Debunking the Hissy Fit Du Jour

Glenn Greenwald yesterday noted the hand-wringing and pearl clutching by the press over the White House calling out Fox News as an opinion outlet rather than a news network, and "a wing of the Republican Party." Greenwald lays out a bill of particulars:

All that hand-wringing rhetoric: why? Because the Obama administration threatened to criminally prosecute Fox? Or because the adminstration surveilled its reporters' telephone calls? Or illegally obtained their telephone records? Or shot missiles at hotels in which they were staying? Or dropped bombs on their offices? Or imprisoned them for years without charges? Or barred Fox reporters from riding on administration planes? Or conspired to "weed out" any critical voices from being heard on network and cable news programs? No, those are all things that the Bush administration did to reporters (see the links) -- all well above and beyond the numerous, constant rhetorical attacks from the Bush White House on media organizations they perceived to be hostile. Where was Tucker Carlson when that was happening, or Ruth Marcus, or Anderson Cooper, or David Carr?

And Glenn doesn't even mention getting a gay prostitute/journalist to TASS toss softball questions at White House pressers or paying opinion columnists to publish favorable pieces about them.

Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann further debunk the hissy fit with the TV equivalent of twenty-seven eight-by-ten color glossies with circles and arrows, etc. Heaven forbid the right wing should attempt to rewrite history: