Also see: Boston Globe Silent on McClellan
More on McClellan
And today?
Boston Globe, 2-inch column, page A-10, far-right:
"McClellan jabs with talking points; Turns to old tactic to defend tell-all" by Dana Milbank, Washington Post | May 30, 2008
WASHINGTON - Bush loyalists watching Scott McClellan kick off his media tour yesterday must have felt a revulsion akin to Dr. Frankenstein's.
McClellan's former White House colleagues had built and trained the former press secretary to parrot their talking points, no matter what argument stood in the way. Saddam Hussein was a grave threat. The war in Iraq was going well. "Scooter" Libby and Karl Rove didn't leak Valerie Plame Wilson's identity.
But now McClellan is back - and he's got a new set of talking points that attack the very people he was trained to defend. He's a bit thinner around the middle, and the sideburns are comically longer, but McClellan's famous fealty to his message is as stubborn as ever.
"We set up a massive political operation that was aimed at really continuing that permanent campaign way of governing," he informed the listeners of National Public Radio's "Morning Edition."
"We got caught up in the excesses of the permanent campaign culture in Washington, D.C.," he explained to viewers of NBC's "Today" show. On and on he went, about "this permanent campaign culture" and the "importance of ending the permanent campaign."
Just as they had through the middle years of the Bush presidency, the airwaves again echoed with McClellan's litanies yesterday.
Only this time, he employed the repetition to the detriment of his former Bush masters.
"It looks really at how things went off course," he said of his new book. "I'm disappointed that things went so badly off track." His colleagues should "come to grips with the fact that things went terribly off course."
McClellan's former colleagues responded in the only way they know how - with their own echo chamber of talking points.
Dan Bartlett, former counselor to the president, said the book left him "puzzled and bewildered."
"We are puzzled," said White House press secretary Dana Perino."I'm puzzled by that piece of shit article that touched upon ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!
Of course, Milbank is working for the CIA's paper, which explains everything!
"The story by political correspondent Dana Milbank... [of] the CIA's favorite newspaper, the Washington Post... drips with a sarcasm that would never be allowed for a report on, say, a conservative gathering or on a topic involving any part of the American political spectrum other than the Left."
And the New York Times? Page 18!!!!
"Was Press a War ‘Enabler’? 2 Offer a Nod From Inside
"In his new memoir, “What Happened,” Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, said the national news media neglected their watchdog role in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, calling reporters “complicit enablers” of the Bush administration’s push for war.
Surprisingly, some prominent journalists have agreed.
Yes, it is "surprising" when someone admits they are a LIAR, isn't it, New York Times?
Not like you would know, shit-chuckers!!!
Katie Couric, the anchor of “CBS Evening News,” said on Wednesday that she had felt pressure from government officials and corporate executives to cast the war in a positive light.
And she never stopped feeling that way!!!
Tired of the FOOLEYS, MSM!!! Fucking TIRED OF 'EM!!!!!!!!!
Speaking on “The Early Show” on CBS, Ms. Couric said the lack of skepticism shown by journalists about the Bush administration’s case for war amounted to “one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism.” She also said she sensed pressure from “the corporations who own where we work and from the government itself to really squash any kind of dissent or any kind of questioning of it.” At the time, Ms. Couric was a host of “Today” on NBC.
Yeah, I KNOW!!! I EXPERIENCED IT FIRST-HAND!!!
That's why I AM SO ANGRY!!!!!!!!
So, WHEN are you going to RECTIFY the situation, MSM, and ADMIT and APOLOGIZE for LYING US INTO WAR!!!
Judging by the WOEFUL SELF-REFLECTION of the MEDIA today, NOT ANY TIME SOON, huh?
This is why NO ONE BELIEVES YOU anymore, and why the BLOGS are EXPLODING, shitters!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another broadcast journalist also weighed in. Jessica Yellin, who worked for MSNBC in 2003 and now reports for CNN, said on Wednesday that journalists had been “under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation.”
On Thursday, she clarified her comments in a blog post, writing that her producers at MSNBC had wanted their coverage to reflect the patriotic mood of the country.
A spokeswoman for General Electric, which owns NBC and MSNBC through its division NBC Universal, declined to speak about the specifics of the comments but said, “General Electric has never, and will never, interfere in the editorial process at NBC News.”
FUCK YOU, GE!!!!
