“It's shocking. It's really shocking.”

Veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas is shocked by the Obama control of the media.

CNS news reported this:

“Nixon didn’t try to do that,” Thomas said. “They couldn’t control (the media). They didn’t try.

“What the hell do they think we are, puppets?” Thomas said. “They’re supposed to stay out of our business. They are our public servants. We pay them.”

Thomas said she was especially concerned about the arrangement between the Obama Administration and a writer from the liberal Huffington Post Web site. The writer was invited by the White House to President Obama’s press conference last week on the understanding that he would ask Obama a question about Iran from among questions that had been sent to him by people in Iran.

“When you call the reporter the night before you know damn well what they are going to ask to control you,” Thomas said.

It should not be a shock since the take over of the media by government has been going on since Obama began his campaign and we really just about do have a state run media now. There is very little in the way of serious criticism or opinion about the man in the mainstream press.

But the process by which Obama controls the media and what the public hear is so awful that it shocked even Helen Thomas, who, at 89 has seen a lot of shenanigans in the White House.

Carol Marin of the Chicago Sun Times said this:

“As ferociously as we march like villagers with torches against Blagojevich, we have been, in the true spirit of the Bizarro universe, the polar opposite with the president-elect. Deferential, eager to please, prepared to keep a careful distance."

And Les Kinsolving, White House Reporter and "the nation's un-labeled talk show host! Just when you think he's conservative, he's liberal. And just when you think he's liberal, he's in the center" said :

The Carol Marin report in the Sun Times of Barack Obama's Chicago is so serious a warning of presidential press conferences that are "fixed" in advance with some reporters selected for questions and others left out, that it raises the serious question as to whether such reportorial selectees by Obama may not have supplied him with their questions in advance.

CNS news has the entire exchange with Helen Thomas HERE Its worth a read because when someone like Helen Thomas is shocked it has to be really bad. Wikipedia has a good post about Helen Thomas herself HERE

You can hear Les Kinsolving's commentary HERE daily from 8 to 11 PM on your own computer.