Beating On David Gregory Again
We're determined to get the final word on this clown. Today, he issued a retort to the world of news and the blogosphere. Needless to say, we're unimpressed. Below is his response. (As always, we cite the piece entirely so we're not accused of taking things out of context.)
It's been a rough and tumble week in the White House press room over the Cheney hunting story. Many viewers have written me with praise and plenty of criticism about my questioning of press secretary Scott McClellan. The debate about this story has focused equal parts on my colleagues and me as it has on the unfortunate facts of this hunting accident involving the Vice President.
Incorrect, Mr. Gregory. Yoiu and your colleagues within the MSM made this story about you, and your utterly inept questions regarding the situation. You and yours whipped yourselves into a tizzy over the length of time it took for all of you to pick up this story, then proceeded forward on the assumption that it was part of a move by the White House to move in a conspiratorial fashio. That had little to do with the situation, and someone covering the White House, the president and vice president, and knowing the nuances of what that entails should know better. You showed yourself to be petty; more concerned with your talking points and headlines than actually paying attention to Mr. McClellan and the story itself.
Let me say at the outset that I was wrong to lose my temper at Scott McClellan. I've worked well with Scott since we first met during the 2000 campaign. Monday, he suggested my aggressive questioning about the disclosure of the hunting accident was a stunt for the cameras. He said this during a morning OFF CAMERA briefing, which undercut his point. Furthermore, I considered it a cheap shot. I said, "Don't be a jerk to me personally, just answer the question." I regret saying that because it's never appropriate to speak that way and because it created a distraction from the issues at hand.
Based on actions of the past byt the White House press corps (namely Helen Thomas) it makes perfect sense for the shot from Mr. McClellan. This wasn't a cheap shot. The cheap shots came in the pointed questions regarding the vice president. "Will he be charged with a felony?" "When will he resign?" For God's sake it was an accident. It wasn't intentional. Larry O'Donnell's speculation regarding alcohol was lower than a cheap shot; it was an attempt to lay bare an allegation that had nothing to do with the incident. You may take offense to Mr. McClellan's "cheap shot," but America--as a whole--takes exception to the vehemence behind your questions that seemed more like grand-standing than actual news reporting. Remember journalism school, Mr. Gregory? Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Remember those cardinal rules. We do. The blogosphere does. We reported the story, and moved on. You and yours made it a three-ring circus starting on Monday. And while you toiled over the vice president, people were killed abroad in riots attached to Danish cartoons, and Iran went well beyond the steps of simply rattling it's saber. Where was the MSM? Stewing over the fact that they were scooped by a little newspaper in Corpus Christi, TX.
Putting that aside, I do not apologize for asking tough questions about this story. I'm in the business of getting information -- as much of it as possible. The public and I don't always get as much as I think we deserve, but I keep trying. I also try to demand straight answers. Covering politicians, I have to work harder to get them. I have not made any judgments about the facts of this story as it pertains to what happened on the Armstrong ranch. I have stuck to reporting the facts. I do, however feel it's appropriate to push hard for full and immediate disclosure from our country's highest leaders about their conduct -- public and private. My view is, as elected officials with unparalleled influence over the lives of the American people, the President and Vice President owe the public information about their activities. I see myself as a proxy for the public that has raised questions about what happened and why the Vice President did not immediately disclose it. Furthermore, when a sitting Vice President shoots a man, it's a helluva story -- worthy of public notice and discussion. Therefore, I think it's appropriate to question the White House about why the Vice President chose to disregard the President's normal procedures for public disclosure. Mr. Cheney, in my view, acted as if he had something to hide. He also chose to allow a witness to this accident and the White House press secretary to spend three days portraying this as the fault of the shooting victim, Harry Whittington. Wednesday, Mr. Cheney changed course and took the blame. That invites press scrutiny.
Save the watches; it's getting deep. What does the "get them" comment mean? It is the "gotcha" that all reporters desire to get in their lives, or is it to mean understanding them. Curious use of the term, and it makes me even more suspicious of Mr. Gregory; Hugh has said if you let them talk long enough they'll hang themselves. I wonder if Mr. Gregory just did. The story was a big one, and one that demanded attention, however did it really warrant five days of raking Scott McClellan and the administration over the coals? I don't think it did. There were far more pressing issues for the media to cover that they just arbitrarily tossed aside. Also, what about the deserving you believe you are entitled to? I'd like to know the answer to that question. My uncle works in the intel community, and even he answers me, from time to time, with "you don't need to know." Can the press comprehend something like that? It seems Mr. Gregory believes that he and the public are entitled to every little facet of this administration. I'm curious to know what he thinks of the New York Times blowing the cover of an operation being conducted by the administration to find and neutralize threats within our borders. Does he think the Times was wrong for breaking the law, or does he hail them as "whistleblowers?" And when Cheney sat down with Brit Hume and admitted responsibility, why does that admission invite "press scrutiny?" For a week, the press did nothing but scrutinize the vice president. He admitted it, and America could clearly see that the man was bothered by the incident. Moonbats may think that the veep drinks the blood of innocents, but America saw a man sorry for the accident he was responsible for.
