’)Some people have no shame.
Let’s go back in the time machine and see what dogged reporter David Gregory asked President Bush in the press conference before the Iraq War:
Q Mr. President, good evening. If you order war, can any military operation be considered a success if the United States does not capture Saddam Hussein, as you once said, dead or alive?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I hope we don’t have to go to war, but if we go to war, we will disarm Iraq. And if we go to war, there will be a regime change. And replacing this cancer inside of Iraq will be a government that represents the rights of all the people, a government which represents the voices of the Shia and Sunni and the Kurds.
We care about the suffering of the Iraqi people. I mentioned in my opening comments that there’s a lot of food ready to go in. There’s something like 55,000 oil-for-food distribution points in Iraq. We know where they are. We fully intend to make sure that they’re — got ample food. We know where their hospitals are; we want to make sure they’ve got ample medical supplies. The life of the Iraqi citizen is going to dramatically improve.
Q Sir, I’m sorry, is success contingent upon capturing or killing Saddam Hussein, in your mind?
THE PRESIDENT: We will be changing the regime of Iraq, for the good of the Iraqi people.
That’s it. He just asked, will it be awesome if Hussein is captured, or just kind of awesome. He doesn’t ask, if it’s a good idea, or what the president thinks of the opposition to the war, or the fact that most at the time didn’t support intervention without U.N. support.
But Gregory thinks they did a super job.
Wouldn’t want to hit the prez with the ol’ “What about Article I of the Constitution,sir?”
Yeah that was really lame on Gregory’s part.
Essentially he believes his role is to be a conduit for propaganda, then ask the President to repeat his propaganda. Then check that propaganda with other propagandists on the Republican payroll to make sure they more or less agree with the first emissions of propaganda.
It never seems to occur to Gregory that stenography, even with “tough questions” which are used to further sell that propaganda, is not journalism.
That would require checking with other sources and documents to establish the factual basis of what the Prez and his crew are saying.
Watch them get cojones when the Dems are back in the White House though, and go after every allegedly missing computer keyboard key. THE TRUTH MUST OUT!
I really despise these people.
I’d love to see Sam Donaldson go over to David Gregory and kick the shit out of him.
Well Gregory did think MC Rove was the shiznit at that party.
Shuld tell you everything you need to know about him
Well Gregory did think MC Rove was the shiznit at that party. Shuld tell you everything you need to know about him
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.
I think I liked my reporters as scruffy cranky Carl Kolchaks. This journalism is a profession kind of journalist and journalists go to all the good parties and live in the best houses is shit on a shingle.
If you think Gregory was bad, just be glad you didn’t watch AC360 tonight with Anderson Pooper. The TradMed has no shame.
And of course, none of these people asked a single question about any of this:
http://www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com
The fundamental fact about the War in Iraq is that we responded to the deadliest single attack on American soil in our nation’s history by invading the wrong stinkin’ country. And it could hardly have been more obvious.
This stuff is like those polls where a person says his congressperson is good, but all the others are not so good. In this case, each reporter thinks he or she did a pretty good job, they might have one or two instances where they asked a tough question – but it’s the other reporters who didn’t do such a hot job. Zero accountability.
Gregory does not understand that his boss’s Sunday show is the preferred promotion venue of honest-to-God warmongers, according to sworn, uncontradicted testimony.
http://tinyurl.com/2zlqy4
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
-Upton Sinclari
-
That excerpt is also a supreme example of how Bush and his cronies were truly lying in the run-up to the war. Thing is, they have made an art out of the “unverifiable” lie. The excuse is always “Everybody thought there were WMD, it was a misjudgment, not a lie.” But the actual lie is “I hope we don’t have to go to war.” Bullshit! Bullshit made palpable by his immediately following that LIE with concrete promises of what he intended to follow from the invasion. “I hope we don’t have to go to war, but if we do (heh heh) there WILL be regime change.” Bull. Shit. But no one who isn’t a Jedi Master can *verify* that Bush was lying when he said he hoped we didn’t go to war. The same is true of “I don’t recall.” It’s a lie, but unconfirmable, so what can you do? Sigh.
