Those Damn, Dirty, Bloggers

While watching the presser yesterday, and upon hearing Nico Pitney actually asking a relevant question - submitted to him by a protester in Iran, I knew that Fox and the establishment media would wet their collective panties.



How dare the Huffington Post give a voice to the Iranian protesters. It's that fucking liberal media bias.

Dana Milbank came right out whining in a column in the Washington Post:

yesterday's daytime drama belonged primarily to Pitney, of the Huffington Post Web site. During the eight years of the Bush administration, liberal outlets such as the Huffington Post often accused the White House of planting questioners in news conferences to ask preplanned questions. But here was Obama fielding a preplanned question asked by a planted questioner -- from the Huffington Post.

The only problem with Milbank's "plant" meme is that Pitney has been covering the Iranian protest to a much greater degree than most of the mainstream media. His communications with those protesters, and the resulting question that he asked the President, provided more context and greater journalistic value than any other question posed - especially Major Garrett's "what took you so long" nonsense.

Of course, that wasn't the end of it.

Malkin had to chime in:

The question itself was unobjectionable and Obama’s response was so bland and rambling I don’t remember it.

But what was noteworthy was Obama’s embarrassingly obvious and patronizing coordination of the question. I have no love for the HuffPo people (and vice versa), but really, was such schoolmarm-ish hand-holding by the White House necessary?

Micheal Calderone took issue with this as well, but seems to be walking back his manufactured outrage via a few updates:

In what appeared to be a coordinated exchange, President Obama called on the Huffington Post's Nico Pitney near the start of his press conference and requested a question directly about Iran.

Reporters typically don’t coordinate their questions for the president before press conferences, so it seemed odd that Obama might have an idea what the question would be. Also, it was a departure from White House protocol by calling on The Huffington Post second, in between the AP and Reuters.

And Fox"News" was fully ready to cover for Garrett's pathetic bumbling:



The establishment media, primarily those within the conservative realm, have nothing but utter contempt and hatred for bloggers - unless they are willing to tow the line they are given.

But what is most revealing about this non-story is the very real fact that Nico Pitney did a far better job as a journalist than anyone else at the presser. All those that are prattling on and on about him being a "plant" are simply pissed off that he asked a tougher question than any of their people did.

And as to the accusations that Obama knew the question that was going to be asked, that is patently false. He simply knew that it was going to be about Iran.

What people don't realize about bloggers is that they are Americans, with voices that should be heard just as much as anyones. Most of them are of the age to vote, and have done so in larger numbers than in previous elections. They have a knowledge of the political landscape in this, and other countries and use every opportunity to let everyone know. If you only listened to the voices of the establishment, conservative, media you would start to think that a blogger isn't even human.

But it wasn't even Nico Pitney that was asking the question, it was an Iranian fighting for the very freedom to speak out that far too many hear want to crush.