Accessing Recent History

Dana Milbank takes a stroll through presumptuous garden today, and while he ascribes routine security measures as somehow evidence of Obama being uppity, this part jumped out at me:

Then came Obama's overseas trip and the campaign's selection of which news organizations could come aboard. Among those excluded: the New Yorker magazine, which had just published a satirical cover about Obama that offended the campaign.

Even Bush hasn't tried that.

If Obama left Ryan Lizza off the plane because of the New Yorker cover (the campaign claims it was a space issue), then that's pretty uncool. But to suggest that it's unprecedented is just willfully stupid. Aside from the Bush Administration being the most secretive with the press in American history, high-level officials have done things like, you know, keeping reporters off the campaign plane.

The administration's news management has taken many forms, including banning New York Times reporters from Vice President Dick Cheney's campaign plane, cutting short press conferences held jointly with more loquacious foreign leaders, and holding a mere 17 solo press conferences as of December 20, far fewer than the 44 or 84 that Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, respectively, held at a comparable point during their administrations. One-on-one interviews are doled out selectively: Chen says the Los Angeles Times is one of the last major newspapers in the world that has not had an interview with President Bush. It's not personal; it's strategic. "This White House doesn't need California, has no use for California politically," says Chen, "so we carry no clout."

Not to mention the fact that Obama's opponent has played this game as well:

The truth is, not only have journalists done a poor job of using the access McCain grants them, but their access isn't as great as they claim.

Two months ago, after Newsweek published an article the McCain camp didn't like, McCain aide Mark Salter reportedly threatened to throw the magazine's reporters off the campaign bus. During the 2000 campaign, an Arizona Republic reporter was kicked off the bus after her newspaper ran an editorial questioning whether McCain "has the temperament and the political approach and skills we want in the next president of the United States." In August 2006, a senior McCain strategist allegedly told another Arizona Republic reporter he was "off the bus" after an article the McCain camp didn't like.

In late June, The Washington Post reported that McCain's new campaign plane features a "special area" with a couch and captain's chairs where McCain will conduct interviews -- and that Salter said "only the good reporters" would get to sit in the area; "You'll have to earn it."

Hilariously, Boehlert reports that Howie Kurtz dismissed the "you'll have to earn it" quote as a joke, even though it's documented to have happened.

Dana Milbank is one of those "bury the past" media members who makes sure he has no knowledge of history so his statements can have an internal logic.

...meanwhile, the presumptuous meme is continuing, even if the media has to use false quotes to push it.