Pre-emptive media strike

Suddenly, in the last two weeks, I find I am a sought-after interview subject in what we euphemistically call the "mainstream media."

In the last two weeks, I've been asked for interviews by CNN, the Los Angeles Times, Fox News, Der Spiegel, the National Journal, the Washington Post and some lesser-known publications and TV networks.

Now, it's not unusual for me to be invited on talk radio. I do hundreds of interviews every year. But since last May, when I launched the infamous "Where's the birth certificate?" billboard campaign, I had become something of a pariah among my colleagues – even on the cable TV circuit.

Even when I have been the central focus of reports since that time, my phone doesn't ring, my views are not solicited.

It's tough to know what this means, but, I suspect, I am in someone's crosshairs.

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This is not entirely unfamiliar territory for me. In fact, it's sort of like déjà vu all over again, as Yogi Berra would say.

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Back in the 1990s, I became a very popular target of reporters for about a year. One after another they would call – all with the same questions. Finally, I asked one of these reporters why he was asking the same questions others had been asking. He explained that the Bill Clinton White House and the Democratic National Committee had distributed a 331-page report to select reporters. It was called "The Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce," and it alleged that I was a principal in a cabal of right-wing media activists out to get Clinton impeached.

When Hillary Clinton famously mentioned the "right-wing media conspiracy," it was this thesis to which she was referring.

I finally got my hands on the report, after both the White House and DNC refused to release copies to me. I found that not only was I prominently profiled, but I was the only journalist to be so honored.

Ironically, the curiosity of journalists about me was piqued not so much by the stories I was breaking about Clinton administration corruption and scandal, but by the fact that the White House had declared me to be media enemy No. 1.

It got me to thinking – is history repeating itself?

Why are reporters once again asking me the same questions – all about my efforts to seek the truth about Barack Obama?

Is the "right-wing media conspiracy" card about to be played again?

I don't know for sure.

It would be wrong to pre-judge stories I haven't yet seen.

But I thought I'd send out this little advisory.

You may be seeing more of me.

And I am not sure you will like what you see.

It may be as simple as this: I told you a couple weeks ago, in my column titled "The Washington Post discovers America," about the way the editor of that powerful daily had ordered his staff to start networking with people other than the usual subjects. Specifically, he told reporters and editors to broaden their contacts to "conservatives."

Now, those who know me well understand my aversion to that label. But, nonetheless, no matter how hard I try to explain that I do not consider myself a "conservative," that's how I am described in this world of simplistic labeling.

I hope that my newfound "popularity" in the world of journalism is due to nothing more sinister than the old media's desperate struggle for relevance in a changing environment.

They see the handwriting on the wall.

They see where the eyeballs are going.

They see the decreasing profits.

They see their impact lessening.

But I'm also not discarding the possibility that they are doing the bidding of powerful people in government who are beginning to see me and WND as real threats.

Time will surely tell.