Conservative Republicans for years have had to put up with hostile questions from LeftDemocrat reporters. It comes with the territory. There is a certain amount of whining and complaining about it from people like myself, but the politicians generally learn to take it in stride. Take, for example, Sarah Palin’s interview with Katie Couric. (I didn’t watch it, but I read a transcript.)
Now Joseph Biden got a small taste of it himself when Barbara West of WFTV asked some hostile questions. She asked her questions in a polite, respectful manner, and Joseph Biden handled them well. He challenged the questioner at a few points — nothing at all wrong with that. His answers were less slimy than the usual political answers — and even revealed a bit of the truth: There will be no Obama tax cuts. There will instead be tax “credits.”
Obama should have been pleased at the way his VP handled himself, but he acts as though Biden is a delicate flower who will wilt when he gets too close to anyone who doesn’t genuflect before the Obama image. Instead of praising the process of give and take, he blacklisted WFTV.
That is not at all an improvement over the George W. Bush’s hostile relationship with the press, and is certainly not behavior worthy of someone who is supposed to be a defender of our First Amendment freedoms.
How is Obama going to handle negotiations with hostile foreign leaders if he can’t handle hostile U.S. news reporters?
In related news:
- Turkey is now tightening control on Internet speech.
- Australia, the UK, and Canada are, too.
I suppose we can take comfort in the fact that Obama appears to be doing no more than riding the wave of repression that’s sweeping the globe.