I assume no one expected that Bob Woodward would be found to be the first and only ordinarily Democrat-friendly recipient of threats from White House officials over what he has written and said.
Another such person has come forward in the name of Lanny Davis, who among other things was a completely insufferable defender of the indefensible during the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky-impeachment saga in 1998 and 1999. The morning, on Washington radio station WMAL (audio is at the link), Davis said that his editor at the Washington Times received a threat as a result of what Davis was writing there:
WMAL EXCLUSIVE: Woodward's Not Alone - Fmr. Clinton Aide Davis Says He Received White House Threat
Bob Woodward isn't the only person who's received threats for airing the Obama administration's dirty laundry. It seems anyone is a potential target of the White House these days - even former senior members of the Clinton administration.
A day after Woodward's claim that a senior White House official had told him he would "regret" writing a column criticizing President Obama's stance on the sequester, Lanny Davis, a longtime close advisor to President Bill Clinton, told WMAL's Mornings on the Mall Thursday he had received similar threats for newspaper columns he had written about Obama in the Washington Times.
Davis told WMAL that his editor, John Solomon, "received a phone call from a senior Obama White House official who didn't like some of my columns, even though I'm a supporter of Obama. I couldn't imagine why this call was made." Davis says the Obama aide told Solomon, "that if he continued to run my columns, he would lose, or his reporters would lose their White House credentials."
... If it did happen again, Davis believes the administration did it to the wrong person.
"Firstly, you don't threaten anyone. Secondly, you don't threaten Bob Woodward," said Davis. "He's one of the best reporters ever. He's factual. You can disagree with facts that he reports, but he's factual. Don't mess with him about his facts. You can mess with him about the interpretation of his facts, but this is not a reporter you tangle with," he added.
In unexcerpted audio, Davis says that "the person who did this should publicly declare who he is, say he's learned his lesson, and he's never going to do it again."
Davis also said that if that happens, "I'll buy a bridge in Brookly for $5 if that happens."
I'd say the $5 bills in Davis's wallet are pretty safe to stay there.
It may be that one reason Davis chose to add his name to the threatened list today is to make it more likely that the establishment press will cover the story and start seeing a pattern. Good idea, but I'm skeptical that it will work.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
