Jake Tapper over at ABC's Political Punch just loves exposing hypocrisy. Whether it's constantly harping on Obama's decision to opt out of public financing, or the earmark non-troversy in the Omnibus spending bill, he just loves pointing fingers, and especially at Obama, brave journalist that he is. But apparently, he's a more than just a little thin skinned when it comes to someone else pointing out his own hypocrisy.
Tapper apparently "broke" the story about Obama's Special Olympics gaffe through Twitter last night:
And not content with the "Breaking" news of the gaffe, which by then had been front paged by Drudge, goes even further to push the story by asking what the reaction would be if Bush had said the same thing?
Then bemoans the hypocrisy of it all after "BREAKING" the story himself:
Well, apparently Adam Sewer over at The American Prospect had been following Jake's tweets and had some mild criticism for our intrepid Reporter:
Funny, I was thinking the same thing about press who moments ago believed the president had "too much on his plate" now deciding that the country should spend a whole day talking about an offensive joke.
In any case, you should know that Tapper's really disappointed about his 9 PM blog post getting picked up by Drudge, possibly driving the day and leading to all this "hypocrisy" when we have two wars and an economic crisis to deal with. That's the last thing Tapper wanted when he hyped this "breaking" news last night.
Well, I don't think Jake took too kindly to this, because suddenly Adam found himself blocked from Tapper's Twitter feed:
Huh, I wonder why Jake Tapper, press access warrior, has blocked me from following his Twitter feed.......
Bonus Tapper: His exchange with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs* over "transparency that you and the president herald so much." I think you're supposed to believe in transparency too, Jake.
But Tapper didn't stop there. David Kurtz over at Talking Points Memo noticed the same hypocrisy and posted about it. And what do you think happened to Kurtz? BLOCKED of course:
Everything you need to know about the DC journo establishment, from ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper's Twitter feed:
Breaking- PrezObama on Leno jokes about being a bad bowler- says it's "like the Special Olympics or something" http://tinyurl.com/... about 12 hours ago from TwitterBerry
Am trying to imagine the reaction if President Bush joked that his bowling skills recalled the Special Olympics. 3 am- we just landed in dc about 6 hours ago from TwitterBerry
Preparing for day of hypocrisy: conservs who would normally defend the SpecOlymp joke acting offended, liberals saying lighten up. Sigh about 3 hours ago from TwitterBerry
Late Update: Tapper gets his revenge: He has "blocked" me from following him on Twitter.
Tapper has a long history of deleting non offensive, but critical comments from Political Punch, which he denies, but now the evidence is even greater that he's a thin skinned DC villager, nothing more. Looking in the mirror is hard, isn't it Jake?
Steve Benen says it perfectly:
Now, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert on Twitter etiquette; I'm not even on Twitter. But blocking those who offer mild criticism seems kind of petty. When it comes from a journalist who frequently addresses the importance of transparency, it's especially bad form.
UPDATE: h/t Muzikal203
Apparently TPM has now been unblocked, but others remain. Shall we stand in solidarity until our fellow tweeters are unblocked as well?
ThinkProgress contacted Tapper (via Twitter), who replied, "that story isn't true. People can criticize, just wld like twitter to remain civil. Tpm is unblocked." Others are saying they are still blocked.
UPDATE II:
Our own mysticlaker was also blocked!!
Hi, I'm Jake Tapper and I'm a big wuss.
I blocked someone because they said on twitter:
@jaketapper - pretty crappy reporting this AM...Get over the trivial."
* mysticlaker's diary :: ::
*
Jake Tapper can only dish it out.
This was my second comment to Jake, the first one being positive about his reporting, and this one being negative.
But apparently Jake can't take criticism, so he blocked me on Twitter. Jake, who this morning, spent more time on the special olympics comment (apologized for), then the economy and the rest of the Presidents trip on the teevee and in the bog.