News got out , including from yours truly in this piece here , that the Obama holdouts weren't budging from their cushy six-figure perches, as President Trump attempted to send in some new board members. Instead of packing up and leaving, as even White House Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes did, they chose to remain entrenched in positions they were supposed to leave two years ago. They didn't. And I don't even see how this could be legal. They became the Things That Wouldn't Leave, and now they've got some of their press buddies writing for them all about how great they are.

Well, the Obama holdovers at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, parent organization over U.S. broadcast agencies such as Voice of America, and formerly known as the Broadcast Board of Governors, have struck back.

Great enforcers of journalism standards and all that, since they have backgrounds in the mainstream media. As if such a group wouldn't dream of being biased and anyone that President Trump sends to replace them undoubtedly is.

Get the flavor of this?

Here's what Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times piously intoned on the holdouts' behalf as she sounded the alarm about a conservative Trump appointee about to invade their fiefdom:

The current top managers, appointed in the Obama administration and drawn largely from traditional media backgrounds, expect to lose their jobs if Mr. Pack comes in. They include the agency’s current chief executive, John Lansing, a journalist and former president of Scripps Networks, and Amanda Bennett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who runs Voice of America. For now, though, they have intensified its efforts to encourage professionalism, reinforce ethical standards and remind staff of safeguards against political interference.

Here's her icky analysis:

The debacles are the latest problems that for years have plagued the government’s efforts to meld journalism and political messaging across its array of radio and television channels around the world.

And they suggested that under President Trump, the broadcasts are at risk of greater ideological tilt as more political appointees eventually join the organization, the United States Agency for Global Media, formerly known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors.

Notice how she blames President Trump for the scandals that occurred with the holdouts running things.

And notice that the scandals Williamson describes seem to be cribbed from a post in this watchdog blog, scandal for scandal, funny how she didn't find any others, as if these mostly leftist scandals didn't have anything to do with the Obama holdouts still running the joint. Of course, the Times leaves out the little detail in that same post about the Obama holdouts specifically ordering VOA and other reporters to embed anti-Trump claptrap in their reporting. Bias? What bias? There's lots of good stuff at this site here.

In short, the Times is trying to say that any appointee to the USAGM is going to be a disaster for journalism (despite the record we see from the holdouts) and journalistic integrity is at stake if this holdout bunch of political appointees aren't permitted to continue as they do. She leaves out the part about them being political appointees, of course.

Someone needs to check how buddy-buddy Williamson is with the two Obama holdouts on the Washington circuit, the whole thing reads like these people are pals.

In any case, what I can mention is that conservatives within the organizations are on the case, they're being discriminated against, and they are starting to find each other. Stay tuned for more stories because they may have a surprise for these Obama catspaws.

Image credit: James Ledbetter, via Flickr // CC BY-SA 2.0