Posted on 11/05/2004 5:21:37 PM PST by txradioguy
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
I want to apologize to those of you in this audience. I missed something crucial yesterday. I have an -- it's not an excuse. I have a reason. The reason I missed it is that I don't read the New York Times and nobody on my staff reads the New York Times. And so nobody saw it. But it was a big story. Huge story. I'm going to take you back to late Tuesday night, early Wednesday morning. You're watching TV and you see New Mexico out there, and when it comes to Ohio, only Fox and NBC called Ohio. The rest didn't all night long. No call in Iowa, no call in New Mexico, no network would make a call that would put Bush over 269 electoral votes. CNN had it stuck at 254 to 252. C-SPAN had it 254 to 252. We had NBC and Fox at 269 and other than nobody would make a call that would end this. Here's why. And it was in the New York Times yesterday in a story by Jodi Wilgoren, and the headline: At Finish Line, a Bit Late, Kerry Bows to Cold Numbers.
"The critical moment came at 12:41 a.m. Wednesday, when, shortly after Florida had been painted red for Mr. Bush, Fox News declared that Ohio - and, very likely, the presidency - was in Republican hands. Howard Wolfson, a strategist, burst into the 'boiler room' in Washington where the brain trust was huddled and said, 'we have 30 seconds' to stop the other networks from following suit. The campaign's pollster, Mark Mellman, and the renowned organizer Michael Whouley quickly dialed ABC, CBS, CNN and NBC - and all but the last refrained from calling the race through the night. Then Mr. Wolfson banged out a simple, two-line statement expressing confidence that Mr. Kerry would win Ohio once the remaining ballots were counted. 'What was driving our decision making was the memory of how in 2000, by allowing Florida to go for Bush, a lot of momentum was blocked,' said one person who was in the room. 'Our whole goal was stop the train from moving that way.' Train stopped, lawyers and strategists at the campaign's Washington headquarters prepared court papers to challenge Ohio's process for counting provisional ballots, and made spreadsheets comparing each county's provisional ballots with its margin of victory or defeat. Once Mr. Kerry woke up, he and his running mate, Senator John Edwards, asked myriad questions in a series of conference calls with the staff. Mr. Edwards, aides said, wanted to soldier on." But Kerry knew the gig was up. So the reason there were no calls after Fox and NBC was that Howard Wolfson -- well, Mark Mellman called all the networks and asked them not to. And as dutiful slaves to the Democratic party, CBS, CNN, ABC, MSNBC and whoever else did not make the call. MSNBC did not while NBC did. CNN, ABC, and CBS, and no other network by the way made any other calls. Fox and NBC called Florida, but that still didn't get Bush over 269.
Then later on in the evening, on CBS, about 5 o'clock in the morning, Lesley Stahl was all upset because she said, "This shouldn't happen this way. There shouldn't be anybody assuming Bush wins until we at the networks make the call, and then the candidates concede and accept." And even Rather, when she said that, even he looked like, "What are you talking about? You don't give this up. You don't tell people this is the way this operates." She was giving up all the trade secrets. The networks determine who wins by when they call what states for who. Rather couldn't believe what he was hearing. So he had to act like she was an idiot. So basically, that's why you all stayed up longer than you needed to is because the Kerry campaign had no intention of conceding, and without that, the networks weren't going to call it. Plus the networks were called by the Kerry campaign. The Kerry campaign told them not to call Ohio, and they dutifully said, "Okay, we won't call Ohio."
We'll take a brief break, ladies and gentlemen, and I am sorry I didn't have this for you yesterday. This is yesterday's newspaper. What's interesting, the New York Times reports this as, "So? Big deal?" This is huge. In any other news, this would be a huge story. Networks Accede to Demand from Kerry Campaign, should be the headline. But here it's just part and parcel of Kerry bowing to cold numbers, finish line a bit late, and they just report this as though it's common, ordinary, everyday occurrence with the Kerry campaign or any Democratic campaign and themselves. The real decision desk was at Kerry headquarters, there was no decision desk at -- well, the NBC and Fox decision desks ignored it. Fox went first. Fox didn't pay any attention. They made the call, and it was after they made the call that the Kerry boiler room went into panic. And then NBC made the call, but that still didn't put him over 270, or at 270. They kept him at 269. So, yeah, the decision desk for the networks was actually Howard Wolfson and Mark Mellman at the Kerry campaign.
