"Bush's...sway over much of the WH press corps seems to be fraying."

[DeepModem Mom]

Baltimore Sun: News whiteout
The Bush administration has frustrated reporters by ignoring questions and sticking to its message. That strategy might no longer be working.
By Nick Magidan
Sun Reporter
Originally published April 16, 2006

For most of his five years in office, President Bush has acted as though the media were merely a cross to be borne, a needless impediment to his goals.

Whenever he could, the president went over the heads of the White House press corps to reach the masses beyond. Bush, who famously said he doesn't read newspapers -- and whose aversion to detailed questions is palpable -- has held only a fraction of the press conferences that his voluble predecessor did. Instead, he has relied on a rigid system of information management that often has stumped even the most determined reporters.

But with plummeting poll numbers, an unraveling war and ethics probes in the top ranks of his party, Bush's almost-legendary sway over much of the White House press corps seems to be fraying. No longer can he and his aides invoke the specter of the war on terror to fend off tricky questions and silence critics.

In recent weeks, Bush has begun courting the press, reaching out to reporters for off-the-record chats in his private quarters in an apparent acknowledgment of the altered circumstances.

At the same time, the reporters, recognizing Bush's growing vulnerability, have stepped up their questioning of Bush, when they can, and Press Secretary Scott McClellan, who runs the daily White House news briefings. McClellan, who in the past has greeted such barrages with a bland, well-rehearsed indifference, now looks less sure....

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/ideas/bal-id.whiteout16,0,3278247.story

[Kikosexy2]

1. The jig...

is up...The emperor is totally naked for all to see his foibles...History will note WORST PRESIDENT EVER!

[SammyWinstonJack]

2. About damn time!

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

38. Salaam, shalom, blessed be and amen.

What took so long? W's a smirking psycho.

[saltpoint]

3. Took a lot of 'em too long, but at least it's happening.

I wonder how many people have turned down McClellan's job. It would have to be incredibly stressful to stand in a room of people and lie about your boss.

[rodeodance]

4. a few brave souls only

[saltpoint]

5. True. But I'm hoping the herd mentality kicks in.

Nice to see you, rodeodance.

Wasn't that 'I'm a decider" comment something this morning!?

[Cha]

26. Not only Lie, Old Crusoe, but

do it with a "lack of verbal acumen" :)...

"Media critic Michael Wolff, in the current issue of Vanity Fair, was even more damning of McClellan (who did not respond to a request for an interview). Wolff wrote that the press secretary's briefings have become "the living, inarticulate, comically absurd voice of the White House," and described McClellan as "the most exposed man in America, gamely, doggedly repeating his set phrases."

"His lack of verbal acumen, his lack of dexterity with a subordinate clause, becomes another part of the way to control the White House message in a White House obsessed with such control, Wolff wrote."

And cbs correspondent, bill plante, saying that this "president pays attention"..Give me a Freaking Break!

The goon squad should be held accountable for their words. Like that's gonna happen.

[LuckyLib]

29. Michael Wolff's article in VF is great. He also says that Scottie's

idiocy is all part of the plan. He is so embarrassingly slim on ability and verbal dexterity that his twisted pretzel logic and mantras simply reflect what the WH wants us to know . . . absolutely nothing. Also interesting, Wolff portrays Scottie as absolutely teflon -- no matter how hostile the press corps gets, no matter how cynical the questions, he simply refuses to "take it personally." You should, Scottie -- you should be mortified to be placed in such a position to have to speak for that moran in the White House.

[Cha]

33. Yeah, don't take it personally

scottie ..it's only the United States of America that bushco is determined to flush down the toilet.

[MissWaverly]

28. they need a real chimp

an orangutan would be a good idea to represent the chimperor

:-)

[Peace Patriot]

6. Well, I think they're having to deal with a Frankenstein monster of their

own creation: a false government, patched together with the body parts from various cemeteries, and having a brain whose sole purposes are marauding the countryside and covering up its true nature with programmed "talking points." It doesn't even possess the original Frankenstein monster's soul and desire to be loved.

THAT's what our war profiteering corporate news monopolies have created, and their now having cozy little chats with Dimson and asking a few "questions" isn't likely to help us cage this monster and put it in a museum of horrors where it belongs. I can't say it isn't fun, though, to see them poking the dreadful beast who slaughtered tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and who gloats over the prospect of incinerating some Persians as well. Besides robbing us blind and destroying our government.

