Of all the Associated Press reporters out there, Matt Lee, whose beat is the State Department, appears to have the least patience with the pablum (and worse) he is expected to swallow from the Obama administration.
In September of last year, as the situation in Syria escalated, Obama administration Secretary of State John Kerry proposed a non-mandatory request for a Congressional vote on U.S. military involvement in Syria. After hearing State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki defend that proposal as "courageous," Lee, after getting a non-response to a question as why it was courageous, famously asked: "Was there some kind of, like, group spine-removal op procedure at the White House over the weekend?" Though he may not have exercised the best judgment this morning in posting the tweet which follows the jump, at least we can say that Lee hasn't taken up permanent residence in the wire service's otherwise very crowded water-carrier wing:
There is a contrarian take on Lee's tweet.
As noted earlier this afternoon, Lee co-authored an AP "Big Story" report about how the Obama administration is "fuming" at Israeli criticism of John Kerry's conduct.
I'm not quite as clear as to why Hamas should be "p*ssed off," or even fuming, given that the terrorist group has willfully violated brief ceasefires at least a couple of times during the past week and seems to have no interest in any form of peace. Perhaps Matt should tell us.
But at least he isn't blindly defending or actively working to advance Obama administration efforts, as Julie Pace and likely others at AP did last year in keeping secret U.S.-Iran negotiations it knew about earlier in the year out of the news until November, when the Obama administration said it was okay to reveal them.
UPDATE: In response to my post, Lee replied: "It was a joke." Well, okay. It was a joke promoted on company time with the company's dime, and like all jokes, it has a kernel of truth.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
