Former White House photographer Pete Souza weighed in on gaggle-gate, calling Sean Spicer’s actions on Friday “outrageous”:
Outrageous.
— Pete Souza (@PeteSouza) February 24, 2017
And he trolled the Trump administration with this photo of a press conference in 2010, noting Fox News was invited (how nice of them):
Pete is a wonderful photographer, but we have one question for him: We’re looking for photos of President Obama meeting with liberal columnists in a secret off-the-record gathering in 2014 to help sell the administration’s plan to fight ISIS…
White House Letter: Calculated Candor Inside Obama’s Off-the-Record Briefings https://t.co/1OhXTpFnlZ
— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 4, 2016
…Can you direct us to where we can see these pics? Because we don’t see any difference between that and what happened on Friday:
Another earnest question, seeking information: What’s the difference between what happened today and this? https://t.co/UpVu8cs8u0
— Charles C. W. Cooke (@charlescwcooke) February 24, 2017
From the New York Times:
WASHINGTON — Hours after President Obama announced in a 2014 speech that he was escalating his campaign against Islamic extremists, a number of prominent columnists suggested they knew exactly what he was thinking.
Michael Tomasky, a correspondent for The Daily Beast, wrote that “Obama clearly feels he has the constitutional authority to go after ISIS anywhere and everywhere.” Gerald F. Seib, the Washington bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, was equally certain about what “the president calculated.”
The next day, Fred Kaplan wrote in a Slate column that “Obama is loath to bring Iran or Assad’s Syria — both Shiite regimes — into the alliance” and asserted with confidence that “Obama is allergic to ‘mission creep.’”
What none of the journalists told readers, because they had promised the White House that they would not, was that their attempts to portray the president’s intentions had followed a lengthy and secret meeting with Mr. Obama the day he delivered the speech.
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Democracy dies in darkness, or something. Shouldn’t we see the reactions of the 18 columnists in the room?
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Related:
BAM! Ari Fleischer BUSTS 'hyperventilating' press over Friday's @PressSec gaggle https://t.co/P1MUtd7HC8
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) February 25, 2017
Piers Morgan on U.S. media: ‘They’ve lost their balls’; NYT reporters gets lesson in 1st Amendment https://t.co/4ui6jaKbWs
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) February 25, 2017
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