This episode was also emblematic of how the Vice President chooses to communicate with the press and by extension the public. It also revealed tension within the White House between the staffs of the President and Vice President.
Whoa. Hold on, partner; what "tension" are you referring to? I sense no tension between the staffs of either one. I saw that the vice president's staff stepped up and issued a statement. The president told the vice president he had to get out in front of the story, and Cheney did that. I see no tension between either office. I see one giving advice to the other that something had to be said, and it might as well be from the person directly involved. Sure beats a Clinton spokesperson stepping up and giving a statement rather than a finger-wagging president.
Yet the debate playing out in the blogosphere, cable airwaves and on talk radio pits the Vice President against an allegedly left-wing, overly cynical, prissy White House press corps in a tizzy because it wasn't the first to know and angry because it hates the President and Vice President anyway. This is nonsense. If you believe an accidental shooting by Vice President Al Gore would not be met with the same press scrutiny, I think you are not being honest with yourself. Have you Googled transcripts from the Clinton administration at the height of the Lewinsky scandal? The pursuit of information at the White House is often tense. We push hard for it. Maybe you think we pushed too hard in this case. Maybe you think there was no grave harm in waiting to learn the facts of this incident for a few days. I can accept that. The way we do our business is not always pretty and we should be accountable for that. I happen to believe, however, on balance, our dogged pursuit of lots of information, all the time, is a good thing. I view the White House press corps as a proxy for the public. It provides fodder for important debates in this country. But then again, I do have a bias: I'm in the information-gathering business.
I do question whether the press would be willing to resport a serious situation involving Gore when they downplayed his campaigning from the White House for his own bid to be president (illegal under campaign finance laws), and even something as simple as his inability to recognize the president's portraits at Monticello. No one in the press cornered and questioned him about his outlandish boasts (the invention of the Internet and the courting of Tipper being the basis for the movie "Love Story." Let's got to his 'Nam tour where he said he served proudly, but neglects to make a distinction of how long he served in country.) The press was nowhere near any of those stories; happy to give the vice president a pass on them. And as for the Lewinsky scandal, I remember the press--more than anything--spinning the truth. The excuse of "it's just about sex" seemed to dominate the airwaves, yet little attention was paid to the actual crime committed, which was perjury, and suborning such. This is why Clinton was impeached, and disbarred for five years. His illicit rendevous's with Monica were nothing compared to lying under oath. Nixon avoided impeachment by resiging for the same thing. He lied. He got caught. Clinton wasn;t willing to relinquish the presidency, and left office in disgrace as only the second president in US history to be impeached. And Mr. Gregory's participation in the "information-gathering business" is irrelevant to his bias. I'm in it, too. So is Marcie, Hugh, Michelle Malkin, Ed Morrissey, Charles Johnson, Glenn Reynolds, Patrick Frey, John Hinderacker, and a whole host of others. But, we don't let our ideological bias cloud the story. We ask the questions regardless of the feathers to be ruffled. We want the full story. The MSM, all too often, handles it's "favorite" people with kid gloves, and refuses to engage them.
One final thought. In recent days, some people have suggested to me that the press corps has failed to recognize that this is a sad story. Two friends, one who happened to be the Vice President, were involved in a terrible accident. It could have happened to anyone. Our tough questions and our reporting failed to give that adequate attention. It's a fair point. I do think the Vice President himself helped to give voice to how painful this accident was. That's why I think it was appropriate he decided to discuss it publicly.
Yes, but you're unhappy with how he did it. You dislike the fact that he went to FOX, who gave him adequate time to discuss the issue. You would have peferred he stood in front of a "murder board" of the White House press corps, and faced the idiotic questions from people who acted like rebels without a clue. And honestly, I think that is what the press corps has become. They all strive to scooop the other, and act like rengagades on issues like this, the NSA intercept story, and even the phony CBS TANG memo story. It's those renegades acting like sharks smelling a hint of blood in the water. The problem is that if they don't have a clue as to the depth and scope of the story, there's little chance the story will be presented in a fair and balanced way. That is what the New Media does in comparison to the Archaic Media. We still ask the tough questions; they're just not utterly retarded as the MSM does on a frequent basis.
