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WFTV blacklisted by Obama campaign after Biden interview with Barbara West
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Barbara West photo from WFTV.com
If the Obama campaign was looking for a way to turn their adoring fans among the media against them, it appears they may have found it.
In a Florida television interview with Barbara West of WFTV in Orlando, Joe Biden was asked some questions he didn't like. Regarding Obama's "spread the wealth around" comment to Joe the Plumber, West quoted Karl Marx's credo: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his means" and asked how Obama's policy was different.
She then asked Biden about his own statement that some rival nation would create a conflict to "test the mettle" of Barack Obama and that we should be supportive because the response will not be immediately viewed as being right.
He didn't like either question and apparently, after a pow-wow with the campaign, it was decided that no more interviews would be granted to the station. An interview with Biden's wife was immediately cancelled and the station received a written notice:
"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election," wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign according to the Orlando Sentinel.
The questions were not outlandish. They were addressing real concerns that real people have. They were not accusations. They were just questions. (link to interview below)
Whether the media favors right or left, one thing they adore more than their chosen candidate is themselves. When you start suggesting that tough questions are out of bounds or start ostracizing media outlets because you don't like their interviews, even the most sympathetic media outlets are not going to tolerate it; not on TV, not on radio, not the newspapers and definitely not the bloggers, right or left.
It's probably too late in the game to have an effect on the election, but if the Obama/Biden administration thinks their going to spend four years in the White House fielding softballs from the press, they've got another think coming.
