With the news breaking on Wednesday Night that Jimmy Kimmel saw his late-night show suspended, there has been no shortage of voices of outrage from the left. The squealing and mewling over this has not been heard since way back to… about a month ago, when a similar amount of teeth-gnashing was taking place over Stephen Colbert getting canceled.
While I am no fan of seeing possible government leverage being applied to broadcasters over content, this is a result that the same wailing class has been attempting to provoke for years. Case in point: CNN’s media maven Brian Stelter has been weighing in (pun completely intended) on this suspension, and he is among the last who should be outraged. This is the same man who, years ago, was actively pushing not to silence one voice, but lobbied to have an entire network – Fox News – removed from our televisions.
Brian, your concern about this is completely hilarious, given you have long championed to have silenced those delivering misinformation.
— Brad Slager: CNN+ Lifetime Subscriber (@MartiniShark) September 18, 2025
You lobbied to have an entire news network stripped from cable providers.
Kimmel delivered misinformation - you should be applauding. https://t.co/Oe2SlG8Ins pic.twitter.com/E3WxJZiH9s
And now the hypocrisy reaches its nadir. Like with any story that creeps into the headlines, it is not officially a news story until former President Barack Obama chimes in with his opinion, and this is a gem. If he is not considered the man who ushered in cancel culture, he has to be credited with making it fashionable at the highest levels.
After years of complaining about cancel culture, the current administration has taken it to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like. https://t.co/uts7JpJZzN
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 18, 2025
You first have to appreciate the built-in hypocrisy. This approach of “How DARE they now accept what they have always opposed” cannot exist without the tacit admission that you had been engaged in that very activity. This is a man getting hissy that his tactics are being used on him, in classic Saul Alinsky fashion. But let’s look into Obama’s history of attacks on free expression.
We will start small and with a dose of equivalency. While the press this year has been carping about the administration putting clamps on the White House press corps, it has been forgotten that this came into practice during the Obama years. His administration was prone to manipulating the official press pool reports being issued. (In one ironic example, his press secretary had a reporter strike the comment that after praising a free press in a speech delivered in Asia, Obama was blocking photo ops, during the same trip.)
Another frequent practice was freezing out the media throng entirely. He was not averse to having White House reporters whisked out as he was staging meetings. In what has to be the most ironic of examples, there was the time Obama was recognized with a transparency in government award, and he received the honor in a closed-door session with the press locked out.
But he took that irony deeper. The Democrats and the press love to tout the merits of whistleblowers who expose corruption and other questionable acts – until those sainted individuals are heard detailing Democrat impropriety. Obama clamped down on those folks, as well as any leakers in his administration, by invoking the Espionage Act, far more than any other president.
This was written back in 1917, primarily as a means of going after spies working against the nation, but the Obama administration contorted its application to apply to those leaking intel on his administration. Recall how, during President Trump’s first term, leakers and whistleblowers were held up to be untouchable, angelic figures shielded from any repercussions for coming forward? During Obama’s run, these people were placed in the legal crosshairs.
The Obama administration used the 1917 Espionage Act with unprecedented vigor, prosecuting more people under that law for leaking sensitive information to the public than all previous administrations combined.
But the former president took this to even deeper, disturbing levels. He would target reporters on the regular, in super executive fashion, and the lack of outrage in the media was a sign that this was condoned on some level – even as he was undermining their very profession. Think back to the wailing heard from journalists whenever Trump would simply criticize or insult a reporter or a news outlet. It was always deemed an “attack” and a threat to our democracy.
But during Obama’s term, he literally went after reporters. Fox News reporter James Rosen had his and his network’s phone records seized, as well as those of his parents. Government contractor Stephen Kim was jailed for sharing information with the reporter. And this was hardly an isolated instance involving the “scandal-free” president.
The Obama administration also targeted the Associated Press in a wildly aggressive fashion. Not just a lone reporter or two were involved; this was a months-long effort that went after the news syndicate’s offices in multiple cities, and many of the AP reporters had not just their office numbers, but also their personal and home phone lines targeted by the Obama DOJ. And it was all done on the sly.
The AP’s president said Monday [May 13, 2013] that federal authorities obtained cellular, office and home telephone records of individual reporters and an editor; AP general office numbers in Washington, New York and Hartford, Conn.; and the main number for AP reporters covering Congress. He called the Justice Department’s actions a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into newsgathering activities.
This is the same man who today is complaining that a comedian being sidelined for broadcasting misinformation is the height of government intrusion into free expression. It is utterly laughable to hear any complaint of the Trump administration being a threat to the free press when Obama displayed less affection for the media than a Peterbilt driver has for a $25 truck stop escort.
It all comes down to this reality, one that the left does not want to acknowledge. Whatever your position on the moves that led to Jimmy Kimmel being gagged, it has only taken place because the likes of Barack Obama paved the roadway towards blocking free expression. Obama made censorship trendy, and now he is mad that others are tugging on his silencing fashions.
Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
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