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As critics continue to hammer Barack Obama for an "unbecoming" assault on FOX News Channel (see embedded video) that is drawing comparisons to Hugo Chavez' Venezuelan dictatorship, there appears to be another Nixonian element which has entered the picture: The cover-up.
Based upon a Talking Points Memo story which appears to have been subsequently picked-up by the Associated Press (see first link), it seems as though Obama's Treasury Department may have made at least one false claim in an attempt to paper-over the very public humiliation Team Obama suffered when the press pool flatly rebuked the attempt to exclude FOX News Channel from interviewing Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg.
Serious questions arise from the botched Talking Points Memo story.
* Is the "low level Treasury staffer" being made a scapegoat for a failed Obama media power play? In light of Talking Points Memo's apparently false story, this concern emerges. This episode smacks of the National Endowment for the Arts scandal involving Yosi Sergant and Valerie Jarrett's Office of Public Engagement.
In that instance, Sergant was forced out of the NEA after damning audio surfaced which seemed to suggest that the White House's emissaries were on board with an apparent effort to turn the NEA into a propaganda arm of the Obama administration. Though Sergant was the party caught red-handed, many people believe that his efforts in that matter were, at the very least, approved of higher up the administrative chain.
* Why did Talking Points Memo (TPM), and then the AP, run what appears to be a false story? Was TPM itself scammed by the "low level Treasury staffer" or the White House? How much does this episode stain the credibility of TPM, and even the AP?
Obama has lost his War On FOX News. If that was not clear previously, then these cover-up efforts certainly clarify the point. That is, you do not seek to choose fall guys and obfuscate an engagment which has proven successful. The clumsily mishandled Pay Czar interview power play does not fit into this category.
It bears watching the reactions from both the AP and TPM to their discredited stories. If these organizations come out to defend their reputations and reporting on this matter, it's a sure sign they feel that the Obama Administration was playing games with them on this story.
If, on the other hand, the two disgraced units do not speak up after being so apparently exposed, then the conclusion likely becomes they were willing participants in an effort to deceifully minimize the public relations damage done to Barack Obama because of his failed war on FOX News.
All of which leads us back to the starting point of this fracas. If a good portion of the press cannot be counted upon to accurately represent the goings-on of the current administration, then FOX News' worth as an Obama watchdog is only that much more obvious.
Team Obama may not appreciate Glenn Beck lampooning The Chicago Way (see 2nd and 3rd links), but millions of Americans rely on Beck and his FOX brethren to provide them with a perspective on the Obama Administration which, for one reason or another, appears to consistently elude the rest of the "mainstream media."