The Obama administration has apparently never heard that old saw about avoiding fights with people who buy their ink by the barrel.

Journalists haven’t taken too kindly to the revelation that the Department of Justice seized phone records for the Associated Press in an investigation of classified leaks.

Here’s Carl Bernstein on MSNBC this morning: “The object of it is to intimidate people who talk to reporters. This was an accident waiting to become a nuclear event and now it’s happened. There’s no excuse for it whatsoever. There’s no reason for this investigation, especially on this scale.”

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Satirist Andy Borowitz brings another world leader to the administration’s defense: Kim Jong Un. “‘I honestly don’t see what the fuss is all about,’ Mr. Kim said in an official statement today. ‘Of course it’s the government’s right to know what people are doing at all times—and journalists would be right at the top of the list.'”

And here’s a screen grab of a Huffington Post headline, via Poynter.

Suddenly, things get interesting.