W & aides broadcast media hate

New York Daily News ^ | Sunday, January 11th, 2004 | unknown

[CanadianPete]

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]

Dejavu

[OldFriend]

Have to agree with you, it is so uncharacteristic of our Dubya to brag.

[trad_anglican]

Or do saving black people not count as the UN is a testiment to?

I think saving black people only counts when you're trading one brutal, corrupt Haitian regime for another. But I'll admit to being unclear on the rules of the game.

[philo]

I saw this guy on Bill Moyers PBS show. Bill was like Pavlov's dog.

[CanadianPete]

OK it was already posted on FR on the 12th. Here's the link

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/1056479/posts

It just used a different title.

Oddly enough I found that thread accidentally through google.

A number of people on that thread seem to agree that it seems out of character for Bush. That's what I think also.
Therefore speculating if it was taken out of context or is an outright fabrication.

I tried googling only the newyorker.com domain but all it does is bring up the current edition of the online magazine, even though this is over a week old. I just want to see the original article (press release) out of curiosity.

[CanadianPete]

Thanks. I finally found it thru google by accident. I didn't see your post till after I posted the thread.