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FOX news used by Bush admin. for propaganda
McClellan: Fox News Commentators Use The ‘Talking Points’ That The White House Sends Them»
On MSNBC’s Hardball last night, host Chris Matthews asked former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan if he saw “FOX television as a tool” to get the White House’s “message out” while he was in the Bush administration. “Certainly there were commentators and other, pundits at FOX News, that were useful to the White House,” replied McClellan, adding that they were given “talking points.”
Making a distinction between journalists like Brit Hume and commentators like Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, McClellan admitted that “certainly” the White House used Fox News talking heads as “spokespeople” with “a script”:
MATTHEWS: So, you wouldn’t use Brit Hume to sell stuff for them, but you’d use some of the nighttime guys?
MCCLELLAN: Yeah, I would separate that out, and certainly I, you know, they’ll say, that’s because they agree with those views in the White House.
MATTHEWS: Well, they didn’t need a script though, did they?
MCCLELLAN: No, well, probably not.
McClellan later told MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann that “it was done frequently, especially on high-profile issues” and that Fox often gave the White House “its desired results.” Current Press Secretary Dana Perino would only tell Olbermann, “I’m not aware of that.”
Fox News’s close relationship to the Bush administration should come as no surprise to anyone, considering Fox’s Neil Cavuto once ran a segment asking if George W. Bush was “the best President.” But, as Olbermann notes, it “is one of those things you assumed to be true all along, yet you are shocked when the hard confirmation actually shows up on your door.”
Not only is Fox the network the White House turned to when Vice President Dick Cheney had to explain how he shot his friend in the face, but the network has also produced sympathetic documentaries on both Cheney and President Bush. McClellan: Fox News Commentators Use The ‘Talking Points’ That The White House Sends Them» ... more -
Fox News busted
The White House is busted!!
Ex-White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan exposed Fox News as a propaganda tool for the White House on Chris Mathews Hardball.
Fox in the White House: It is one of those things you kind of assume to be true all along... and yet are shocked when hard confirmation actually comes. Our fourth story tonight, from the former White House press secretary himself, word that the Bush White House routinely sent--and as far as we know, still sends-- literal talking points to Fox News for its primetime propagandists, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and others... to spout, as if ventriloquist dummies, as if they had thought of it themselves, as if they had come to those opinions independently, as if there had been a process either fair... or balanced. The White House is busted!! ... more -
Dem Rep. calls for impeachment at McClellan testimony: video
After questioning former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan during a meeting of the House Judiciary Committee Friday, a Democratic congressman called for impeachment proceedings to be initiated.
Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) said that he believed McClellan's testimony implicated both Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush as the only two administration sources who could have leaked the identity of former CIA covert operative Valerie Plame-Wilson.
"The president and vice president have denied ordering this illegal leak, but logic and the chain of command dictates that it must have been one of them,” said Wexler. "Mr. McClellan, in your book, you state that you cannot believe President Bush authorized the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's status as a covert agent. ... Who does that leave us? The vice president."
"He is someone that keeps things pretty close to the vest, to say the least," replied McClellan.
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More at link. After questioning former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan during a meeting of the House Judiciary Committee Friday, a Democ... more -
McClellan testifies on C.I.A. leak
McClellan told Congress on Friday that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney wanted him to say that Scooter Libby wasn't involved in the leak of a CIA operative's identity, an assertion that turned out to be false. McClellan told Congress on Friday that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney wanted him to say that Scooter Libby wasn't ... more
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McClellan To Testify Before Judiciary Committee
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, whose scathing memoir about his time in the Bush administration sent waves through Washington D.C., has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, a senior committee official told The Huffington Post.
[Update: Watch McClellan discuss his upcoming testimony on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Video below.]
McClellan's book "What Happened" detailed the "propaganda campaign" that led up to the Iraq war. His hearing is expected to focus heavily on the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, an episode that McClellan has said was driven by political motivations from within the Oval Office. But the committee could press the former press secretary on other matters within its jurisdiction, including the possible authorization of torture by administration officials (though it remains to be seen how much knowledge McClellan has of that topic).
