MAY 22, 2013

     I'm a retired reporter now, which makes it hard to know how seriously to take the charges that the Obama administration is turning into something like Richard Nixon's.   Dana Milbank in a Washington Post column called "Criminalizing Journalism" says that's more or less what's going on.

       Milbank says, "The (James) Rosen affair is as flagrant an assault on the civi lliberties as anything done by George W. Bush's administration, and it uses technology to silence critics in a way Richard Nixon could only have dreamed of."   Again, I'm not covering this, but Milbank is a serious reporter.  So--wow.

       The Justice Department seized Rosen's e-mails and phone records, tracked his movements – scrutinizing the newgathering trail of a journalist.   Milbank says, treating "a reporter as a criminal for doing his job…deprives Americans of the First Amendment freedom on which all other constitutional rights are based."  Again,  wow.

      I remember from a campaign more recent than Nixon's a one-word Obama slogan:  Change.  Please, Mr. President, stay there.  Don't change back.  That's something we just don't need – something I hope we would not stand for.