Jake Tapper Nails Robert Gibbs

White House spokesman (and court jester) Robert Gibbs

"We render an opinion....."


Jake Tapper, even though he works for ABC News as their White House correspondent, is a professional and honest-minded journalist-at least in my view. He is one of the few members of the White House press corps who will ask direct questions of President Obama's mouthpiece and court jester Robert Gibbs. Here is the exchange from today's press conference at the White House between Tapper and Gibbs. The topic is the White House's offensive against Fox News-an ABC competitor:
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"Tapper: It’s escaped none of our notice that the White House has decided in the last few weeks to declare one of our sister organizations “not a news organization” and to tell the rest of us not to treat them like a news organization. Can you explain why it’s appropriate for the White House to decide that a news organization is not one –

(Crosstalk)

"Gibbs: Jake, we render, we render an opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness that, the fairness of that coverage.

"Tapper: But that’s a pretty sweeping declaration that they are “not a news organization.” How are they any different from, say –

"Gibbs: ABC -

"Tapper: ABC. MSNBC. Univision. I mean how are they any different?

"Gibbs: You and I should watch sometime around 9 o’clock tonight. Or 5 o’clock this afternoon (referring to the Sean Hannity Show and Glenn Beck Show respectively).

"Tapper: I’m not talking about their opinion programming or issues you have with certain reports. I’m talking about saying thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a “news organization” — why is that appropriate for the White House to say?

"Gibbs: That’s our opinion."
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Behind this questioning lie the recent remarks of White House honchos Anita Dunn and David Axelrod, who have been making the rounds of network news shows putting out the message that Fox News is not a "real news organization" and that the other news organizations should not treat Fox as such.

Kudos to Tapper for stating what every other news outlet should be saying in defense of Fox. It's the old saying, "today it's Fox-tomorrow, it's CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC etc."

Note to Robert Gibbs:

You and I should watch MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann shows sometime.