I am shocked that these so-called journalists are not exactly anxious to examine too closely how the guy who says he punk’d them, punk’d them.
David Gregory had his fifteen minutes of fame when he sat in the first few rows of the White House press corps and put Scott McClellan on the spot, but other than that I always felt he was an apologist and cheerleader for the Iraq War. Just like the rest of the mainstream media at the time.
The only person in the WH briefing room, and I don’t know if she is a liberal, Helen Thomas, that had any balls and asked the questions any journalist with a sense of professional ethics and dedication, was completely shut out. None of her compatriots, stood buy her. They all took the 30 pieces of silver. After the American people, the journalists, are most guilty for the pathetic excuse our country has become for America. No matter what party occupies the WH, it is the media’s solemn responsibilty to safeguard our country. All of the carnage amd suffering brought upon the world by their failure is on their hands. Deny and good luck.
anybody ask any questions about those aluminum tubes ???
you know, the ones that the condiliar said could only be used for refining uranium
anybody ever think to ask an expert from the Oak Ridge nuclear facility
you know, the guys who actually refine uranium
cuz all the statements I heard coming from Oak Ridge said unequivically that the tubes were UNSUITABLE for refining uranium
so who reported the condiliar’s statement without consulting the experts at Oak Ridge ???
there’s a FAILURE right there
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/03/send-flowers-to-helen-thomas/
Helen Thomas is a national treasure.
Robster:
I think his 14th and 15th minutes of fame were doing his stupid dance with “MC Rove” at the White House Press Correspondents dinner(You know, the gathering Colbert made famous).
Speaking of Colbert, it still strikes me that the media isn’t more taken aback by the fact that people think Colbert and Stewart have more journalistic integrity than Gregory and his pals.
This would be amusing if not for all the dead bodies:
The life of the Iraqi citizen is going to dramatically improve.
Is this guy for real? That’s one of the most pathetic things I’ve seen in quite a while.
I saw David G. on Hardball yesterday, and he vociferously disagreed with Scott McClellan’s claim that the media did not do it’s critical job during the run up to the invasion of Iraq. There’s ignorance, and then there’s willful ignorance, which is what David G. has always exhibited during this fiasco. For him to disagree with that claim, which is pretty much established as fact at this point, is a continuing trouble. NBC News needs to get rid of such people and hire someone who will better investigators / reporters.
Agreed, Laszlo. I suggest Barry Nolan.
Gregory has become my new favorite asshat. Note that he’s the one that’s heading NBC’s Election coverage… and he’s the one that’s been on the McCain beat. The people that covered Clinton and Obama… I don’t even remember who they are.
It’s these subtle things that piss me off, and tell me a lot about what to expect out of NBC’s coverage. Very frustrating since I switched to NBC because I found ABC to be fawning, and CBS to be vomitous.
Man, the MSM sucks. Thank God for the intertubes.
I hope Gregory is reading this thread! If you thought that reporting what was said was your only job, why didn’t you give equal time to people who didn’t support the war? There were plenty of them…and STILL ARE!!
Thank you for this place for the truth about war coverage to be discussed. I had some respect for David Gregory’s reporting because he at least started to be “harder” on the White House as opinion polls started to tank for GWB, whereas many continued the charade.
But this week’s “it’s not our job” line and his and the rest of the press’s pile on against McClellan revealed their careerist lies, again.
I also found it telling how hard they came down on the RC priest’s comments at Trinity Church in that same news cycle. A helpful diversion from the unveiling of their own complicity in War cheerleading?
Hadn’t the press been “analysing” Clinton’s defeat as a wrongheaded inevitability approach early on? Any psych 101 student could reasonably discern that Hillary’s tears were maybe a genuine reaction to the fact that people weren’t buying what she had to sell. She was hurt. She couldn’t handle the rejection. She felt she had done everything necessary, on the coat tails of her bubbie, to make herself the only viable candidate and her comes the black guy . . . Doesn’t the whole South Carolina treatment Obama received from the Clintons, especially Bubba, confirm what the priest said?
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