The open contempt Oversight and Government Reform chairman Darrell Issa's spokesman is displaying to the reporters who cover his boss -- in an on-the-record interview with someone writing an Issa profile, no less -- is shocking. From Ryan Lizza's New Yorker piece (emphasis added):

Issa has set up what his aides call Issa Enterprises, a highly organized effort to manage his image. Kurt Bardella, the spokesman, who is twenty-seven, and whom Issa calls “my secret weapon,” fiercely screens all interviews. Bardella has a reputation as one of the savviest young spokesmen on Capitol Hill, someone who understands the complicated new media environment.

Over lunch at Bistro Bis, a French restaurant near the Capitol, Bardella was surprisingly open in his disparagement of the media. He said, "Some people in the press, I think, are just lazy as hell. There are times when I pitch a story and they do it word for word. That's just embarrassing. They're adjusting to a time that demands less quality and more quantity. And it works to my advantage most of the time, because I think most reporters have liked me packaging things for them. Most people will opt for what's easier, so they can move on to the next thing. Reporters are measured by how often their stuff gets on Drudge. It's a bad way to be, but it's reality."

Wow. No wonder Bardella is already trying to walk that comment back.

I would hope that reporters working on oversight issues will respond to this blatant insult by doing their best to ensure that they aren't engaging in the sort of behavior Bardella is referencing here.

As Lizza's profile makes clear, Issa is now trying to present himself as a sober, impartial investigator who is “no Dan Burton,” the notorious head of the committee during the Clinton administration. That requires the media to play along with one of the most whiplash-inducing Washington turnarounds in recent history.

Before the last election, Issa was calling President Obama “one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times” saying that “stopping” the president was “critical,” and accusing him of potentially “impeachable” actions with regard to the Joe Sestak phony controversy. Now, Issa is running away from his “corrupt” claim, saying that his “job” is to “make the president a success,” and admitting that he won't investigate the Sestak issue.

Given this sort of record and the obvious disdain with which Issa's staff holds the media, it should be incumbent on them to verify everything his committee puts out. Next time he starts claiming he's found “corruption” in the Obama administration, they should do the due diligence necessary to determine if there's anything there before trumpeting his allegations to the world.