Posted on 12/08/2014 10:09:23 AM PST by Red Badger
According to retired ABC News journalist Ann Compton, Barack Obama has launched into "profanity-laced" tirades against the press in off-the-record meetings with reporters. In a C-SPAN interview, Compton also derided the President for leading "the most opaque" administration of "any I have covered."
The journalist, who retired in August after a 40-year career, revealed to C-SPAN's Brian Lamb: "I have seen in the last year Barack Obama really angry twice. Both were off the record times. One, profanity-laced where he thought the press was making too much of scandals that he did not think were scandals."
She explained, "And I don't find him apologetic. But I find him willing to stand up to the press and look them in the eye, even though it was off the record and just give us hell."
After Lamb wondered if the President had a point, she chided, "We cover what we are allowed to cover. And when policy decisions and presidents are inaccessible and don't take questions from the press on a regular basis, I think they reap what they sow."
Despite Obama's apparent rage against the press, he hasn't had much to complain about. The Media Research Center documented how journalists covered-up his failures and scandals.
Earlier in the hour-long C-SPAN interview, which aired in October, Compton slammed the "opaque" administration:
ANN COMPTON: Before I walked out the door on September 10, I was a strong voice for complaining that this particular administration has been more opaque than any I have covered about what the President does in the Oval Office everyday. He is far less accessible on photo-ops with meetings. Even some meetings on the record, meeting in the Roosevelt room with financial leaders from, from Wall Street or on issues with environmental groups, or with issues with environmental groups, with public opinion leaders, I think most presidents have been far more forthcoming than the second Obama term, in terms of what the President is doing every day and we almost never get photo-ops.
She added that it's fine for the White House to take its own photographs, but "those same elements should not be blocked from the White House press corps."
Interestingly, on Compton's last day in August, the President called on her for a final question. She chose to ask about the police shooting in Ferguson, not the concerns she expressed to C-SPAN.
(H/T to Heritage's Mike Gonzalez for first noticing Compton's comments and tweeting about them.)
A partial transcript of the October 30 segment is below:
Sept 10, 2013: "...After the terrorist attack of Sep. 11, 2001, Compton was the only broadcast reporter allowed to remain on Air Force One with then President George W. Bush. Comptons reporting on the Sep. 11 tradgedy earned her recognition with ABC News' Emmy and Peabody awards.
In 2006, Hollins alumnae gathered in Washington, DC where President Nancy Oliver Gray presented Compton with Hollins Distinguished Alumnae Award.
In honor of her 40 years of service, President Obama presented Compton with a cupcake Airforce One. President Obama is the seventh US president Compton has covered as a White House Correspondent."..... Source
I don't believe anything any of them say.
But when a reporter who spent six years fawning over Obama when she was at ABC News all of a sudden says she was concerned about the dishonesty and “opaqueness” after she retires it becomes too hypocritical not to notice.
10 Sep 2014
At the White House press briefing room, colleagues of ABC News reporter Ann Compton toasted her last day at the White House with champagne and rum cake after the daily press briefing on Tuesday afternoon.
During the celebration, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest made a surprise visit to offer his own toast to Compton and recognize her long career as a reporter at the White House.
What’s distinguishing about her is this inner spirit in which she is eager to see the White House succeed, and she does not view that as being at odds with her commitment to holding the administration accountable and insisting on transparency and access and telling the story about what is happening to the American people, Earnest said.
Earnest willingly went on the record to discuss Comptons career, which has lasted over four decades.
She is able to better the way that she sort of wishes for and aspires to the success of this institution that is the White House, and that is a really classy thing. Thats the kind of thing you dont learn by working every two or years, thats the kind of thing you cultivate after years and years of experience, he said.
(snip)
He’s no Harry S Truman.. Or is he?
Battered wife syndrome was my thought exactly. They suffer and they enable. “I just love him so, why won’t he change?”
As RATagandists, it's their job to shutup and vote right.
“anns reporting on obama was so fawning”
She’s sadly addicted to food and shelter, and needs money to feed that monkey.
ping
Imagine how angry Obama would be if we actually had a free and independent press...
Watch interviews, and books fly off the shelf, when Hussein and tribe move out of White House.
Will more than likely get very interesting.
and I believe it will begin quickly as well.
Gutless for you to bring it up now, Ann.
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