Romney: WH move to deny paper 'violates the spirit of the First Amendment'

Mitt Romney complained that the Obama administration "violate[d] the spirit of the First Amendment" by shutting out a Boston newspaper from covering the president's visit there Wednesday.

Romney, the former Republican governor of Massachusetts, stuck up for the Boston Herald, which published a story Wednesday complaining it had been denied access to the local pool duty for Obama's visit to Boston.

"The media needs to be truthful and interesting, and the Herald is both of those things," Romney said on WBZ radio in Boston. "And for the White House to deny the Herald access to an official presidential visit absolutely makes no sense at all, and really violates the spirit of the First Amendment."

Obama is in Boston for a set of fundraisers for the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and his reelection campaign, and the Boston Globe was designated by the White House Correspondents Association for local pool duty.

The Herald's story quoted an email exchange with a White House official suggesting the paper's decision to publish an op-ed from Romney on its front page criticizing Obama on jobs.

Romney accused the administration of taking retribution against the Herald for publishing his piece, and called the president thin-skinned.

"I think it's embarrassing for the White House to have taken a retribution-type of act against a leading journal like the Boston Herald," Romney said.

"The White House and the president, in particular — they're extraordinarily sensitive when anyone points out that America's economy, three years after the president took office, is still not generating the kind of jobs it needs to have," the likely Republican presidential candidate added. "So they lash out at the media, which is the truth that you've got 20 million Americans out of work."