Retired ABC News journalist Ann Compton told C-SPAN that Barack Obama has privately blasted journalists with obscenities when speaking off-the-record. Compton also called Obama out for leading “the most opaque” administration of “any I have covered.” Compton told C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb:
I have seen in the last year Barack Obama really angry twice. Both were off-the-record times. One, profanity-laced, where he thought the press was making too much of scandals that he did not think were scandals. Another where he took us to task for not understanding the limits he has with foreign policy and the way he’s dealing with the Middle East and Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Obama’s whining about the press can be easily refuted; in 2012, the Media Research Center printed a list of the numerous instances in which the press gave Obama a free pass for various transgressions.
Compton ripped Obama for his lack of common courtesy, saying, “And I don’t find him apologetic. But I find him willing to stand up to the press and look them in the eye, even though it was off the record, and just give us hell.”
Compton pointed out Obama’s abysmal record of transparency, despite his astonishing statement in a February, 2013 Google Plus “Fireside” Hangout that “this is the most transparent administration in history.” Compton, who retired after 40 years as a journalist, said, “Before I walked out the door on September 10, I was a strong voice for complaining that this particular administration has been more opaque than any I have covered about what the President does in the Oval Office everyday.”
Compton concluded, “We cover what we are allowed to cover. And when policy decisions and presidents are inaccessible and don’t take questions from the press on a regular basis, I think they get — they reap what they sow.”
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