Malcolm: Expulsion of reporters from O Force One "a cheesy hardball"

Andrew Malcom gives a withering criticism of Barack Obama’s decision to expel reporters from three newspapers who endorsed John McCain this week.  The LA Times’ political blogger calls it “a cheesy hardball” that smacks of the Chicago machine, but does it with humor and sarcasm:

Think about it: Why would a political campaign take retribution on reporters for a decision made by their publication’s separate editorial boards? The publications, after all, pay their own way on the charters.

That would be a cheesy hardball — and quite possibly counterproductive — Chicago kind of thing for a frontrunner to do, especially one on a national unity ticket. A candidate’s organization would have to reflect an enormous ego and over-confidence to pull something like that.

Next thing you know such a campaign might urge supporters to clog a radio station’s phone lines or e-mail boxes just because it gave air-time to an Obama critic.

And it’s certainly not the kind of hands-across-the-aisle, bipartisan change we need and/or can believe in a national capital that could use a large dose of both.

Malcolm sees what the Tanning Bed Media has largely missed in the general election.   Barack Obama has no interest in bipartisanship or reaching across the aisle.  He wants power, and Obama hits back ruthlessly to those who challenge his bid for it.  The reporters who got their seats cancelled on O Force One got off easy; Stanley Kurtz, David Freddoso, and Jerome Corsi all had the presidential campaign target them for open character assassination.

Most of the national media chose to ignore the virulent responses and attempts to silence journalists who dared to actually look at public records and conduct interviews with people who know Obama.  Malcolm, unfortunately, is an exception rather than the rule.  The media has betrayed its own, and for what?  Better access?  This incident shows that access to Barack Obama is on the same terms negotiated by Eason Jordan with Saddam Hussein for CNN’s Baghdad bureau: report the truth, and access will be canceled.

If the media mavens think this will magically change once Obama wins the election, then they are engaging in the same wish-fantasy Christopher Buckley used in his endorsement.  What would prompt Obama to change a winning strategy of media intimidation and hard-Left ideology?