effect of the sequester. But the idea that the president can bulldoze his way through Republican opposition to his big government agenda armed with the notion that the public and the media will unite behind him has been shaken. Today, even the still loyal New York Times admitted the public might not be panicked into pressuring the Republicans into submission. If the White House is today waging an unexpected war on Bob Woodward, it is because they fear the beginning of the end of their four-year honeymoon with the media.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/20...t/#more-819544

[g8rjd]

Originally Posted by gatorman_07732

Did you even listen to Woodward? I don't think you did, because the words came right out of his mouth that this made him uncomfortable. You guys are amazing. There is nothing this administration could do that you would condemn....Nothing

Gatorman,

I'm going to have to disagree with you here. This is hardly an "offer he can't refuse." From the email, the context of something he would "regret" doesn't appear to me to be a threat of government retribution, but merely that his assertions could prove to be wrong, affecting Woodward's credibility. From Woodward's response, it appears that is how he took the official's statement as well.

Certainly, whenever I hear an administration official say something to a reporter about "regret[ting]" proceeding on a story, I would be deeply concerned about it being an inappropriate government intimidation of the press. However, looking at the context here, I don't think that's the case. In context, it appears the administration official is trying to persuade Woodward by appealing to Woodward's interest in maintaining his crediblity, not to exercise retribution. And, from Woodward's response, it appears that Woodward, at least initially, understood it that way.

JMHO.

[G8trGr8t]

Originally Posted by PSGator66

Woodward was the only one threatened and I guess this is one step closer to having liberal censorship over all media as the nation slowly falls into oblivion.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013...-articles-too/

nothing to see hear, move along....you have to wonder how many junior reporters this administration has threatened and intimidated.

this was all foreseeable too as his history of denying credentials to those that disagree with him goes all the way back to the first potus race he was in. control the messenger, control the message. I bet he would love state run media

[corpgator]

So let's see, Woodward is ranting about Obama moving the goal posts, when the entire point of sequestration was to force a "moving of the goal posts" from the beginning. Both sides are trying to come up with something so sequestration doesn't happen. They are both moving them.

Then someone tells him he's wrong and that if he keeps spouting this nonsense, he's going to regret it. Wow, big threat there.

[gatorman_07732]

Originally Posted by rivergator

Actually, you've got some serious blast-Obama-for-anything conservatives who are saying there was no threat. They admit they were played.
Your turn.

Most rational people would see this as a threat

BOB WOODWARD: A 'Very Senior' White House Person Warned Me I'd 'Regret' What I'm Doing

[corpgator]

If I'm talking to a co-worker and tell him I'm about to go tell off my boss for something, and he tells me that I'm going to regret it, is he threatening me or giving me good advice?

[mastoidbone]

Nothing wrong with that email exchange.

What is wrong is Obama lying about the SEQ being HID idea---and bob having to show the nation yet again that Obama lies about.....everything.