Rosen, The AP And Da President

The evidence keeps piling up. For several years a small but vocal group of Chicagoans have railed against electing a prominent Chicago politician to the presidency. Any politician who can survive, nay flourish, in Cook County should be suspect.

Now, in Barack Obama’s second term a bevy of scandals have appeared and the normally complacent media have finally begun to see exactly what sort of administration they’ve been protecting all these years.

First we have Benghazi, which was covered up to protect the president from bad press during an election. Then we have the president’s drone death list, which is covered with American citizens that have not been convicted of any crime. Next there’s the IRS scandal, where being a Tea-Party inspired organization would make it nearly impossible to obtain 501©4 status.

But the most damning (and most likely to cost Obama his fervent media supporters) is his administration’s war on “leaks.” They have trampled all over the First Amendment in an effort to stop government officials from sharing information with the American people. The first whiff of this came when AP announced the DOJ had stolen (subpoena or not, the DOJ violated its own rules to obtain it) months of phone records for dozens of AP employees, for the AP’s crime of not giving the federal government the proper boot shining while reporting on a foiled bomb plot

And then we have the case of James Rosen, head Washington correspondent for Fox News. Mr. Rosen was tracked and his phone records and email were stolen by the federal government for the crime of speaking with a government official. Actually, the crime, according to FBI agent Reginald Reyes, was that James Rosen violated the Espionage Act of 1917, a law which has been trotted out a lot lately. The Espionage Act is meant to prosecute people for sharing national defense information, though only if there is intent or reason for the leakers to believe the information may be used to injure the United States. Punishment for violation of this Act can run from a fine to execution.