Former President Obama has come under fire for what many have viewed as a hypocritical condemnation of President Trump during a Friday acceptance speech for his Ethics in Government award at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
In particular, critics are slamming Obama for his comments regarding Trump's criticism of the press - while casually minimizing his own actions against journalists and whistleblowers:
It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don’t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don’t like. I complained plenty about Fox News, but you never heard me threaten to shut them down or call them enemies of the people. -Barack Obama
Except Obama did much, much more than that...
In addition to prosecuting more whistleblowers than all previous presidents combined, the Obama administration targeted then-Fox News journalist James Rosen as a "criminal co-conspirator" for protecting his sources in a DOJ leak investigation.
And while Obama's defenders have attempted to downplay his actions, the overwhelming consensus appears to be that the former President is a massive hypocrite.
The original Dec. 30, 2016 New York times article by James Risen: If Donald Trump Targets Journalists, Thank Obama.
A website devoted to all things hypocritical with an intent to make a small contribution to correct our blindness of our own shortcomings and corruption.
The phrase pot calling the kettle black is an idiom for "a person who is guilty of the very thing of which they accuse another and is thus an example of psychological projection."