The absurdity of the Right's hyperventilation over Stephanopoulos-Emanuel-Begala-Carville phone calls

Some conservatives are upset about the fact that longtime friends and former colleagues George Stephanopoulos, Rahm Emanuel, Paul Begala, and James Carville regularly talk to each other.

Emanuel is the White House chief of staff, which supposedly means that Stephanopoulos, who works at ABC, and Begala and Carville, who are affiliated with CNN, cannot be objective in talking about the Obama administration.  Or something.  Greg Sargent and Steve Benen explain.

Honestly, this is all a bunch of nonsense.  Two quick points:

First - for better or worse - friendships between journalists and the politicos they cover are nothing new.  Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer is friends with George W. Bush.  Conservatives didn't say he should be fired over that friendship - nor were they bothered when Schieffer moderated a presidential debate between Bush and John Kerry.  Basically, for nearly any major political figure you can name - Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal - there will be some journalists with whom they have friendships.

Second, the idea that Stephanopoulos will be in the tank for Obama or other Democrats because he talks to Rahm Emanuel ignores history.  The four men talked regularly in 1998, too, when Emanuel and Begala worked in Bill Clinton's White House - but that didn't stop Stephanopoulos from being among the first people to speculate that Clinton might be impeached over the Monica Lewinsky matter.  Stephanopoulos brought up the possibility on television early in the morning on the day the story broke.