And then they came for the free press …

And when I came to the room with shoes, nothing but empty shoes, I broke down," wrote Jeff Jarvis of his epipany at the Holocaust Museum in DC a few years back. We blogged about it in "The city upon a hill shines through" and "The timeless hysteria of the history-challenged multitudes."

"Good job! Being deleted is a sure sign that you've hit someone in the twelve ring," Michael Hasenstab twittered Ruth Anne Adams this morning in response to Ruth Anne's shocking tweet about ABC Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper. Michael and Ruth Anne, regular purveyors of wise and witty twitter banter, had stopped laughing. The precipitating event was Helen Thomas's "coming out party." Here's Ruth Anne re "Tappy":

He's another hack. Not worth my time. His true colors came out with that exchange and his deletion of his @ reply to my Q.

We were shocked because Tapper has seemed that rare thing, a member of the "legacy media" whose work is "fair, balanced and unafraid," his newsy, breezy tweets a follower's delight. Only this morning we'd retweeted in approval:

JAKE "FEET-TO-FIRE" TAPPER SCORES! RT @jaketapper: Allen Has Ordered 'Uninhibited Access' to Oil Spill Operations http://tinyurl.com/2agqkh

But Tapper's apparent failure to sanction fellow White House Correspondent Thomas had exposed his left flank, and Adams wasn't holding her fire. A few snippets from their earlier thrust and parry:

Jake Tapper: For those asking, it's not my role to "condemn" comments, whether by pols or reporters. and if i do it for one person, it opens a door. Thx

Ruth Anne Adams: Is there a journo equivalent of a locker room whereby people are ostracized?

Tapper: i could start...but i would never stop! That isn't my job. My job is to bring you the news fairly and impartially.

Adams: If I had an anti-Semitic co-worker,you can bet I'd complain to HR. Certainly, I'd distance myself. Don't feign neutrality, Jake … Sometimes, silence is seen as approval. Feel free to disagree … Helen Thomas is the news. You also serve in an editorial position. You're skirting this cowardly … You know what, Taptap? You don't owe me an explanaton. My esteem-o-meter for you registers zero now.

In his defense, responding to twitterer srbryson, Tapper asks rhetorically:

and my job as a WH correspondent means I'm supposed to condemn every reporter who says something i find offensive?

Not EVERY reporter who says something you find offensive, sir, but we would sincerely ask you to consider Jeanette Pryor's sobering words in "Helen Thomas and the Definitive Answer to Why the First Holocaust Happened" at David Horowitz's NewsRealBlog:

Helen Thomas is a perpetrator. Perpetrator, because the most important aspect of the War Against Israel is the War to erode American support for Israel, the War for public opinion …

Certainly, the White House Press Corps is full of those who have thus reacted to the Nazi Holocaust. And yet, they will sit down to dinner with Helen Thomas. They will continue to say, “Good Morning,” to her, and will treat her like an icon worthy of respect. She will stoop in her throne in the Press Corps galley. She will not be shunned in the halls of the White House, and senators and representatives will still curry her favor or, at the very worst, attribute her rant to notorious spunk.

This is why the Holocaust happened.

And then they came for the free press …

Cross-posted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.

Comments

[Teresa]

Lets rephrase this and look at it in the light in which it should be seen...

If a Helen Thomas had told President Obama, his wife, and every black American to get out of the US and go back to Africa, would Jake and the WH press corps have nothing to say about that? Would we be seeing his response as "it's not my job"?

I see no difference at all. Bigotry and racism are bigotry and racism - regardless of who the perpetrator might be. They should be condemned.

Jake's response sounds very much like Barak Obama's "it's above my pay grade" remark. How sad.

[goomp]

There isn't much liberal about the Americn fascists who think they are liberal.