CBS' 'Rude Little Liberal'

[Wetzelbill]

CBS' 'Rude Little Liberal'
by Felix Gillette

On Monday morning, Karl Rove stood next to President George W. Bush on the South Lawn of the White House and announced that he would be resigning from the administration at the end of the month. In front of the assembled D.C. press corp, he read a statement, and the President spoke. There was no formal opportunity for questions.

Towards the end of the appearance, as the President and his favorite pol were about to head in the direction of an awaiting helicopter, Bill Plante, CBS White House correspondent, broke the embargo.

“If he’s so smart,” said Mr. Plante, “how come you lost Congress?”

The president ignored Mr. Plante. But the bloggers did not.

By early afternoon, Mediabistro’s FishbowlDC had reported on Mr. Plante’s question, which quickly ricocheted around the Web.

Conservative bloggers were not amused.

“Besides being a rude little liberal, Plante also manages to show just how unqualified he is to be reporting on politics,” wrote Invincible Armor. “No doubt that's why CBS hired him.”

A blogger at Planetsave.com, on the other hand, gave Mr. Plante the “balls of the day award.”

http://www.observer.com/2007/cbs-rude-little-liberal

[LeftCoast]

1. LOL

Only in the republican mind is reality considered rude.

:rofl:

[Wetzelbill]

3. I know, it cracked me up

I like the comments. One guy puts up some comments Plante made ripping into Mike McCurry when Clinton was president. Bias my ass, the guy just does his job, haha.

[Mythsaje]

2. Conservatives bloggers are morons or assholes

Or both...

Who cares what they think?

[Wetzelbill]

4. actually, what makes this interesting is Plante's comments

If you click on the link he says some pretty interesting stuff.

[Heidi]

5. Thank you, Bill.

:yourock:

Recommended.

:kick:

[Wetzelbill]

6. you are so very welcome, my love

:)

[SalmonChantedEvening]

7. Asking a question = Unqualified

Obey! Hush! Never Question Dear Leader!

Behold the steel trap that is the mind of the BushBot.

Thank you Bill and thank you Bill!! :pals:

[Wetzelbill]

8. I like how Plante mentions that there are people who

think that just because someone believes something different than they do that they are the enemy.

Oh you're welcome! :toast:

[The Vinyl Ripper]

11. It depends on what the person believes..

If they believe that the Constitution should be used for bum wipe then they are indeed the enemy as far as I'm concerned.

[B Calm]

9. Obedient followers never question anything, that's why they're so

damn stupid...

[cgrindley]

10. Press conferences suck, just like debates suck and everything

stage managed suck. We really do need to have reporters with more balls. Questions are a hell of a lot harder in the UK than the US, where it's pretty typical to have the press chuck asinine softballs at politicians. Heck, what US politician could survive question period? And it's not just the bad guys who get off easy... our side, likewise, has not been held accountable for its fuckups either. It's a system-wide failure.

[wellst0nev0ter]

12. Bill Plante Was A Co-Conspirator During The Run-up To The War

Remember the scripted press conference during March of 2003? How one of the question was "How is your faith guiding you?" If he was any type of honest reporter, he would refuse to take part in it. But he did and asked a typically leading softball question. We can do without "liberals" like him.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

13. His question isn't bad, though.

Q Mr. President, to a lot of people, it seems that war is probably inevitable, because many people doubt -- most people, I would guess -- that Saddam Hussein will ever do what we are demanding that he do, which is disarm. And if war is inevitable, there are a lot of people in this country -- as much as half, by polling standards -- who agree that he should be disarmed, who listen to you say that you have the evidence but who feel they haven't seen it, and who still wonder why blood has to be shed if he hasn't attacked us.

And, Bush responds with a whopper

THE PRESIDENT: Well, Bill, if they believe he should be disarmed, and he's not going to disarm, there's only one way to disarm him. And that happens to be my last choice -- the use of force.

Secondly, the American people know that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. By the way, he declared he didn't have any -- 1441 insisted that he have a complete declaration of his weapons; he said he didn't have any weapons. Secondly, he's used these weapons before. I mean, this is -- we're not speculating about the nature of the man. We know the nature of the man.

Colin Powell, in an eloquent address to the United Nations, described some of the information we were at liberty of talking about. He mentioned a man named Al Zarqawi, who was in charge of the poison network. He's a man who was wounded in Afghanistan, received aid in Baghdad, ordered the killing of a U.S. citizen, USAID employee, was harbored in Iraq. There is a poison plant in Northeast Iraq. To assume that Saddam Hussein knew none of this was going on is not to really understand the nature of the Iraqi society.

There's a lot of facts which make it clear to me and many others that Saddam is a threat. And we're not going to wait until he does attack. We're not going to hope that he changes his attitude. We're not going to assume that he's a different kind of person than he has been.

So, in the name of security and peace, if we have to -- if we have to -- we'll disarm him. I hope he disarms. Or, perhaps, I hope he leaves the country. I hear a lot of talk from different nations around where Saddam Hussein might be exiled. That would be fine with me -- just so long as Iraq disarms after he's exiled.

[Alpharetta]

19. April Ryan asked the faith question. Which one did Plante ask?

Never mind. I see the answer right above my post now.

[Strawman]

14. Nothing liberal about that...just horse race journalism

Every story is cynically framed in terms of which ambitious politcal operator won and which one lost.

He is more pissed about not having access to the story than what Turdboy did to this country.

[lpbk2713]

15. They are still locked in the *Emperor's New Clothes* mindset

No one is allowed to speak the truth anywhere near their preznint.

And it's only fair for the White House Press Corps to reciprocate. It was only recently when AWOL Monkey-Boy demonstrated his resentment at the WHPC when he made rude and ignorant remarks at a bald WHPC member and on another occasion suggested sarcastically that a vision impaired WHPC member remove his "shades".

[sinkingfeeling]

16. And I thought you were telling me that CBS was going to have a counter program to 'L'il Bush'!

[wicket]

17. I love it!

:rofl:

[LuckyLib]

18. If the MSM had been doing its job from the beginning of *'s reign,

he would have faced withering questions that tied him in knots and sent his pea-brain reeling. He can't think on his feet, so it wouldn't have been difficult. They just needed to be real journalists.

[Robbien]

20. Strange. I saw that exact same comment at Freeperville

Just goes to show, the right side of the web is infested with "minder" posters whose only goal is to make sure they shape the direction of all conversation.