CNBC: Obama Not So Media Friendly?

LARRY KUDLOW, CNBC HOST: Welcome back, Joel. Are they the footstool? Is he the puppet master? Why is that Politico, which is the heart of the media establishment, all of a sudden complaining? What’s going on here?

JOEL POLLAK, BREITBART NEWS: Well, there’s the sudden realization that thy can’t do what they’re doing and still get away with it. The tipping point really came with CBS’ “60 Minutes” interview with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, jointly, several days ago where it was basically just a fan interview. There was a lot to ask them about, Benghazi and so forth and Steve Croft did nothing to probe that at all. And you started to see in pushback within the media, Peggy Noonan and other people saying, “Look, this was really unprofessional, you’re basically sitting there in the White House, you get access, and you come there like a supplicant. You thank him for even talking to you. He actually has to answer to you. You represent the American people. You are an important check on power.

KUDLOW: But why do you suppose now, look, this is Vandehei and Allen, Politico, this is the absolute — they’re all the Washington Post guys, for the most part, the heart of the media establishment in Washington, D.C. They’re two good guys, I know them, they’re two good guys. But all of the sudden they’re saying they’re at a disadvantage, Joel. They’re at a disadvantage, that’s the victimization. They say the new technology, the social media, the President’s people are playing their cards too tight. Are they right or are they just kind of complaining because they’re not doing their own home work?

POLLAK: I think they’re struggling to reconcile two things. The first is that Obama is mistreating the media. The second is they like Obama, they want him to succeed. And what they can’t quite see is that the reason Obama is mistreating the media is the media allows itself to be mistreated. They have inflated Obama to higher than Presidential status, almost Messianic status, and so he’s able to walk all over and they just keep coming right back. You almost have to feed bad for Ed Henry, the Chair of the White House correspondents association, he was complaining that Obama didn’t meet with the press over the weekend. What was he complaining about? He didn’t do photo ops at the golf course. I mean, that’s the kind of thing the media is interested in. So, it’s hard to feel sorry for them and at the same time they’re raising a valid concern they just don’t know how to do it. The answer is quite obvious, folks, you need to be more critical.