By Dave Andrusko

"At a time when his Washington honeymoon is turning into a hazing, President Barack Obama and his team are launched on a strategy to sail above the traditional White House press corps by reaching out to liberal commentators, local reporters and ethnic media."
     Politico.com

"Breaking with tradition and using a prepared list, Obama did not recognize journalists with The Washington Post, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Wall Street Journal or USA Today -- the last four of which were not picked at last month's news conference, either. Instead, he called on reporters for Ebony magazine, Stars and Stripes, Univision, and Agence France-Presse."
     The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, referring to Obama's Tuesday night press conference.

I'd like to offer a few quick thoughts on pro-abortion President Barack Obama's initial media strategy.

It is only to state the obvious that every President has an agenda he wants promoted and that he will use "the media" as a tool to soften the ground of public opinion. The difference with Obama is not only that there are a thousand media implements in his tool case, he also has a history of using them to till creatively.

Pro-abortion President Barack Obama answered questions Thursday from people around the country in the first online town hall discussion hosted at the White House.

For now, Obama alternatively strokes what remains of the old time Media Establishment (an appearance on "60 minutes") and gives it the cold shoulder (brushing off the quasi-mandatory appearance before the Washington press corps at its annual Gridiron Club dinner). He is much more open to giving interviews with supportive media (nothing surprising with that) than he is calling on others who are not quite as supplicant at press conferences. What is unsettling is his proclivity for pre-screened questions.

Today he appeared in the East Room for an interactive town hall meeting-- "a kind of Internet version of the question and answer sessions he has been holding around the country," as the New York Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg described it. Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush answered questions over the Internet, "But Mr. Obama is the first to do so in a live video format, streamed directly onto the White House Web site."

My guess is that in short order those same Establishment media outlets who had Obama's back during the campaign --and they are legion--will find themselves on the outside looking in. Why? Well, for starters, their questions have some bite to them. They are more inquisitive than unctuous.

But watch Obama's eyes or the way his jaw tightens when asked a semi-tough question. In public we have seen as little of his well known temper and inclination toward sarcasm as we have seen him smoking cigarettes. And we may never, if, as I suggest, there will become fewer and fewer opportunities for traditional media outlets to question him.

For us as pro-lifers, there is potentially a rich irony. Wouldn't it be something if on those occasions when they do have a chance to grill Obama, they do with the abortion issue what they are doing with much of his agenda: asking him to square his rhetoric with his record.

Wouldn't it be amazing to have a reporter from a "mainstream" publication press Obama to explain how he is finding "common ground" on abortion by pushing an abortion agenda so extreme that it probably sends goose bumps up and down the spines of Planned Parenthood supporters?

Not likely, to be sure. But as Obama distances himself from the traditional media, it will be fascinating to see whether they roll over and play dead or stand up on their hind legs and bark.

Please post these TN&Vs on your social networking pages by going to www.nrlc.org/News_and_views/Mar09/nv032609.html and clicking on the "Share" button. Please send your comments on either Part One or Part Two to daveandrusko@gmail.com. 

Part One