Fox News White House correspondent Ed Henry called out Sam Stein of the Huffington Post over his softball question to President Obama during yesterday's White House press conference Wedensday on the O'Reilly Factor.
Henry said he was "stunned, shocked [and] dismayed" when he heard the president tell Stein "you're making an important point."
The Fox News reporter went to say Stein's question ran counter to the core journalistic principle of challenging those in power, no matter the party affiliation.
If Henry had during the Bush White House "teed up" the president to give his talking points on the War on Terror, Henry said he would have been "pilloried":
BILL O'REILLY: Now, talking about B.S., what was that press conference yesterday? What was that all about? I mean, Huffington Post, why don't you put a we love President Obama t-shirt on and sit there and just parrot back everything he says? What is that?
ED HENRY: I'll let you criticize my colleagues because I want to be collegial, but I was stunned, shocked, dismayed when I the heard the president say to one reporter you make a good point and to another reporter he said I think you are right, that's a great example of how --
O'REILLY: That was Huffington Post that said "you made a great point" the first one.
HENRY: The first one, yeah, the second one was the New York Times reporter who is a friend of mine but I thought I was surprised you have got the president saying "that's a great example," and let me go to my talking points. Here is my point. We as reporters should not be teeing up this president or President Bush before him or the next president after him, teeing him up to give his talking points. We are supposed to be challenging power. Challenging authority. When I was covering President Bush, if I had gotten up there and teed him to give his talking points war on terror I would have been pilloried and I never would have have done it and I wouldn't do it with this president either.