So What Else Is New?

Is anyone really surprised by this?

President Obama met with a litany of liberal media personalities on Tuesday to push his tax cut message.

Spotted filing into the West Wing were Arianna Huffington of the Huffington Post and MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, Ed Schultz and Al Sharpton.

The meeting was not on the president's public schedule and White House officials initially declined to comment on the meeting. They later issued a statement to POLITICO:

"This afternoon at the White House, the President met with influential progressives to talk about the importance of preventing a tax increase on middle class families, strengthening our economy and adopting a balanced approach to deficit reduction,” spokesman Josh Earnest said.

The Obama administration conducts regular briefings of reporters from different media markets, but this did not immediately appear like such a briefing. According to White House visitor records, O'Donnell, for example, has not attended such briefings before.

(H/T to Jeff at A Nod to the Gods for the link)

Lest anyone think that this is an isolated incident -- in spite of the nonsensical disclaimer that "The Obama administration conducts regular briefings of reporters from different media markets" -- check out their record with regard to Fox News.

1)  The State Department called a media conference call the night before its employees testified on Capitol Hill and OMITTED FOX FROM THE CALL; (they claimed it was an accidental oversight);

2) About 2 weeks after the above State Department conference call to all in the media, the CIA had a media wide briefing and released their timeline.  The CIA invited major news organizations to the briefing but THE CIA EXCLUDED FOX FROM THOSE INVITED TO THE BRIEFING

3) and now the latest…. the DNI released a memo to the media last night indicating that DNI Director James Clapper was wrong last week when he said that (incidentally two plus months after the murders.) ... The DNI LEFT FOX NEWS CHANNEL OFF ITS DISTRIBUTION LIST last night when it released this new memo to the media.

This brings to mind the line from Goldfinger: "Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is enemy action."