"No President has ever done more for human rights than I have."

New York Daily News ^ | 1/12/04 | Lloyd Grove

[Stone Mountain]

W & aides broadcast media hate

He didn't free the slaves.

He didn't rid the world of Hitler.

He didn't even - like his father - preside over the destruction of the Berlin Wall.

Yet George W. Bush tells New Yorker writer Ken Auletta: "No President has ever done more for human rights than I have."

With stunners like that, no wonder he spends so little time with journalists.

The President's eyebrow-raising assertion comes during some Oval Office chitchat after Auletta - writing about the testy relations between the Bush White House and the news media - sits in on an interview with a British newspaper reporter.

In the latest New Yorker, Auletta reports that Bush and his minions have little use for the Fourth Estate.

Political guru Karl Rove claims that the job of journalists is "not necessarily to report the news. It's to get a headline or get a story that will make people pay attention to their magazine, newspaper or television more."

And Chief of Staff Andy Card scoffs: "[The media] don't represent the public any more than other people do. In our democracy, the people who represent the public stood for election."

Card argues that it's not the responsibility of top White House policymakers to provide reporters with facts.

"It's not our job to be sources. The taxpayers don't pay us to leak!" Card tells Auletta. "Our job is not to make your job easy."

Predictably, the reporters who cover Bush aren't happy. The Washington Post's Dana Milbank complains: "My biggest frustration is that this White House has chosen an approach ...to engage us as little as possible." And the New York Times' Elisabeth Bumiller grouses: "Too often they treat us with contempt."

Free the White House press corps!

[CholeraJoe]

The Bush administration doesn't treat all members of the Press with contempt, only the liberal ones. The hosts of Fox and Friends were invited over to Dick and Lynn Cheney's house for tea and a tour. Tom Ridge and Tommy Thompson routinely appear on FNC.

I know it was supposed to be "luck of the draw" but who went to Iraq with Bush on Thanksgiving? Jim Angle, Fox News.

[Burkeman1]

I gotta admit, I would have bet $50 that the headline was a quote from Clinton.

Me too. Sort of out of character for Bush to say something like that. But very much in character for Clinton.

[Steve_Seattle]

"He didn't free the slaves."

Let's contemplate this one for a minute. "Freeing the slaves" - presumably the Civil War is referred to - cost 600,000 American lives and freed (my guess) a couple of million slaves. The war in Iraq has (thus far) cost about 500 American lives and has freed (my guess) about 15 million Iraqis from a brutal dictatorship. Which is the greater accomplishment? (Feel free to correct my estimates.)

[VadeRetro]

Elisabeth Bumiller grouses: "Too often they treat us with contempt."

Not too often. I suspect they've probably got it about right.

[TommyDale]

He might be correct if you look at it from the "pro-active" position. The others who freed slaves or defeated Hitler did so because they were FORCED to act. GWB took action IN SPITE of the rest of the world (i.e. the United Nations) being opposed, and freed entire nations from tyranny.

[Jeff Gannon]

Don't forget the millions liberated in Afghanistan.

Way more than Clinton or Carter combined.

[Steve_Seattle]

To finish my thought - if the Civil War was being fought today with Bush in charge of the Union Army, would his critics say, "No blood for cotton"?

[TommyDale]

"Whatever contempt members of the press corps might feel coming from the White House is only a fraction of the contempt the reporters have for the President."

No shit, Sherlock!

[Joe Marine 76]

I don't remember who said it but the gentleman said: "Former President Carter has more couch time with foreign dictators than any other former President of the United States."

[Howlin]

I was going to say the exact same thing. I can't imagine him saying that -- and frankly, I'd be disappointed if he did.

[Howlin]

I'd like to HEAR it myself; I have my doubts.

[Steve_Seattle]

"I was going to say the exact same thing. I can't imagine him saying that -- and frankly, I'd be disappointed if he did."

Sometimes a president has to blow his own horn to make a point. My favorite instance of this was LBJ: "Now, I'm not going to say you [the American people] never had it so good, but it's true, isn't it?"

[Ohioan]

Conquering two totalitarian States, whose leaders were hostile to our interests, does not necessarily translate into freedom. Time will tell, what follows our withdrawal.

But the absurdity of the claim--if he actually made it--will be attested by comparing it to the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, as a direct result of Reagan stepping out of the policy of containment, and stepping up the cost of the arms race. There, there is no question but that people are much freer than they were--and in some of the countries, at least, there is real evidence that there is a developing infrastructure to preserve that freedom.

Because of the ethnic diversity and other factors, neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is suitable to Democracy. But the President has indicated that he intends to install such, so their future is very much in doubt. To see how "Democracy" can work in a land not suited to it, see Zimbabwe, or the Zaire, or Clinton's achievement in Haiti. (Or see Democracy In The Third World.)

William Flax

[Howlin]

I hated it when Clinton said it, and I'd hate it if Bush said it.

I'm betting he didn't say those words.

[KarlInOhio]

I don't remember who said it but the gentleman said: "Former President Carter has more couch time with foreign dictators than any other former President of the United States."

Maybe in quantity, but FDR's time with Stalin beats Carter on quality time.

[Wissa]

Yet George W. Bush tells New Yorker writer Ken Auletta: "No President has ever done more for human rights than I have."

So since it's a direct quote.... apparently this Auletta guy heard President Bush say it. Were there other people present when he made the statement or did President Bush give a one on one interview to this guy? Something doesn't smell right here.

[E=MC²]

Auletta reports that Bush and his minions

Nice choice of unbiased words. This supposed quote of Bush's sounds like the "journalists" are desperately seeking something to be righteously miffed about.

[dead]

FDR was never a "former president."

[CalKat]

Do you think that may color the treatment of the Bush administration by Fox News? That they will hesitate to reply something non-complimentary to avoid losing their special status?

[cajun-jack]

I would have lost my money too!!!