"Nixonian," even "Orwellian," doesn't begin to cover it

Sharyl Attkisson has come in for a hefty dose of intimidation and attempts to circumscribe her professional latitude as an investigative journalist.

It just got creepier by a quantum leap.  A 2011 email exchange between Tracy Schmaler, Eric Holder's press secretary, and White House deputy press secretary Eric Shcultz has come to light.  Schmaler calls Attkisson, then working for CBS News, "out of control," and that he was going to call CBS News anchor Bob Schieffer to see about getting her muzzled.  Schultz responds with approval.

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air remarks on just how chilling this is:

We know (or should by now) that all sides in Washington play hardball when it comes to media courtship and spin control. Documents get leaked for a reason by Democrats and Republicans alike. Reporters get nuggets when they appear to be friendly or when it suits a politician, and get frozen out just as easily. That’s just life in the Beltway, and one doesn’t have to be marinated in the culture to know how business as usual operates.

This, however, goes beyond that — in a couple of ways. First, it goes way beyond the normal carrot-stick relationship with reporters on getting favored stories, and moves into a place where reporters are pressured to keep quiet about government abuse and incompetence — or lose their jobs.  That’s flat-out intimidation of the kind one would normally associate with, say, the Nixon White House and its notorious Enemies List. It’s the kind of gangster-government environment more associated with banana republics. If it succeeds, it guarantees the complete removal of accountability and transparency, and turns the media into stenographers.

There’s another troubling aspect to this, too. The DoJ and White House seemed to be surprised that no one other than Attkisson ran with the documents that got leaked (other than Fox, of course). Why wouldn’t they report on leaked documents from Fast & Furious? It’s certainly not because DC reporters suddenly got ethical reservations about using leaks. John’s point is well worth considering, not just because of the media bias it demonstrates, but also because that media bias allowed the Obama administration to focus its sights on just one journalist. It’s not just that the White House went after a reporter, but also that the failure by most of Attkisson’s colleagues in the industry to “speak truth to power,” “afflict the comfortable,” or whatever tiresome cliché they routinely use to describe their work in heroic terms, when it counted. They left Attkisson isolated, an easy target for the power they claim to challenge.

Maybe some of them like being stenographers. Or maybe some of them didn’t want to end up without a job.

Information, it seems, is dispensed in post-America in much the same way as health care, or energy, or even job opportunities:  Leviathan determines what you need, and you consume what it ladles out.  Those with other ideas are, to paraphrase Alinsky, targeted, personalized and attacked.