
Obama Stifling Freedom of the Press – Fox News Host Speaks Out
Even as the Obama administration tries to convince voters they are being open with the American public via a major interview with Meet the Press, a sinister story emerges showing just how far these lying Democrats are willing to go to close ranks. Fox News host Greta Van Susteren spoke up about pressure coming from the White House to reign in their inquiry into the Benghazi debacle of 2012. In her “Off the Record” feature on Friday, Van Susteren told viewers that administration officials asked her to reign in investigative reporter Jennifer Griffin. Griffin, assigned the Pentagon beat, has been producing stories related to the Benghazi incident which left 4 Americans dead.
Van Susteren wasn’t afraid to blow her own horn on the program, characterizing Fox as the only news network willing to doggedly pursue the real story behind the tragic attack. Apparently their unwillingness to let sleeping dogs lie rubbed Obama the wrong way. For an administration that has always pledged to keep a superior level of transparency, their actions since the beginning have painted this as one of the most closed-off White Houses in recent memory.
What Obama apparently doesn’t realize is that the more this administration tries to censor journalists, the more suspicious the public becomes. It hasn’t quite reached the level of mainstream outrage yet, but there’s no question that it’s headed in that direction. Americans don’t like to imagine their rights are being infringed upon. When this administration stonewalls reporters and actually calls producers to ask them to back off, that’s exactly what they’re doing. The right to a free press is fundamental to a strong America. When the thugs in charge try to stifle that right, they are essentially putting limits on the Constitution.
This isn’t even the first time this year that a story has emerged regarding this administration’s fearful attitude towards the press. This spring, CBS journalist Sharyl Attkisson resigned from the network after facing pressure to tone down any reports that painted Obama in an unfavorable light. Attkisson was not a conservative reporter by any means, but she was just as willing to go after the administration as she was Republicans. That’s exactly the kind of unbiased reporting we need in the mainstream media, but it wasn’t left-wing enough for CBS.
For her part, Attkisson was quick to place the blame on the administration. “I think any journalist who has been covering Washington for a few years would agree… that there is pressure coming to bear on journalists for just doing their job in ways that have never come to bear before.”
The chilling effect this has on American media can’t be overstated. Thankfully, we live in an era where bastions of free speech like Fox News can present the other side of the story, but it appears even they can’t report without significant pressure from the administration. When we don’t fight for our Constitutional rights, we lose them. It is as true for the 1st Amendment as it is for the 2nd as it is for all the rest. If anyone should be supporting those rights, it should be the president.