END TRANSCRIPT
NewsMax had it WAY before NYT...
See... There's STILL no reason to read that rag.
Heard it on Hannity and Rush. This doesn't surprise me. It shows how low they're willing to go to gain their power back. Thanks for the ping.
Thanks for posting this. Shouldn't Congress or the FCC at least look into this? It certainly isn't ethical, and sounds illegal to me. But hey, what do I know...I grew up in Texas.
MSM = "Old Media" (per Bernie Goldberg, 11-4-04, O'Reilly Factor)
Looking at the numbers, it was obvious Bush was the winner. I think the folks in the newsroom could see that for themselves, but they were unwilling to commit to the position until someone else did first. It was a pretty pathetic performance, actually.
I was on the live thread that nite until about 0130 Wed. Morning. I remember the disbelief that most people...including myself felt that the MSM almost did NOT want to call Florida for W. ANd they had to be severly arm twisted into finally doing it.
"Only they think the MSM was helping W! LOL!"
Please tell me you are joking, how can anyone that stupid wipe their own rear?
"If there is anyone left who doesn't believe the networks are rabid Democrat supporters they must have sawdust between their ears."
Either that or they are members of the DUmpsters. They're convinced the MSM is intimately in bed with the GOP. To the poit that they were salivating at the thought of a Kerry administration conducting congressional hearings into the MSM's complacency in thwarting the Democrats from taking their rightful place on the throne.
I think they're now well and truly farked!
Howdy chickie------
I don't think that the MSM even think there are real people out here. They are so cocooned together in NewYork and Los Angeles that it just doesn't concern them that they are being so manipulative and deceitful.
On Hardball tonight, Chris Mathews spent 30 minutes wondering out loud about "what went wrong" - when one of his guest suggested that a New England liberal doesn't connect with middle America, Chris said "well, I guess will have to start treating the red states different, WE MAY HAVE TO GET A FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT" (paraphrased, but do you get it)
To them we in the red states are like a foreign (non-ally) country.
That must have been something to wittness.
The bias of the MSM is probably why the only place I'd be able to find TV work outside of Midland, Texas once I leave the Army will be FNC.
I couldn't suppress my ethics to work anywhere else.
Uhh, no. The NewsMax article quotes the NYTimes article.
I will never listen to you again!
At least until Monday. :)
This little tid bit will be added to the ammo bag.
LVM
Given the level of angst shown by Freepers that night, I was convinced that they actually cared what the MSM said or did.
We should be well past caring about anything the MSM does. If this election proved anything, it proved that the country is not made up of a bunch of idiots that believe anything the MSM tells them. (Although, many Freepers still seem to think that the vast majority of "others" still believe and trust the MSM.)
I wish I WAS joking Rip. They were starting to organize a letter writing campaign to the FCC to investigate.
They were calling on their fellow travellers to bring the Execs at the MSM up on criminal charges.
They ARE suffering!!!
Just go to www.democraticunderground.com and listen to the wailing and gnashing of teeth!
They're accusing conservatives of rigging the election, stealing votes, sabotaging the voting machines, and so on.
The most repeated comment is, "it's Florida 2000 all over again". I'm waiting for the accusations of 'disenfranchised' voters, which as you know, means conservatives took steps to prevent people who aren't supposed to vote from voting.....
**'Our whole goal was stop the train from moving that way.' Train stopped, lawyers and strategists at the campaign's Washington headquarters prepared court papers to challenge Ohio's process for counting provisional ballots, and made spreadsheets comparing each county's provisional ballots with its margin of victory or defeat. **
So the dims basically don't care about the truth! Flsuh them............Oh, we did!!! Hooray!
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