Fun, but not much to the point.

Throw Diebold, ES&S and all election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!--if what you want is peace, justice and democracy, and not this dumbshow brought to you by the Drs. Frankenstein of the corporate news monopolies.

[Time for change]

7. That's excellent news

Once he loses the CM, which has been propping him up for five years, almost all his power will be gone.

[katty]

8. commenting on the obvious-for years! still

glad more of these reports are showing up beyond the blog.

[ClintonTyree]

9. "Sway" over the Press Corps?

:wtf: "SWAY"? :wtf: Repeating White House talking points is not "sway", it's journalistic prostitution.

<snip>
"Just as consistently, Bush's supporters see overly inquisitive reporters as harmful to U.S. interests."

"The mainstream media are demoralizing the American people and hurting the war effort by stressing bad news from Iraq," Colleen O'Boyle, a spokeswoman for the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, wrote in an email. She pointed to Thomas' "outburst against the President" and "the daily drumbeat of pessimistic war news."

"Could this be fueling Bush's low poll numbers and Americans' opinions about the war?" Boyle asked, in an effort to hold the news media accountable for highlighting the chaos in Iraq.

Yes, wouldn't it be terrible if Bush is held accountable for his actions? Wouldn't it be terrible if he was honest with the American people? Wouldn't it be terrible if our Corporate Media FINALLY started asking the questions they should have been asking BEFORE Bush's rash decision to invade Iraq? "Overly inquisitive reporters".........you've GOT to be fucking kidding me! :banghead: If ANYTHING is demoralizing the American people it's a lying sack of shit pResident who spending our money like we actually HAD IT and who's foreign policy is based on the total tonnage of bombs that can be dropped on the "evil tyrant" du jour! Jesus, this pisses me off! :grr:

It's about damned time the press started asking some questions and stopped getting their "reports" from the White House web-site. And if little pissy-pants Bush doesn't like it, TOUGH SHIT! He answers to the PEOPLE of this country and believe me, WE WANT ANSWERS! :mad:

OK, my blood pressure is sky-rocketing...... :rant:

[unblock]

10. longest "honeymoon" in presidential history

5 years!

i think clinton's honeymoon lasted maybe 5 days!

[ClintonTyree]

14. Not even.....

they were tearing him apart before the elections were ever held. They didn't seem to have a problem with finding their backbone then, did they? Then when the village idiot takes office they give him the biggest pass in history because he's the "war president". :eyes:

[The Wizard]

19. War President my ass

How about big jerkoff? And he didn't even get the terminology correct. It's War Time President. The media has overlooked every mistake and crime this second hand bunghole has committed. Someone get the tranquilizer darts.
Now he's hearing voices. Oh yeah, this is the guy I want with the launch codes.
Our President is a nut.

[bdamomma]

32. hearing voices????

if we were hearing voices, guess where we would be? bush needs psychiatric and psychological intervention NOW.

[ItsTheMediaStupid]

39. Their paychecks got fatter bashing Clinton

They're scared of losing their jobs if they go after W.

It's not really the reporters themselves, it's the takeover of almost all broadcast media by corporate weasels. The boardroom censors the pressroom.

[TankLV]

43. Nope - he never had one - I remember it all so CLEARLY.

He was hounded as a "failed President" as soon as the election returns were in back in November of 1992. The whore media were on him from BEFORE day one.

How soon people forget. I will NEVER EVER forget it.

[SoCalDem]

11. "...stumped even the most determined reporters..."

Determined reporters would have made THAT their story and started asking hard questions ...about FOUR YEARS AGO.

[Catherine Vincent]

22. Your sig line is hilarious!

You should post often, that way when the freepers are trolling here, they can see their favorite couple in all their glory. LOL!

[madmark]

12. this press corps will go down in american history as biggest bunch

of administration synchophants this country has ever seen. They enabled and echoed the bullshit when it mattered. Only three years after the fact do they deem themselves to be slightly less synchophantic; fuck them.

[Faygo Kid]

13. W. was sure cranky and nasty with the press today. His temper came out.

Finally. The real George Bush, the Son of Entitlement, the obnoxious frat boy who gets his laughs picking on those weaker and less connected than he is, who only speaks to handpicked, worshipful audiences, is starting to realize - starting - that he isn't as popular in school as he thought he was, and that the students brighter than he is see right through his bullying tactics and have had it. Hence the temper tantrum today with the press, an inconvenient burr in his side at best (at least so far).

