Huffington Post on the defensive about question last week...

John Hanlon | June 29, 2009 12:09 AM

There was an interesting debate on CNN.com Sunday about the infamous Huffington Post question asked of President Barack Obama last week. Dana Milbank from the Washington Post openly challenged Nico Pitney from the Huffington Post about the way the Obama administration reached out to Pitney before the question was asked.

You can check out the video here.

Whatever you think about the Huffington Post question, it seems like more and more media outlets and personalities are now challenging President Obama's relationship with the mainstream media. Dana Milbank, who was extremely critical of the Bush administration, raised an interesting point at the end of the segment that conservatives have been talking about for months.

In regards to the ABC health care special last week (and in many ways, the Pitney question) Milbank said, "I think the White House is trying to exploit the media in ultimately bringing them in bed with him."

It is unclear whether such a discussion will cause greater scrutiny of the White House from the media but regardless of its effect, the discussion about media coverage of the Obama administration (and the administration's relationship with the media) is clearly an important one to have, especially after the Huffington Post question controversy and the heavily-criticized health care forum last week.