When the press is a poodle

GAFFNEY: When the press is a poodle - Washington Times

This nation’s Founders had a special role in mind for the media in the constitutional arrangements they carefully constructed. It was to provide a fourth source of checks and balances on the potential abuse of power by the three branches of government, by virtue of journalists’ independence and, if assured freedom of the press, their ability to expose and, thereby, to counter overreaching presidents, legislators or courts.

The Framers of our Constitution didn’t reckon on the American media in the age of Obama, however. 

....Finally, as Matt Continetti of The Washington Free Beacon recently observed, the press “pool reporter” selected to cover Vice President Joe Biden’s recent meetings with Chinese leaders was not even a journalist. 
He was Steve Clemons, a Democratic foreign-policy activist.
And it showed in the slanted reporting he provided to the “working press” along for the trip and, through them, to the rest of us.

At a time when Mr. Obama is increasingly engaged in extraconstitutional and unconstitutional behavior, a free press performing the function envisioned for it by the Framers is more necessary than ever.
In its absence, there’s every reason to think that not only will the mainstream media be poodled, but the country will go to the dogs.