If Only George and Dick acted like David
The media and press are taken to task a lot here, so when someone
in the media takes responsibility, as well as shows the president and vice president
how it's done, it deserves, not only to be brought out into the light, but downright
praised.
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| Huntley-Brinkley, back when newsmen and the truth mattered more than access.. |
MR. RUSSERT: There also had been an
off-camera exchange that Gigot just referred to. Scott McClellan: “David,
hold on, the cameras aren’t on right now. You can do this later.”
David Gregory: “Don’t accuse me of trying to pose for the cameras.
Don’t be a jerk to me personally when I’m asking you a serious
question.” McClellan: “You don’t have to yell.” “I
will yell,” Gregory. “If you want to use the—that podium
to try to take shots at my personally, which I don’t appreciate, then
I will raise my voice because that’s wrong.” McClellan: “Calm
down, Dave, calm down.” Gregory: “I’ll calm down when I
feel like calming down. You answer the question.”
Looking back at that a few days later, your sense?
MR.
GREGORY: I think I made a mistake. I think it was inappropriate
for me to lose my cool with the press secretary representing the president.
I don’t think it was professional of me. I was frustrated, I said what
I said, but I think that you should never speak that way, as my wife reminded
me, number one. And number two, I think it created a diversion from some of
the serious questions in the story, so I regret that. I was wrong, and I apologize.
But I think what—what’s interesting about
all of this is that Mary and others in the White House have been eager to
stoke this as a false debate between the vice president and the White House
press corps, attempting to cast this as the White House press corps is a ping-pong
in the culture wars. The reality is that that false debate obscures some real
facts. You laid out some of them in terms of questions that were raised about
how the vice president initially disclosed this, making the decision to not
disclose it himself and have Katharine Armstrong do it.
It also overlooks a very important point, and that
is there was disagreement, as Mary well knows, within the White House about
how this was handled: the question of why the vice president didn’t
call the president. Also the fact that there were some White House advisers
who told me this week, it made the president look bad, it raised questions
about who was really running the rodeo in the White House.
The vice president created these questions. It’s
also emblematic of the rather secretive style with the press by the vice president.
And so I think it—it’s fair to disagree with the White House press
corps, or with me, or the White House press corps generally, I think, is more
important, in terms of how we go about answers. But I, for one, don’t
apologize for pushing hard for answers. I think people who view the news or
view what I do for a partisan lens may think I was making a political statement.
I was not. I make no apologies for pushing hard for information because sometimes
it’s hard to get.
Oh, and one question for Mary
Queen of Carville, what about Timmy's
drinking question, huh?
As for David
Gregory, keep doing your job. Huntly,
Brinkley and even John
Chancellor, are smiling.
UPDATE: Speaking of lousy media, I just learned that the post.blog just erased a very neutral comment I left in the wee hours of the morning. Check out our Open Letter to the Washington Post for more.
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