Perino says WH criticism of Fox what “dictators do” — but she attacked NBC News for Bush
Posted Oct 20, 2009, 10:29 PM PT by Jed Lewison
Transcript:
PERINO (Fox News contributor, Oct. 20, 2009): They’ve actually been attacking Fox for many months, but increasingly so in the last five weeks. You have to wonder what their priorities are.
MIKE EMANUEL (Fox News, May 20, 2008): On the back-and-forth between you guys and NBC News, one of the issues Ed Gillespie brings up is NBC calling Iraq a civil war for a period, and then Ed notes that it stopped around September of 2007. Then Ed asks in his exchange with NBC, "Will the network publicly declare the civil war has ended, or that it was wrong to declare it in the first place?" I’m wondering if you guys have gotten a response on that matter, and if not, are you still calling for a response from NBC?
PERINO (WH Press Secretary): We have not heard back from them on that specific matter. We anxiously await any response that we would get on it. But I think it’s quite telling that they have been silent.
HANNITY (Oct. 20, 2009): For the media to allow this to happen to Fox, I think is foolish. I would expect the media any day now to come to Fox’s defense. Jake Tapper, to his credit, asked some pretty interesting questions today, but are they making a mistake by letting the White House isolate them and are they putting themselves in a position where they’re compromised?
PERINO: It’s astounding to me that they would be, that they would just sit back and let it all happen because I have a feeling that if I had done this from the White House podium that their reaction would have been different.
PERINO (May 20, 2008): The reason that we sent the letter yesterday is because we had gotten fed up with the way that the President’s policies are being mischaracterized.
PERINO (Oct. 20, 2009): Well here’s what I think, let’s step back for a second. When you are the White House, you don’t just speak to the sixteen reporters who are in the room. What you say at that podium really matters, what you say as the chief of staff or other members of senior staff matters to everybody, including emerging democracies around the world. What they see is what they see dictators do, right? They go after legitimate news organizations, and they think that that’s okay.
PERINO (5/20/08): We had complained before. And it just reached a boiling point when things had boiled over when we believed that NBC News specifically edited out — intentionally edited out — something that the President said in response to a question in an interview regarding Iran, and that it mischaracterized the whole interview because of it.
I remember very distinctly how there was quite the pomp and circumstance when NBC, on the Today Show, decided to declare — that they were declaring that Iraq was a civil war. But since then, after the surge and things certainly improved in Iraq, NBC has never had a corresponding ceremony to say that Iraq is not in a civil war. I was just curious to find out what they believe. And the same goes with the economy.
