The White House is relying on the press to continue to demonize the Tea Party- Salena Zito

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Reporting what she has been told in the past 24 hours, Salena Zito said

• the White House is relying on the press to continue to demonize the Tea Party.

Respected columnist Salena Zito was a guest on John Batchelor's show tonight, 1/23/11.

• Most of us have seen plenty of evidence of this already but it's always nice to get confirmation.

Ms. Zito was one of 2 guests in John Batchelor's 10:30 pm segment discussing near term political events. Batchelor made statements to his guests, including the following approximately:

• What's happening, is the Tea Party stupid?

• Is the Tea Party really helping Obama now, do they enable him to just go along and be smooth?

His 2 guests in separate reponses said, no they didn't think the Tea Party was stupid or that it was actually helping Obama.

Ms. Zito said:

• This is what the White House thinks of the Tea Party, confirmed to me in the past 24 hours.
• Obama still does not take the Tea Party seriously.
  

Batchelor expresses shock or surprise that this is the case, one can only guess if he was being somewhat sarcastic or humorous.

Ms. Zito finishes her statement by saying:

• The White House is relying on the press to continue to demonize them (the Tea Party).

At that point, Batchelor jumped in rather excitedly, mildly chiding her for what she said (not doubting her, but dampening the serious impact of the news, as I heard it). The segment was nearly out of time, but JB again displayed one of his new ways of trivializing the interests of his original and long time fans. I have only observed great respect from Mr. Batchelor toward Ms. Zito and her work which no doubt continues. She is not a propagandist and for example, in the past said she didn't think Nancy Pelosi got enough credit for the work she did. Today was just an example of the new Batchelor editorial direction and new way of guiding interviews. Time will tell how the persona plays out.
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Update, Sunday night, Feb. 6, Salena Zito was one of 2 guests in the 10:30pm segment. Batchelor again cut her off after asking her to elaborate on a point, tonight on Obama's dealing with the Egypt situation, his tone mixing humor with accusation, like she was about to say something that was true but not helpful to the left. As always, we have few enough words coming from Ms. Zito as it is, so this is insulting to both Ms. Zito and listeners seeking a tiny bit of sanity in the vast left wing media desert. John Avlon was in the prior half hour paired with John Fund, a pairing of unequals. Avlon with no gravitas whatever should not be on radio at all and in any case not paired with Fund. Avlon as usual was a pompous know it all, 'heh', and anyone who doesn't agree with him 'is a liar,' as he says of one of his 'I know everything and you don't' left wing opinions.


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