After some of the Tweets I got after I put my reaction to the unprecedented spectacle of a Daily Caller reporter apparently doing an imitation of a talk radio host or the late Morton Downey, Jr, it was refreshing to note the parade of GOPers who are coming out against what occurred. CNN’s Dean Obeidallah thinks its part of an ongoing effort to “delegitimize” Obama. But on the use of this kind of tactic — and trying to justify it — some Republicans are not playing the “whatever our political sports team does we will defend” game.
For instance, take Fox News. Chris Wallace and some others were not pleased:
And Bill O’Reilly had some pointed advice for The Daily Caller reporter:
What’s most striking about emails and Tweets I’ve gotten on this are the attempts to cloud the issue. So let’s make a little list.
1. The video clearly shows Obama was interrupted and had not finished his statement.
2. The video clearly shows he was not making a long pause and it didn’t look like the statement was over.
3. Saying it’s time we had a tough reporter in the White House to ask questions is a different issue. Munro wasn’t acting like a reporter. He was acting like a troll in a blog comments section. REAL reporters for decades — all over the world — will let an official deliver a speech or statement. REAL reporters are there to gather information, even if they had a political point of view. Reporters aren’t in the business simply to debate, and interrupt and in anyway prevent information from flowing. They may try to elicit certain information if they are ideological reporters. But REAL reporters don’t lecture and badger.
GO HERE to read some Tweets and retweets on this subject on my Twitter page.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.