Please read: CNN/MSNBC reporter: Corporate executives forced pro-Bush, pro-war narrative
Yup, CORPORATE MEDIA KEEPS LYING TO YOU, America!!!!!
They are LIARS through and through!!!!!!!!!!!!
The opinions of Ms. Couric and Ms. Yellin were hardly universal among journalists.
Yeah, because MOST of YOU are SHIT BAG LIARS!!!!!!!!
And this type of "journalism" proves it!!!!
Ms. Couric made her comments in an unusual on-camera tour of network morning programs — along with her two evening news competitors, Brian Williams of “NBC Nightly News” and Charles Gibson of “World News” on ABC — to promote a cancer research telethon.
Is that Brian "the terrorism business" Williams?
Yup! Pfffffffttt!
“I think the questions were asked,” Mr. Gibson, who was a host of “Good Morning America” before the war began, said in response to Ms. Couric. “It was just a drumbeat of support from the administration. It is not our job to debate them. It is our job to ask the questions.”
Then WHY DIDN'T YOU? Why did you CHEER THEM ON instead, Chuck?
It is AMAZING how these flaks REWRITE HISTORY for themselves!!!
Well, I'VE NEVER FORGOTTEN, assholes, because George W. Bush and his wars have RUINED MY LIFE!!!!
I remember FIVE YEARS AGO as if it were YESTERDAY, assholes!!!!
Just PROVING what LIARS the AmeriKan MSM is and employs, folks!!!
And, of course, it won't be there job to stop the attack on Iran, either.
They'll just cheer again, I'm sure.
Mr. Williams, who was an anchor on MSNBC at the time, emphasized the climate of “post-9/11 America.” In the early days of the war, he said, he would hear from the Pentagon “the minute they heard us report something they didn’t like.”
FUCK YOU and 9/11, asshole!!!
How about INVESTIGATING THAT, Williams?
As for the Pentagon, how come the TV MSM is not covering the SHILL ANALYST STORY?!
Because it would expose their "independent experts" as a bunch of PENTAGON LIARS -- and thus, the AmeriKan MSM itself?
Well, it is TOO LATE, MSM!!
WE ALL KNOW you are a BUNCH OF COMPLICIT, LYING ENABLERS!!!!
We know EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE, AGENDA-DRIVING PUKES!!!!!!
For five years, antiwar activists and media critics have claimed that the national news media failed to keep the White House accountable before the invasion.
That's right. FIVE LONG YEARS!!!!!
Andrew Heyward, who headed CBS News in 2003, said in an interview on Thursday that the trauma of the Sept. 11 attacks and the ensuing sense of patriotism might have muted press skepticism about the war.
I'm TIRED of that FALSE-FLAG, CIA-Mossad, INSIDE JOB being trotted out as an excuse for every transgression.
Fact: The MSM LIED, continues to LIE, and continues to push the DIVISIVE ZIONIST AGENDA!!!
Case closed, readers, and their reaction to McClellan proves it!
SCUM!!!!!!
Greg Mitchell, the author of “So Wrong for So Long,” a book about press and presidential failures on the war, argues that some media organizations have yet to come to terms with their role.
How about NONE of them? Or reporters, either!
See Gibson's comments above!
Even at the fifth anniversary of the war last March, he said, “in the orgy of coverage of what had happened, there was almost no media self-assessment.”
No. No there isn't.
Nor do I expect any, because AmeriKa's MSM is a SHIT-PUSHING, WAR-PROMOTING, AGENDA-SELLING piece of crap!!!!
NBC and CBS would not make executives available for interviews on the subject.
Of course they wouldn't.
Jon Banner, the executive producer of “World News” on ABC, said the news media should not be treated as a monolith.
“Were there questions we would have liked to ask?” Mr. Banner said.
Well, WHY DIDN'T YOU?
“Sure, but we were very critical of the administration and paid a significant price for it. It’s absurd and incorrect to lump us all together.”
Unreal!!!!! These guys are as DELUSIONAL as BUSH!!
Of course, it must be tough to look down at your hands and see the blood of over 1 million Iraqis and 4,000 U.S. soldiers on your hands, huh, MSM?
Yeah, wash it off quick, and deny, deny, deny like O.J. Simpson.
Well, HISTORY (that's us) will hold you to account for your lies!!
We NEVER FORGET!!!!!