Tim Graham titled a May 15 NewsBusters post “NPR Legal Reporter Lamely Tries to Spread Bush Into the AP Phone-tapping Scandal.” He continues:
NPR legal correspondent Carrie Johnson reported on the IRS scandal on Tuesday’s Morning Edition displaying an urgent need to spread some Bush administration into the story. First she mentioned a 2004 FBI probe that improperly acquired phone records from New York Times and Washington Post reporters without going through proper channels.
Then she concluded with how the last secret subpoena for a reporter’s phone records came in 2001.
Graham never explains exactly what is so “lame” about reporting facts. The implication, of course, is that history throws a wrench into the right-wing narrative that Obama is History’s Greatest Monster for doing the exact thing his Republican predecessor did.