White House Counsel Ed Gillespie didn’t much like his boss’s coverage on MSNBC:
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Steve Capus
President, NBC News Mr. Capus: This e-mail is to formally request that NBC Nightly News and The Today Show air for their viewers President Bush’s actual answer to correspondent Richard Engel’s question about Iran policy and "appeasement," rather than the deceptively edited version of the President’s answer that was aired last night on the Nightly News and this morning on The Today Show. In the interview, Engel asked the President: "You said that negotiating with Iran is pointless, and then you went further. You said that it was appeasement. Were you referring to Senator Barack Obama?" The President responded: "You know, my policies haven’t changed, but evidently the political calendar has. People need to read the speech. You didn’t get it exactly right, either. What I said was is that we need to take the words of people seriously. And when, you know, a leader of Iran says that they want to destroy Israel, you’ve got to take those words seriously. And if you don’t take them seriously, then it harkens back to a day when we didn’t take other words seriously. It was fitting that I talked about not taking the words of Adolph Hitler seriously on the floor of the Knesset. But I also talked about the need to defend Israel, the need to not negotiate with the likes of al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas. And the need to make sure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon." This answer makes clear: (1). The President’s remarks before the Knesset were not different from past policy statements, but are now being looked at through a political prism, (2). Corrects the inaccurate premise of Engel’s question by putting the "appeasement" line in the proper context of taking the words of leaders seriously, not "negotiating with Iran," (3). Restates the U.S.’s long-standing policy positions against negotiating with al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas, and not allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. Engel’s immediate follow-up question was, "Repeatedly you’ve talked about Iran and that you don’t want to see Iran develop a nuclear weapon. How far away do you think Iran is from developing a nuclear capability?" The President replied, "You know, Richard, I don’t want to speculate and there’s a lot of speculation. But one thing is for certain we need to prevent them from learning how to enrich uranium. And I have made it clear to the Iranians that there is a seat at the table for them if they would verifiably suspend their enrichment. And if not, we’ll continue to rally the world to isolate them." This response reiterates another long-standing policy, which is that if Iran verifiably suspends its uranium enrichment program the U.S. government would engage in talks with the Iranian government. NBC’s selective editing of the President’s response is clearly intended to give viewers the impression that he agreed with Engel’s characterization of his remarks when he explicitly challenged it… This deceitful editing to further a media-manufactured storyline is utterly misleading and irresponsible and I hereby request in the interest of fairness and accuracy that the network air the President’s responses to both initial questions in full on the two programs that used the excerpts. As long as I am making this formal request, please allow me to take this opportunity to ask if your network has reconsidered its position that Iraq is in the midst of a civil war, especially in light of the fact that the unity government in Baghdad recently rooted out illegal, extremist groups in Basra and reclaimed the port there for the people of Iraq, among other significant signs of progress… Lastly, when the Commerce Department on April 30 released the GDP numbers for the first quarter of 2007, Brian Williams reported it this way: "If you go by the government number, the figure that came out today stops just short of the official declaration of a recession." The GDP estimate was a positive 0.6% for the first quarter. Slow growth, but growth nonetheless. This followed a slow but growing fourth quarter in 2007. Consequently, even if the first quarter GDP estimate had been negative, it still would not have signaled a recession neither by the unofficial rule-of-thumb of two consecutive quarters of negative growth, nor the more robust definition by the National Bureau of Economic Research (the group that officially marks the beginnings and ends of business cycles)… Mr. Capus, I’m sure you don’t want people to conclude that there is really no distinction between the "news" as reported on NBC and the "opinion" as reported on MSNBC, despite the increasing blurring of those lines. I welcome your response to this letter, and hope it is one that reassures your broadcast network’s viewers that blatantly partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC don’t hold editorial sway over the NBC network news division.
Sincerely,
Ed Gillespie |
Gillespie’s letter is reminiscent of Karl Rove’s recent letter to Dan Abrams about his coverage of the Sielegman matter. In Rove’s rant, he spends five pages attacking Abrams but never directly addresses his involvement in Sielegman’s indictment or conviction. They seem to have a thing about MSNBC. I guess Kieth Olbermann’s Countdown is finally getting to them.
The Bush Administration got a bye from the media for a long time. At first, I think it was respectful. 911 was a horrible thing and we set our standard political haggling aside. But then the Administration used that and waged a successful intimidation campaign against the traditional media – all the while Fox News and Talk Radio kept up the "daily distortion" rhetoric. Now, the so called Mainstream Media is waking up, and the White House denizens are incensed that they’re being questioned.
They feel entitled to having their sleazy jabs taken at face value without being examined for what they are. With as much fun as they had with Clinton’s "I didn’t inhale" or "What do you mean by sex?" it would seem that they would expect to have their words parsed. But my all time favorite was Rove’s "I never said her [Valerie Plame Wilson] name" [he said "Wilson’s wife]. I guess that Bush is on the same tack as Rove. He never said "Barack Obama."
![Karl Rove [Nixon Campaign]](http://1boringoldman.com/images/rove_button.jpg "Karl Rove [Nixon Campaign]")
This would be more fun if it were some college election campaign – something of little or no consequence. That’s where all this malarky started [Rove’s Young Republican years]. But this is serious business, involving staggering fatalities and the fate of a 200 year Constitution. It’s still hard for me to imagine that a bunch of irresponsible bullies could do this much damage in so short a period of time. It’s even harder to imagine that they are still snipping about their media coverage. They should be grateful that they aren’t already in prison…Just seems awfully suspicious that a day after I read a big story about how because Keith Olbermann is mean to O’Reilly, and the story details how Murdoch told NBC he was going to have the NY Post attack NBC if they weren’t nicer, suddenly the Murdoch is all upset at NBCWhite House is attacking NBC, and buried at the very bottom of the story we find out that the White House is upset at – who? Why Keith Olbermann!
Gillespie also used the letter to complain about other aspects of NBC News coverage and to lodge a complaint about "blatant partisan talk show hosts like Christopher Matthews and Keith Olbermann at MSNBC," both of whom have come under attack from Republicans.It’s good to be Rupert and have such a patsy in the White House.PS Note to Washington Post: People didn’t ASSUME that Bush’s Hitler remarks were about Obama, as you claim in the story. The White House told people it was about Obama. But mentioning that fact would kill the appearance of impartiality that you like to give by never reporting the actual facts, and only reporting the spin.
If my memory serves me, Tim Russert got a call from someone in the White House complaining about Chris Matthews of Hardball( Ican’t stand the show) complaining about him because he kept harping about the outing of a CIA covert agent. Cheney knows how easy it is to get around Russert of Meet the Press. In fact in sworn testimony at the Plame trial Cheney’s press secretary testified that if the White House wanted to get something out they would have someone go on NBCs Meet the Press. I find it ironic that the Republicans are complaining about the network. Of course Keith Olbermann is a real threat to their lies because he is one of the few people who will tell the audience the truth, that the president and vice president are LIARS. I think you and Keith have kept me sane the last 2 years.