Fight On The Village Green

The Right is eager to take the Village's side in the growing rift between the Villagers and the White House, but if you read the stories you can see the real battle is between the Village old guard covering 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the new bloggers.

Following a testy exchange during today’s briefing with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told CNSNews.com that not even Richard Nixon tried to control the press the way President Obama is trying to control the press.

“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try.

“What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”

Which is funny, actually. If there's a Queen Mother of the Village (who would see the rise of political bloggers as a threat) it's the woman who has been covering the White House for newspapers for going on 50 years now. Here's the real meat of the issue.

Thomas said she was especially concerned about the arrangement between the Obama Administration and a writer from the liberal Huffington Post Web site. The writer was invited by the White House to President Obama’s press conference last week on the understanding that he would ask Obama a question about Iran from among questions that had been sent to him by people in Iran.

“When you call the reporter the night before you know damn well what they are going to ask to control you,” Thomas said.

“I’m not saying there has never been managed news before, but this is carried to fare-thee-well--for the town halls, for the press conferences,” she said. “It’s blatant. They don’t give a damn if you know it or not. They ought to be hanging their heads in shame.”

How dare the Huffington Post believe it is a news outlet of some sort! How dare this....this...Obama person bypass the Queen Mother of the Village for these dot com upstarts and give them legitimacy!

Folks, this is the main event here. The Obama guys have realized rather that a large percentage of the Village is not on their side, and that the old guard isn't going to help them very much, not when they keep spouting GOP talking points on a near daily basis. Republicans have run the narrative too long in too many ways.

When you hear the Village complain about the White House controlling the message, the real complaint is that the White House is willing to go over the heads of the Village information gatekeepers and go straight to internet news outfits like HuffPo to get its message out. This is an existential threat to the news business, one that is already reeling from several body blows.

They're scared, and they're fighting back the only way they know how, by accusing the White House of trying to control the press...instead of the usual arrangement of the press controlling the White House. The GOP was more than willing to give the Village everything they wanted. The Obama administration doesn't want to go that route.

Could this be the opening shots of the Obama/Village war? Both sides have a lot at stake here. Just how high are the stakes for the Village? This high.

It's hardly a secret that newspapers, including the major dailies, have run into serious financial problems in recent years, and are frantically looking for new revenue streams. But if this report from Mike Allen is accurate, it seems the Washington Post's financial concerns have led the paper to consider a jaw-dropping scheme.

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off the record, non-confrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper's own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health-care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it's a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its "health care reporting and editorial staff."

I haven't seen confirmation of this elsewhere -- and it's possible the Post has an explanation -- but it seems the paper would like to be some kind of middleman, connecting lobbyists with politicians, federal officials, and reporters, in exchange for thousands of dollars.

The Village is getting increasingly desperate, and don't think for a second they're going to go down without a fight...or without trying to take everyone with them.