The White House on Monday called on NBC News to set the record straight on "deceitful" editing of an interview with President Bush, in which correspondent Richard Engel asks whether comments about the president of Iran were directed at Barack Obama.
Bush aides were angered by how the president's answer was portrayed when Engel questioned him about his condemnation of "the false comfort of appeasement" in an address last week to the Israeli Knesset. NBC stood by its treatment of the interview Monday.
Bush had mentioned the president of Iran in his speech, and said: "Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along."
Obama's campaign considered that statement an attack on him, which the White House has denied.
Engel asked Bush if he was referring to Obama in his speech.
As it appeared on "Nightly News" Sunday and the "Today" show Monday, Bush's response was: "You know, my policies haven't changed, but evidently the political calendar has ... And when, you know, a leader of Iran says that they want to destroy Israel, you've got to take those words seriously."
But the White House said NBC edited out these words that Bush said between those two sentences: "People need to read the speech. You didn't get it exactly right, either. What I said was that we need to take the words of people seriously."
Bush counsel Ed Gillespie, in a letter to NBC News President Steve Capus, said that "this deceitful editing to further a media-manufactured storyline is utterly misleading and irresponsible." He asked that the network air Bush's response in full on the two programs.
Apparently, no one in the White House has ever--ever--watched Fox News.
College drop-out Sean Hannity added global warming to the growing list of subjects on which he is a self-proclaimed expert Friday night (10/26/07) on Hannity & Colmes. As “proof” of his contention that global warming “by no means should be considered accepted science,” he presented an unbalanced segment that skewed public and scientific opinion and also conflated a CNN special with the climate-change issue, itself. Hannity is obsessed with global warming and seems willing to go to any lengths to discredit any such concerns – any length, that is, except having an honest and fair debate on the subject.
[SNIP]
UPDATE: After this post went up, News Hounds was contacted by two students from the panel discussion, each of whom felt he had been misrepresented by selective editing. It was also alleged that the general consensus of the panel was "neutral to positive" and had also been distorted by FOX News.
There are numerous examples--that is just one out of several dozen that could have been chosen to illustrate the ridiculous charge of "selective editing." The President and the Vice President do not regularly make themselves available for news conferences or live television appearances. On the President's most recent trip abroad, he left the press traveling with him out of the loop.
The White House has never liked seeing the "truth" about anything published anywhere. They will ruin the lives of covert spies if they think they can get away with it. It is laughable to think that their idea of pushback even matters. It's like the boy who cried wolf for the hundredth time--and there is still no wolf.
Gillespie brought up some other grievances, too, including NBC News coverage of the Iraq war and the nation's economic woes. The White House was not happy when NBC News decided to call the situation in Iraq a civil war and called attention to its decision.
And that wasn't all.
The White House didn't just send its letter of complaint to NBC. It blasted it out to every reporter who receives White House press releases and posted it prominently on the White House Web site.
At least they care to try to spin things nowadays. Is anyone paying attention anymore? Is there a single American, outside of the blind 26% or so who will never accept reality, who believes anything these people say?
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