Publius II
We're determined to get the final word on this clown. Today, he issued a retort to the world of news and the blogosphere. Needless to say, we're unimpressed. Below is his response. (As always, we cite the piece entirely so we're not accused of taking things out of context.)
It's been a rough and tumble week in the White House press room over the Cheney hunting story. Many viewers have written me with praise and plenty of criticism about my questioning of press secretary Scott McClellan. The debate about this story has focused equal parts on my colleagues and me as it has on the unfortunate facts of this hunting accident involving the Vice President.
Incorrect, Mr. Gregory. Yoiu and your colleagues within the MSM made this story about you, and your utterly inept questions regarding the situation. You and yours whipped yourselves into a tizzy over the length of time it took for all of you to pick up this story, then proceeded forward on the assumption that it was part of a move by the White House to move in a conspiratorial fashio. That had little to do with the situation, and someone covering the White House, the president and vice president, and knowing the nuances of what that entails should know better. You showed yourself to be petty; more concerned with your talking points and headlines than actually paying attention to Mr. McClellan and the story itself.
Let me say at the outset that I was wrong to lose my temper at Scott McClellan. I've worked well with Scott since we first met during the 2000 campaign. Monday, he suggested my aggressive questioning about the disclosure of the hunting accident was a stunt for the cameras. He said this during a morning OFF CAMERA briefing, which undercut his point. Furthermore, I considered it a cheap shot. I said, "Don't be a jerk to me personally, just answer the question." I regret saying that because it's never appropriate to speak that way and because it created a distraction from the issues at hand.
Based on actions of the past byt the White House press corps (namely Helen Thomas) it makes perfect sense for the shot from Mr. McClellan. This wasn't a cheap shot. The cheap shots came in the pointed questions regarding the vice president. "Will he be charged with a felony?" "When will he resign?" For God's sake it was an accident. It wasn't intentional. Larry O'Donnell's speculation regarding alcohol was lower than a cheap shot; it was an attempt to lay bare an allegation that had nothing to do with the incident. You may take offense to Mr. McClellan's "cheap shot," but America--as a whole--takes exception to the vehemence behind your questions that seemed more like grand-standing than actual news reporting. Remember journalism school, Mr. Gregory? Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? Remember those cardinal rules. We do. The blogosphere does. We reported the story, and moved on. You and yours made it a three-ring circus starting on Monday. And while you toiled over the vice president, people were killed abroad in riots attached to Danish cartoons, and Iran went well beyond the steps of simply rattling it's saber. Where was the MSM? Stewing over the fact that they were scooped by a little newspaper in Corpus Christi, TX.
Putting that aside, I do not apologize for asking tough questions about this story. I'm in the business of getting information -- as much of it as possible. The public and I don't always get as much as I think we deserve, but I keep trying. I also try to demand straight answers. Covering politicians, I have to work harder to get them. I have not made any judgments about the facts of this story as it pertains to what happened on the Armstrong ranch. I have stuck to reporting the facts. I do, however feel it's appropriate to push hard for full and immediate disclosure from our country's highest leaders about their conduct -- public and private. My view is, as elected officials with unparalleled influence over the lives of the American people, the President and Vice President owe the public information about their activities. I see myself as a proxy for the public that has raised questions about what happened and why the Vice President did not immediately disclose it. Furthermore, when a sitting Vice President shoots a man, it's a helluva story -- worthy of public notice and discussion. Therefore, I think it's appropriate to question the White House about why the Vice President chose to disregard the President's normal procedures for public disclosure. Mr. Cheney, in my view, acted as if he had something to hide. He also chose to allow a witness to this accident and the White House press secretary to spend three days portraying this as the fault of the shooting victim, Harry Whittington. Wednesday, Mr. Cheney changed course and took the blame. That invites press scrutiny.
Save the watches; it's getting deep. What does the "get them" comment mean? It is the "gotcha" that all reporters desire to get in their lives, or is it to mean understanding them. Curious use of the term, and it makes me even more suspicious of Mr. Gregory; Hugh has said if you let them talk long enough they'll hang themselves. I wonder if Mr. Gregory just did. The story was a big one, and one that demanded attention, however did it really warrant five days of raking Scott McClellan and the administration over the coals? I don't think it did. There were far more pressing issues for the media to cover that they just arbitrarily tossed aside. Also, what about the deserving you believe you are entitled to? I'd like to know the answer to that question. My uncle works in the intel community, and even he answers me, from time to time, with "you don't need to know." Can the press comprehend something like that? It seems Mr. Gregory believes that he and the public are entitled to every little facet of this administration. I'm curious to know what he thinks of the New York Times blowing the cover of an operation being conducted by the administration to find and neutralize threats within our borders. Does he think the Times was wrong for breaking the law, or does he hail them as "whistleblowers?" And when Cheney sat down with Brit Hume and admitted responsibility, why does that admission invite "press scrutiny?" For a week, the press did nothing but scrutinize the vice president. He admitted it, and America could clearly see that the man was bothered by the incident. Moonbats may think that the veep drinks the blood of innocents, but America saw a man sorry for the accident he was responsible for.
