Liberal Columnists Quietly Gather at White House

NPR’s Ari Shapiro posted an interesting Tweet on May 21. He discovered that a cadre of well-known lefty columnists and journalists visited the White House together, three of whom he mentioned by name.

Shapiro reported that Jonathan Capehart and Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, and Josh Marshall of the left-wing website TalkingPointsMemo.com were attending a meeting together at the White House.

Spotted: @joshtpm @capehartj @ezraklein & other lefty columnists headed into the West Wing as a group. POTUS coffee? Carney meeting? Anyone?

— Ari Shapiro (@arishapiro) May 21, 2013

Coffee, Carney, or perhaps some “guidance”?

Naturally the tongues on Twitter wagged. Instapundit wondered, for instance, if the “Journ-O-List cavalry” had been called out to solve Obama’s media problem.

Readers may recall the tale of the Journ-O-List, that secretive Internet listserv of lefty columnists and journalists who wrote notes to each other out of sight of the public in order to coordinate their coverage of the news.

But once Journ-O-List was made public, it even cost one journalist his job.

So, what was the meeting this month about? And why were no conservative journalists invited?

Shapiro had one final word to tamp down the firestorm he started. “For the record,” he Tweeted, “Obama often does OTR sit-down sessions with columnists & reporters left, right & center. Nothing nefarious about it per se.”

One reply he received was telling. “When was the last time ‘Right’ journalists were invited” to the White House? It’s a good question.