"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!

[AndrewB]

I agree with your doubts too. Lloyd Grove (the author of the NY Post piece) is listed there as a "Gossip Columnist". You be the judge...

[AndrewB]

duhh...NY Daily News that is.....

[CalKat]

So you really think the President is going to install a democracy in Iraq? So far, we're going against the majority's wishes of free elections, and insisting that the new leaders are chosen by the parliamentary body (or whatever they call it in Iraq), not by a direct election by the people of Iraq. Wouldn't a democratic vote result in a Shiite Islamic government?

[GingisK]

So doesn't the freedom of Afghanistan and Iraq count?

If you live in those countries, I suppose. Or Mexico. Bush has has somewhat the opposite affect in his own country.

[Liberty Valance]

Wow. You'd fit in nicely with the conversation George Soros and Wolf Blitzer are having on CNN right now. You voting for Dean or Clark?

[KarlInOhio]

Doh!

[MissAmericanPie]

Constitution Party

[Burkeman1]

Most likely never will hear it. But if he did say it- under what context? Was this an exact quote or one of those . . . quotes that omits key qualifying statements? For example:

"No President has done more for Human Rights, since Carter, than I have?" or:

"No President has done more, on the issue of nuclear proliferation while trying to balance that for Human rights than I have?"

Not far fetched at all. It happens more than you think. For a recent example of this- see the wholesale butchering and misquoting of Cardinal Martino.

[CholeraJoe]

They certainly didn't hesitate to report O'Neill's comments but trotted out several pundits to support the sour grapes theory.

[Burkeman1]

O'Neill reminds me of David Stockman from the Reagan era- a sour grapes opportunist whose "dire predictions" later turned out to be completely wrong.

[cardinal4]

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."

Snicker..

[King Prout]

was wondering the same thing, harboring the same well-experienced doubts.
I don't take ANYTHING the media says at face value, and even less than that during an election cycle.

[suzyq5558]

1-800-SNIVEL ALERT! I only hope and pray the press is dissed by this administration every day. and i hope it's painful! they treat the President with contempt and they expect respect??? bite me.

[marvlus]

Newbie, are you?

[American_Centurion]

If the WBTS was fought today (ignoring that GWB being from Texas would likely not be the northern President) it is probable that the northeastern elitists would support that war for any reason out of their hatred for the south, even without slavery or segregation.

[7thson]

I believe that just about every President hates the press. What upsets the media the most about President Bush's administration is that they do not go out of the way to kiss thier arse. Remember when President Bush went to Iraq for Thanksgiving? The black reporter onf FNC that covers him was visibly upset when Bush did this. Whether he was upset that he was not in the loop, was not invited to go, or that the administration succeeded in keeping this information secret, I cannot say - but he was upset.

[smith288]

mm, i don't see any more freedom in Afghanistan or iraq now that the us-military has leveled the countries (and in the case of afghanistan, left without clearing up the mess). if anything, the situation seems to be worse regarding the civil rights of the populations.

Yea... Those plastic shredders are runnin' full bore since the removal of Saddam. Iraq is in rubbles *snicker* and Afghan women still are in full burkas and getting raped for being out without their men *cough*. <P

[Vision]

W. in effect has said...

Please come into our country illegally. Then through social progarms we'll put you people ahead of the rest of the country. And we'll give you and your folk more political clout then the natives who built and bled for the country.

I would agree, W. has given away more to anybody who wants it, then any other person in history.

[NYC Republican]

You strayed off course here... Try typing this in after www. D e m o c r a t i c u n d e r g r o u n d .com - they'll appreciate your liberal drivel much more than we will.