Last evening’s Fox News Watch included an homage to Sam Donaldson on the occasion of his retirement.  Asked if there were reporters currently on the scene like Donaldson, panelist Jane Hall responded: “we don’t see a lot of them.  Some people think Jake Tapper has been pretty aggressive.”

Tapper, ABC’s chief White House correspondent, has given recent evidence that he is among that rare breed of MSMer willing to report inconvenient facts about the Obama administration.  As Jennifer Rubin at Commentary’s Contentions blog has observed, it looks like Tapper is the only MSM outlet to have reported this story [emphasis added]:

Brian Wise, executive director of Military Families United, told ABC News that “Over 5,000 military families from across the United States responded to an Action Alert from Military Families United about President Obama’s first release of a terrorist from Guantanamo Bay [Binyam Mohamed]. The White House was inundated with calls from military families, veterans and others who voiced their outrage over President Obama releasing a purported enemy combatant.

“Whether or not he experienced harsh interrogation tactics doesn’t change the fact that he is universally recognized as a terrorist and a threat to America,” Wise said. “This man trained in the same camp as some of the 9/11 hijackers, he is a known and proud member of al Qaeda. He is a danger to America and the free world. Honestly, we never thought the president was capable of doing this.”

Noted Rubin:

Wise also specifically criticized Obama for failing to keep the families abreast of new developments, something he had promised to do in his meeting earlier in the month with families of the victims of the U.S.S. Cole bombing.

Now imagine if thousands of families were jamming the White House switchboard to protest some decision by George W. Bush, or if Bush had broken his word to a group of grieving families. The outraged families would be on every talk show in sight. The press would be clamoring for answers. This seems like a rather significant development and a potential headache for the White House.

So good on Jake.  Sam Donaldson might have been a thorn in Ronald Reagan’s side, but in retrospect we have to acknowledge that he was playing a constructive role.  And in this age of MSM thrill-up-the-leggers, White House reporters willing to ask tough questions and report unflattering facts about the Obama administration are that much more of a rare and valuable commodity.

Now that ABC and Tapper have reported the story, will the rest of the MSM have the journalistic instinct to follow up?