On Saturday's Fox & Friends, syndicated columnist and investigative reporter Michelle Malkin sharply criticized the establishment press's sharp U-turn on law-enforcement transparency from George W. Bush's presidency. She in effect observed that one of the key reasons for the current "stonewall media" environment is self-protection.

In the video segment which follows, Malkin recalls how the press selective loved transparency during the Bush 43 years, and then observed that there has now been a complete about-face:

Transcript (bolds are mine):

ED HENRY, FOX NEWS: A lot of people on the mainstream media (are) just almost like laughing this story off, saying, "It was a dud." MICHELLE MALKIN: Yeah, I’m old enough to remember during the Bush years, when there wasn’t a leak that the newspapers wouldn’t run to and embrace. And then also, of course, those leaks always somehow happened to redound to the detriment of the Bush administration. And, you know, here we have all of the open watchdog groups and all of these journalists who are supposed to, you know, shed sunlight, and sunlight is supposed to be the best disinfectant. HENRY: Safeguards of democracy. Watchdogs. MALKIN: And in fact, instead what we have is a stonewall media to match the stoned-faced Democrats this past week. RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yeah, and would never see — you guys are journalists. Have you ever seen a time where journalists are saying, "We want less information, we want less transparency, trust the government on this"? MALKIN: Right. Well, and obviously the contents of the memo show exactly why. Because it is confirmatory, not revelatory, that you had these liberal media journalists who were in cahoots. All the collusion accusations that we heard over the past year were just really severe psychological projection.

In essence, journalists are stonewalling because if the Deep State's collusion is exposed, their collusion's exposure will accompany it.

The press's current collusive posture goes back almost three years, when 65 mainstream media journalists were invited to attend secret pre-announcement planning meetings with Hillary Clinton campaign officials.

One of the meetings had specific, documented goals of "setting expectations for the announcement and launch period" and "framing the HRC message and framing the race." In other words, the campaign wanted the press to operate under those expectations and that framing, i.e., the campaign was actively seeking collusion.

Establishment press reporters' conduct during the 2016 presidential campaign confirms that the Clinton campaign received the collusion it sought.

The scandals associated with Mrs. Clinton and her campaign, followed by dozens of post-election revelations of unauthorized behavior by Obama administration or Barack Obama-appointed officials and their apparatchiks in the White House and federal law enforcement, have given journalists ample opportunity to regain their bearings and stop colluding. With only very rare exceptions, it hasn't happened.

Malkin's "stonewall media" tag perfectly describes establishment press journalists' stubborn, collusive posture. It has long since gone past the point of no return. It threatens to, and really should, wipe out all remnants of the colluders' credibility.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.