This episode was also emblematic of how the Vice President chooses to communicate with the press and by extension the public. It also revealed tension within the White House between the staffs of the President and Vice President.
Whoa. Hold on, partner; what "tension" are you referring to? I sense no tension between the staffs of either one. I saw that the vice president's staff stepped up and issued a statement. The president told the vice president he had to get out in front of the story, and Cheney did that. I see no tension between either office. I see one giving advice to the other that something had to be said, and it might as well be from the person directly involved. Sure beats a Clinton spokesperson stepping up and giving a statement rather than a finger-wagging president.
Yet the debate playing out in the blogosphere, cable airwaves and on talk radio pits the Vice President against an allegedly left-wing, overly cynical, prissy White House press corps in a tizzy because it wasn't the first to know and angry because it hates the President and Vice President anyway. This is nonsense. If you believe an accidental shooting by Vice President Al Gore would not be met with the same press scrutiny, I think you are not being honest with yourself. Have you Googled transcripts from the Clinton administration at the height of the Lewinsky scandal? The pursuit of information at the White House is often tense. We push hard for it. Maybe you think we pushed too hard in this case. Maybe you think there was no grave harm in waiting to learn the facts of this incident for a few days. I can accept that. The way we do our business is not always pretty and we should be accountable for that. I happen to believe, however, on balance, our dogged pursuit of lots of information, all the time, is a good thing. I view the White House press corps as a proxy for the public. It provides fodder for important debates in this country. But then again, I do have a bias: I'm in the information-gathering business.
I do question whether the press would be willing to resport a serious situation involving Gore when they downplayed his campaigning from the White House for his own bid to be president (illegal under campaign finance laws), and even something as simple as his inability to recognize the president's portraits at Monticello. No one in the press cornered and questioned him about his outlandish boasts (the invention of the Internet and the courting of Tipper being the basis for the movie "Love Story." Let's got to his 'Nam tour where he said he served proudly, but neglects to make a distinction of how long he served in country.) The press was nowhere near any of those stories; happy to give the vice president a pass on them. And as for the Lewinsky scandal, I remember the press--more than anything--spinning the truth. The excuse of "it's just about sex" seemed to dominate the airwaves, yet little attention was paid to the actual crime committed, which was perjury, and suborning such. This is why Clinton was impeached, and disbarred for five years. His illicit rendevous's with Monica were nothing compared to lying under oath. Nixon avoided impeachment by resiging for the same thing. He lied. He got caught. Clinton wasn;t willing to relinquish the presidency, and left office in disgrace as only the second president in US history to be impeached. And Mr. Gregory's participation in the "information-gathering business" is irrelevant to his bias. I'm in it, too. So is Marcie, Hugh, Michelle Malkin, Ed Morrissey, Charles Johnson, Glenn Reynolds, Patrick Frey, John Hinderacker, and a whole host of others. But, we don't let our ideological bias cloud the story. We ask the questions regardless of the feathers to be ruffled. We want the full story. The MSM, all too often, handles it's "favorite" people with kid gloves, and refuses to engage them.
One final thought. In recent days, some people have suggested to me that the press corps has failed to recognize that this is a sad story. Two friends, one who happened to be the Vice President, were involved in a terrible accident. It could have happened to anyone. Our tough questions and our reporting failed to give that adequate attention. It's a fair point. I do think the Vice President himself helped to give voice to how painful this accident was. That's why I think it was appropriate he decided to discuss it publicly.
Yes, but you're unhappy with how he did it. You dislike the fact that he went to FOX, who gave him adequate time to discuss the issue. You would have peferred he stood in front of a "murder board" of the White House press corps, and faced the idiotic questions from people who acted like rebels without a clue. And honestly, I think that is what the press corps has become. They all strive to scooop the other, and act like rengagades on issues like this, the NSA intercept story, and even the phony CBS TANG memo story. It's those renegades acting like sharks smelling a hint of blood in the water. The problem is that if they don't have a clue as to the depth and scope of the story, there's little chance the story will be presented in a fair and balanced way. That is what the New Media does in comparison to the Archaic Media. We still ask the tough questions; they're just not utterly retarded as the MSM does on a frequent basis.
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 5:34 PM
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