Earlier on Monday, Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers sent an letter to McClellan requesting his testimony.
"I have extended an invitation...after discussions between Committee staff and his attorneys," wrote Conyers. "In his book, Mr. McClellan suggests that senior White House officials may have obstructed justice and engaged in a cover-up regarding the Valerie Plame leak. This alleged activity could well extend beyond the scope of the offenses for which Scooter Libby has been convicted and deserves further attention."
The date on the invitation, June 20, was set in advance to accommodate McClellan's schedule, the official said.
McClellan will be the highest-ranking Bush administration official to be pressed by Congress on the Plame affair. Former Bush strategist Karl Rove has refused to testify, citing executive privilege.
And as such, the testimony could be extremely revealing. According to McClellan, the decision to leak Plame's covert identity emanated from the very top of the Bush White House. The move, he wrote, was politically motivated, as officials were peeved at the critical statements about Iraq coming from Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. While McClellan said that the president was ultimately misled by his advisers on the matter, he asserted that the episode itself was a stain on the Oval Office - one that led to his disillusionment.
"It's...clear to me that Scooter Libby was guilty of the perjury and obstruction crimes for which he was convicted," McClellan wrote. "When the president commuted Libby's prison sentence and thereby protected him from serving even one day behind bars, I was disappointed. This kind of special treatment undermines our system of justice."
Sam Stein
The Huffington Post
June 9, 2008 04:50 PM
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/09/mcclellan-to-t... Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, whose scathing memoir about his time in the Bush administration sent waves through... more -
Scott McClellan to testify under oath before House Judiciary Committee
President Bush's former spokesman, Scott McClellan, will testify before a House committee next week about whether Vice President Dick Cheney ordered him to make misleading public statements about the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity.
McClellan will testify publicly and under oath before the House Judiciary Committee on June 20 about the White House's role in the leak and its response, his attorneys, Michael and Jane Tigar, said on Monday. President Bush's former spokesman, Scott McClellan, will testify before a House committee next week about whether Vice President ... more -
Bill O'Reilly says media "raped US president verbally"
How do you “verbally rape” someone?
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Scott McClellan Pt.1 | The Daily Show | Comedy Central
"Scott McClellan explains the Bush administration was not intentionally deceptive in making their case for going to war in Iraq." "Scott McClellan explains the Bush administration was not intentionally deceptive in making their case for going to war in Iraq.&... more
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Scott McClellan on the Bush administration
The really disturbing thing was the reaction from a lot of reporters to McClellan's claim that the media was too kind to the Bush administration leading up to Iraq. The really disturbing thing was the reaction from a lot of reporters to McClellan's claim that the media was too kind to the Bush... more
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Congressman wants McClellan to testify under oath - CNN.com
This is what we all want, someone to tell the truth about the Bush administration's lies.
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The Week in Media
Learn why Whoopi made us cringe, why crappy cars are hot on eBay, and why America is going to hell.
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Scott McClellan, possible Obama supporter!
Scott McClellan, making the media rounds to promote his book and push back against the ferocious counter-attack by Bush loyalists, declined to come out tonight for John McCain and said he liked what he had heard from Barack Obama...
...he said he was "intrigued by Sen. Obama's message." Scott McClellan, making the media rounds to promote his book and push back against the ferocious counter-attack by Bush loyalists, dec... more -
Bush mob is like West Wing 'Sopranos'
"You are inclined to say that Scott McClellan is like the first one out of The Bada Bing Club, scurrying into the light and looking for redemption, except that it has become clear by now that even the hoods from "The Sopranos" would be out of their weight class with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove..."
By Mike Lupica// New York Daily News
Photo Dharapak/AP
Full story at link. "You are inclined to say that Scott McClellan is like the first one out of The Bada Bing Club, scurrying into the light and looki... more -
Scott McClellan trashes Bush on Countdown with Keith Olbermann
On "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" Thursday Scott McClellan sat down for a nearly hour-long interview with the MSNBC host to discuss his new book, "What Happened". The wide-ranging interview covered everything from the CIA leak to Fox News to McClellan's critics to the possibility of military action in Iran.
