In a pants-on-fire moment, the White House press office today denied anyone there had issued threats to remove Carla Marinucci and possibly other Hearst reporters from the press pool covering the President in the Bay Area.
Chronicle editor Ward Bushee called the press office on its fib:
Sadly, we expected the White House to respond in this manner based on our experiences yesterday. It is not a truthful response. It follows a day of off-the-record exchanges with key people in the White House communications office who told us they would remove our reporter, then threatened retaliation to Chronicle and Hearst reporters if we reported on the ban, and then recanted to say our reporter might not be removed after all.
The Chronicle’s report is accurate.
The Chief recently had occasion to read Stanley Kutler’s Wars of Watergate, his comprehensive examination of the Nixon White House’s relations with the press (and everyone else for that matter!), which was legendarily sub-optimal. Looks like B.O. and Carney, his appropriately named press shill are continuing that sorry tradition.
Of all the Presidents his worshipful lib/prog fan club would have expected B.O. to emulate, one has to wonder whether the one and only “Tricky Dick” was their first choice! Just wondering…