In fact, the media’s lullaby treatment of Bush at the outset of 2001 became so pronounced that even some members of the Beltway press corps acknowledged the unfolding phenomenon and how it so obviously contrasted with the high-octane coverage the outgoing Democratic administration had been bombarded with. “The truth is, this new president [Bush] has done things with relative impunity that would have been huge uproars if they had occurred under Clinton,” Politico‘s John Harris, then with The Washington Post, wrote during Bush’s first months in office. (Harris went on to cheer, “[G]ood for Washington in giving a new president a break at the start.”)
The other Clinton/Obama connection is how the press detests the way new Democratic White Houses treat the media. Of course, the irony is thick, considering the utter contempt the Bush White House displayed toward the press. The way former chief of staff Andrew Card famously dismissed the press as just another D.C. special interest group desperately seeking access, the way aides quickly formed habits of not returning reporters’ calls for weeks and months, and the way the Bush White House waved in a former male prostitute using an alias and without any valid journalistic credentials to toss softball questions during briefings. That’s how Republicans brushed back the press. But it’s the Democrats whom reporters lash out at. It’s the Democrats whom reporters denounce with righteous indignation within days of the new administration’s taking office.
Back at the outset of 1993, journalists complained that the new Clinton communications team limited their access by closing off portions of the White House to reporters, that aides didn’t sufficiently schmooze journalists, and that the new president did not have enough formal press conferences. (And don’t even ask what reporters did when their pals in the White House travel office got fired.) “They’re dissing us,” Los Angeles Times California editor David Lauter, then-White House reporter, complained in April 1993.
Well, fast-forward to last week, and it’s déjà vu all over again. Here’s how Politico cataloged the media’s petty laundry list of grievances that sparked the press “frustration”:
There have been a handful of rocky moments so far. Some press staffers found their name cards misspelled on Wednesday and phone lines weren’t properly hooked up. Reporters trying to reach the press staff got emails bounced back.
[…]
And in the hours before Gibbs’ briefing, the northwest gate of the White House started running out of temporary passes.
No wonder NBC’s Chuck Todd compared the White House press room to Gitmo — reporters’ names were misspelled!
It was telling that in its piece about Obama’s press woes, Politico noted how the Clinton administration had also run into trouble with the press over issues of access. Noticeably absent from the Politico article was any mention of how the Bush administration dramatically limited media access, regularly cordoned off information from the press, and warned reporters that edgy questions posed at the daily sessions were “noted in the building.” That’s all been tossed down the memory hole. It’s only new Democratic presidents who are asked to play nice with the press and get badgered when they do not.