Towards the beginning of the interview Olbermann noted a passage in McClellan's book where he says Bush's foreign policy view was grounded in a "philosophy of coercive democracy." Olbermann noted, "it's a marvelous phrase, but is it an oxymoron?" McClellan said it was:
"[C]ertainly those [policies] have tarnished the reputation of the United States in a very negative way. And I think that has been harmful over the long term. But in terms of the coercive democracy, that was -- and you bring up a very good point about the oxymoron there -- but that was always the strategy for going into Iraq in first place. And I think that is what really drove the president's motivation to push ahead and rush into this. When I think that there were probably other options -- there were definitely other options available to him. He didn't have to box himself in. But when he went to the United Nations he said, either he disarms and the U.N. -- if he doesn't, then the U.N. goes in, or the security council authorizes it, or we will do it ourselves." On "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" Thursday Scott McClellan sat down for a nearly hour-long interview with the MSNBC host t... more -
Scot McClellan: The "‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation."
The upcoming memoir from Scott McClellan is already getting heavy attention for its scathing criticism of a Bush administration that he says was deliberately deceptive and self-deceiving in—among other things—launching the war in Iraq and in mishandling Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. But McClellan also has unkind words for the White House press corps that he was handling at the time; namely, that they were too easily handled:
McClellan repeatedly embraces the rhetoric of Bush's liberal critics and even charges: “If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.
“The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.” The upcoming memoir from Scott McClellan is already getting heavy attention for its scathing criticism of a Bush administration that h... more -
Scotty Admits Bush Lies
Scott McClellan has just published a book in which he reveals much of what was going on inside the White House while he was Bush's press secretary - confirming what most of us strongly suspected all along. Scott McClellan has just published a book in which he reveals much of what was going on inside the White House while he was Bush'... more
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Former White House counselor calls McClellan allegation 'total crap'
(CNN) — Former White House counselor Dan Bartlett lashed out at Scott McClellan in a telephone interview Wednesday, saying the allegations that the media was soft on the White House are "total crap," adding that advisers of President Bush are "bewildered and puzzled" by the allegations in McClellan's new book.
"It's almost like we're witnessing an out-of-body experience," Bartlett said of McClellan. "We're hearing from a completely different person we didn't have any insight into."
Bartlett added that intimates of the President feel McClellan has violated his trust. "Part of the role of being a trusted adviser is to honor that trust," said Bartlett. "It's not your place now to go out" and criticize the President like this.
"What did he really believe when he was serving as press secretary?" Bartlett asked.
Bartlett said the bewilderment stems from "Scott's decision to publicly air these deep misgivings he's never shared privately or publicly" with fellow Bush insiders. "To do it now, through a book, is a mistake," he added.
Bartlett asserted that McClellan did not play a major role in key events, noting that the former aide was serving as deputy press secretary for domestic issues during the run-up to the war in Iraq, raising questions about how McClellan could claim the President used "propaganda" to sell the war.
"I don't think he was in a position to know this," Bartlett said flatly. He said it's "troubling" that McClellan now "gives credibility to every left-wing attack" on anecdotes that are "either thinly-sourced or not witnessed by him" in the White House.
On the Hurricane Katrina allegations, Bartlett refused to confirm or deny McClellan's claim that he and Bartlett believed the President should not have flown over New Orleans but were overruled by Karl Rove. "I'm not going to rehash internal deliberations," he said. "We've all acknowledged the whole Katrina experience could have been handled better."
[Photo: Getty Images] (CNN) — Former White House counselor Dan Bartlett lashed out at Scott McClellan in a telephone interview Wednesday, saying the allegat... more -
Scott McClellan on the "liberal media" - Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com
In a minimally rational world, this extraordinary passage, from the new book by Scott McClellan, would forever slay the single most ludicrous myth in our political culture: The "Liberal Media":
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"If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.
The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. . . . In this case, the "liberal media" didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."
