| On the juxtaposition of FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley's testimony last Thursday with Bush's announcement of a homeland security shake-up the same day, she observed: "I think that (Bush political guru) Karl Rove has taken over the dissemination of national security information. It's kind of scary."
So this is the woman who writes Maureen Dowd's columns for her. Perhaps she should share in the Pulitzers. |
A DNC fax yesterday complained that Bush's administration was "manipulating the news" by a string of announcements/pronouncements designed to take other items off the front page, such as the FBI whistleblower's testimony. Oddly enough, the NBC Nightly News - devoid of anything else to report on from the White House, had Campbell Brown run thru an entire laundry list of things SHE SAID that "critics" had pointed out as the Bush administration "over-hyping" in order to carry the headlines. She showed a 4-second clip of one critic, a Dem(naturally). The rest of the story, she droned on and on, using the unattributed "critics say that..." before each supposed instance of headline-grabbing. No other "critics" were identified. It was obvious that the critics were the people of NBC News.
Of course, none of the news organizations was at all bothered whenever Bush's predecessor did the same thing - only amused and brimming with "muted admiration of his political savvy." Of course, political savvy is supposed to be reserved, in the media's eyes, for Democrats and Democrats alone. When Republicans are media-savvy, that's bad.
Brown's story DID contain a concession toward the futility of her pursuit - she quoted the latest poll numbers on Bush's job rating and indicated that none of the "headline mongering" had rubbed off...Bush was still at 77% approval rating.
NBC then followed a WP lead with Tom Ridge supposedly getting an earful from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill. But the story didn't match the lead. The plaints were aimed at Bush's PROPOSAL, not at Tom Ridge. Lisa Myers doesn't usually sign her name to misinformation like this, but she did today.
Bottom line - if some flack in the DNC or X-42(i)'s entourage says something, you can bet it'll show up in the Times/Post/Globe and on the evening news.
Michael
That is interesting, because that same preposterous thought appeared in a Maureed Dowd column a couple of days ago. It's been obvious for some time that an embarrassing amount of the editorial content in the New York Times originates with the DNC, but it's not often that we get to meet one of the actual perps who tells them what to say.