[ClintonTyree]

16. I saw a clip of that........

he really was a petulant little brat today, wasn't he? "Good time" Bush has got the blues. Things aren't going his way, Daddy can't buy his way out of it, he can't quit like he's always done when adversity strikes (although I wish he would) and people are DARING to pin his ears back a little. The REAL george bush was on display today and it wasn't a pretty sight. I imagine we can expect quite a bit more of this in the future.

[gordianot]

15. It took the Press too long, Media is still in theri back pocket.

The hard press questions are just a relection of a tendancy to attack weakness.


With a few exceptions I do not trust media. Remember we are anchored in the age of Katie Couric.

[klook]

18. I think you're right

They swarm when there's blood in the water, but most of them don't do their job day in and day out like Helen Thomas does.

[Festivito]

23. It's easy to reprint those RW think-tank stories, but,

thinking for oneself -- that's hard work!

Fugitabotit

[graywarrior]

17. If we think 2 1/2 more years is torture, imagine what he thinks

I hope the next few years is hell for him. He'll be wishing he was in hell, or Raptured before 2008.

[warrens]

20. As a journalist

This is when you say, I don't need you, asshole. Payback is a bitch.

[KansDem]

21. What? No more "charm offensive" to report on? No more nicknames?

What's a professional American journalist to do these days? :(

[Cha]

24. K & R..

Except for the lies in there from plante, bush and the monkey handlers..it's dead on.

[BrklynLiberal]

25. The press was kissing his ass even during his first campaign!!

It is about f**king time the damn press woke up and started pointing out that the Emperor is NAKED AS A JAYBIRD and stopped describing his "gorgeous" clothes!!!

[senseandsensibility]

30. Yes! The gave him a pass and fawned all over him

long before 9-11. He has always been their darling, even before they could use the excuse of "tare." It's funny how many, maybe even the majority, here on DU still believe that little lord pissypants gets a pass because of 9-11.

[progressoid]

27. So by the time we get a Dem as POTUS, they'll be asking the tough question

again. Like, "did you inhale?"

[DuckBurp]

31. The tipping point seemed to be ...

Cheney's hunting accident. As relatively unimportant as that event was, that's when the press seemed to finally get the message about how this Administration manipulates the facts and plays by its own rules.

[opihimoimoi]

34. Cleaning Acts 101

Anything to clean up and look good once more...

Too little too late....

[gratuitous]

35. "Bush, who famously said he doesn't read newspapers . . ."

Isn't it interesting that Bush was forced to admit today during his Little Lord Pissypants press availability that he at least reads the headlines in the newspapers?

Too bad nobody called him on it. When we see that, as well, then I'll say that the Washington press corpse is rising up on its hind legs at last.

[Poiuyt]

36. Oh please! The press should have done its job from the beginning

There would be close to 3000 Americans still alive if it had. The MSM thought they would look "unpatriotic" if they questioned Bush.

[mitchum]

37. Too little, too late from these sniveling lapdogs

[Robeson]

40. Why does he have to "court" them now? They've been carrying his....

...water all along...:shrug:

[JohnnyRingo]

41. Is it true?////////Has the administration reached critical mass?

Has the misdirection of these neocons finally achieved a point in history in which the media (and the citizens) can take no more?
Have we reached a tipping point that indicates the pendulum is swinging back to the left?

"God"....I hope so.

[itzamirakul]

42. I think many of us forget that most of these journalists do not have an

independent means of getting their articles published. Most all of them work for established newspapers or tv stations. ALL of the newspapers and tv stations in America are owned by just a handful of people. Rupert Murdoch owns dozens of major media outlets, both here and in his homeland of Australia. The reporters have to tell the story from the pov that their boss wants, that is, if they want to keep their jobs.

And if the owners of these media outlets are corporatists, whose ONLY interest is in making mega-billions of dollars, they certainly are NOT going to publish the stories of any rogue progressive reporters. No one will ever convince me that Rupert Murdoch has one iota of interest in the welfare, and human rights of the American people. His ONLY interests are in making money and wielding power over the minds of the American people.

And to paraphrase something that Danny Schecter of www.mediachannels.org said on C-Span last week, These reporters have families...children in expensive schools, mortgages, car payments,health care costs... Would they lie in order to maintain their lifestyles? YOU BETCHA!