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Just consider how remarkable that is. George Bush's own Press Secretary criticizes the American media for being "too deferential" to the Government. He lays the blame for Bush's ability to propagandize the nation on the media's uncritical dissemination of the Republican administration's falsehoods. And most notably of all, McClellan actually uses cynical scare quotes when invoking the phrase which, in conventional political discourse, is deemed the most unassailable truth of all: The Liberal Media. In a minimally rational world, this extraordinary passage, from the new book by Scott McClellan, would forever slay the single most lu... more -
Scott McClellan turns on Bush
Former White House press secretary published a book in which Scott McClellan writes on the war in Iraq that Bush "and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war."
"[I]n this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security," McClellan wrote.
McClellan's colleagues claim to be stunned by his sudden change of heart. Karl Rove called McClellan a "left-wing logger." Others described him as disgruntled.
Is anyone surprised that McClellan's book is not getting rave reviews by a White House still spitting propaganda like a cowboy in a saloon? Former White House press secretary published a book in which Scott McClellan writes on the war in Iraq that Bush "and his adviser... more -
Former press secretary's book bashes Bush
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that President Bush relied on an aggressive "political propaganda campaign" instead of the truth to sell the Iraq war, and that the decision to invade pushed Bush's presidency "terribly off course.'
The Bush White House made "a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed" — a time when the nation was on the brink of war, McClellan writes in the book entitled "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception."
The way Bush managed the Iraq issue "almost guaranteed that the use of force would become the only feasible option."
"In the permanent campaign era, it was all about manipulating sources of public opinion to the president's advantage," McClellan writes.
White House aides seemed stunned by the scathing tone of the book, and Bush press secretary Dana Perino issued a statement that was highly critical of their former colleague.
"Scott, we now know, is disgruntled about his experience at the White House," she said. "For those of us who fully supported him, before, during and after he was press secretary, we are puzzled. It is sad - this is not the Scott we knew."
Perino said the reports on the book had been described to Bush, and that she did not expect him to comment. "He has more pressing matters than to spend time commenting on books by former staffers," she said.
The book provoked strong reactions from former staffers as well.
"For him to do this now strikes me as self-serving, disingenuous and unprofessional," Fran Townsend, former head of the White House-based counterterrorism office, told CNN.
Said former top aide Karl Rove, in an interview with Fox News Channel, "If he had these moral qualms, he should have spoken up about them. And frankly I don't remember him speaking up about these things. I don't remember a single word."
Richard Clarke, another former counterterrorism adviser who also came out with a book critical of administration policy, said he could understand McClellan's thinking, however. Clarke told CNN that he, too, was harshly criticized, saying that "I can show you the tire tracks."
McClellan called the Iraq war a "serious strategic blunder," a surprisingly harsh assessment from the man who was at that time the loyal public voice of the White House who had followed Bush to Washington from Texas.
"The Iraq war was not necessary," he concludes. "Waging an unnecessary war is a grave mistake."
McClellan admits that some of his own words from the podium in the White House briefing room turned out to be "badly misguided." But he says he was sincere at the time.
"When words I uttered, believing them to be true, were exposed as false, I was constrained by my duties and loyalty to the president and unable to comment," he said. "But I promised reporters and the public that I would someday tell the whole story of what I knew."
The former press secretary — the second of four so far in Bush's presidency — explained his dramatic shift from loyal defender to fierce critic as a difficult act of personal contrition, a way, he wrote, to learn from his mistakes, be true to his Christian faith and become a better person.
"I fell far short of living up to the kind of public servant I wanted to be," McClellan writes. He also blames the media whose questions he fielded, calling them "complicit enablers" in the White House campaign to manipulate public opinion toward the need for war.
McClellan said Bush loyalists will no doubt continue to think the administration's decisions have been correct and its unpopularity undeserved. "I've become genuinely convinced otherwise," he said.
The book is scheduled to go on sale June 1. Quotes from the book were first reported Tuesday night by the Web site Politico, which said it found McClellan's memoir on sale early at a bookstore. Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that President Bush relied on an aggressive "political ... more
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