A veteran White House reporter says President Obama went on a “profanity-laced” tirade during an off-the-record meeting with journalists sometime in the past year.
ABC News reporter Ann Compton, who retired earlier this year, told C-SPAN that she witnessed Mr. Obama’s anger — and colorful vocabulary — firsthand.
“I have seen in the last year Barack Obama really angry twice. Both were off-the-record times. One, profanity-laced where he thought the press was making too much of scandals that he did not think were scandals. Another where he took us to task for not understanding the limits he has with foreign policy and the way he’s dealing with the Middle East and Iraq, and Afghanistan,” she said. “And I don’t find him apologetic. But I find him willing to stand up to the press and look them in the eye, even though it was off the record and just give us hell.”
Ms. Compton also took aim at the Obama administration’s penchant for secrecy. This administration has come under almost constant fire from journalists for, among other things, freezing out photojournalists from Oval Office events only to release official White House photos of the very same event a few hours later.
“This particular administration has been more opaque than any I have covered about what the president does in the Oval Office every day. He is far less accessible on photo-ops with meetings,” Ms. Compton said.
• Ben Wolfgang can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.