by Matt Margolis
When ABC chose to preempt Jimmy Kimmel indefinitely, everyone on the left was rushing to chime in with their usual rhetoric, claiming censorship and lobbing false accusations against President Trump. One person who thought it would be a good idea to weigh in was probably the last person who should have: Barack Obama.
‘After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like,” Obama tweeted.
Barack Obama has long tried to present himself as a champion of press freedom, but in reality, his administration carried out one of the most aggressive crackdowns on journalists and whistleblowers in modern history. He prosecuted more leakers than all previous presidents combined, often throwing people in prison for disclosures that turned out to be trivial.
The Obama administration also targeted the press itself. Obama’s Justice Department seized phone records from Associated Press reporters and editors, spied on journalists like Fox News’s James Rosen and New York Times reporter James Risen, and even labeled Rosen an “unindicted co-conspirator” just for reporting the news. These actions occurred without due process, often in secret, and caused outrage from dozens of major news organizations that accused Obama of trampling the First Amendment. Obama had one of the most anti-free speech administrations in history.
Obama also tried to weaponize the FCC with his push for so-called “net neutrality,” dressing it up as fairness while in reality advancing a regulatory scheme that would give Washington greater leverage over internet providers and, by extension, online speech. For all the talk about hope and change, Obama’s legacy is one of suppressing dissent, intimidating the press, and laying the groundwork for the censorship culture that dominates the left today.