Boston College of Law seeks permission from WH to release video

Good freaking grief! I was reading this story that I guess is supposed to be somewhat controversial about an Obama advisor who said earlier this week that she disagreed with the President on gay marriage. The article itself is pretty standard, and here is the gist of it:

Melody Barnes, the head of President Obama’s Domestic Policy Council, told students at Boston College Law School on Nov. 9 that she disagrees with her boss on the issue of same-sex marriage.

“I really appreciate your frustration and your disappointment with the President’s position on this issue,” said Barnes when asked by a student if she supported equal civil marriage rights for gays and lesbians. “[W]ith regard to my own views, those are my own views, and I come to my experience based on what I’ve learned, based on the relationships I’ve had with friends, and they’re relationships that I respect, and the children that they are raising, and that is something that I support.”

[...]

Barnes made her remarks in response to a Boston College Law School student who said that he was an Obama primary and general election voter who was deeply disappointed in the religion-based rationale that the president has offered to explain his opposition to civil marriage rights for gays and lesbians.

(Video here)

In reality, even though “on the record” Barnes and Obama disagree on gay marriage – she’s for and he’s against, in reality I think it’s safe to say that Obama supports gay marriage, too. He just trying to take a “middle ground” approach on the issue similar to Bill Clinton’s so as not to alienate mainstream voters who still oppose gay marriage.

What caught my eye in the article, though, was not the disagreement between Barnes and Obama. It was what was reported midway through it:

Boston College Law School shot video of Barnes’ speech and Q&A that followed but initially held off on releasing it to the press because it wanted to “give the White House staffers a chance to view the video and give us their thumbs up on making it public.”

A spokesman for Boston College Law School says that he has now received the “thumbs up” from the White House, and the school is planning to post the video — which was first shared with ABC News — on Friday afternoon.

Er, um – excuse me, but why would this school see the need to request permission to post the video from the WH? There were no super top secret discussions taking place on that video. The woman just opposes President Obama’s official position on gay marriage. Big deal!

Oh, that’s right. It’s a law school, and lawyers typically support Democrats, so maybe they just didn’t want to portray the administration in any light that might be seen as even remotely unflattering. So they wanted them to “review” the footage first. Now – can you imagine a law school giving the same courtesy to the Bush administration? We all know the answer to that one, and frankly, I wouldn’t want any school to suppress a video of an administration official politely disagreeing with the WH’s official position on any given issue, whether that WH was Republican or Democrat.

Asking the WH for permission to post a video of an admin official taking a different side on an issue than the POTUS. What’s next? Another Obama-friendly institution cutting his waffle for him?