Exclusive: White House Held Meeting To Pressure Reporters On ‘Division’ Among War Critics
Exclusive: White House Held Meeting To Pressure Reporters On ‘Division’ Among War Critics
Last week, Bush administration officials invited senior congressional reporters to the White House and pressured them to increase their coverage of how Iraq war critics are “divided” over legislative strategy, multiple sources have confirmed with ThinkProgress.
The sources say White House officials pointed to examples of national political reporters who have highlighted such “division” and pressed the congressional reporters to follow suit. Specifically, the White House pointed to a recent AP piece on Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), which reported that Obama believes that “[i]f President Bush vetoes an Iraq war spending bill as promised, Congress quickly will provide the money without the withdrawal timeline the White House objects to.” In a speech this week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) also drew attention to the AP’s characterization:
When the president vetoes, as he should, the bill that refuses to support General Petraeus’ new plan, I hope Democrats in Congress will heed the advice of one of their leading candidates for president, Senator Obama, and immediately pass a new bill to provide support to our troops in Iraq without substituting their partisan interests for those of our troops and our country.
The effort to highlight this article is notable because it turned out to be baseless. The AP report never directly quoted Obama saying that Congress would give up its fight for a withdrawal timeline, and Obama has said the AP’s characterization is false. Indeed, Obama has been quoted saying the direct opposite — that Congress will continue to force votes on a timeline — both before and after the AP report.
In fact, congressional opponents of the war are remarkably united on efforts to set a timeline for redeployment, bolstered by consistent public opinion polls showing broad public support for withdrawal. Meanwhile, conservatives are splintering. This week, a “diverse collection of House Republicans has formed an ad hoc group” to encourage the White House “to compromise on negotiations with Syria and Iran and on setting a date for withdrawal from Iraq.”
The White House is in a losing fight and wants the media to help them carry water. We’ll be watching to see if any congressional reporters fall in line and write up the White House spin.
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So if I understand this message, what is wrong with Bush’s failure in Iraq is that reporters aren’t talking about how war critics are “divided?” And Bush wonders why is approval is frozen at the 30% range?
April 13th, 2007 at 11:42 amJesus-tapdancing-Christ! Why doesn’t the administration just furnish the ‘news’ agencies with a script, and tell them that deviating from it will render them liable to
April 13th, 2007 at 11:42 amprosecutionpersecution under the PATRIOT Act???Direct from the Offices of the Ministry of Truth
April 13th, 2007 at 11:46 am#2 – TMM
That would be very doubleplus ungood.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:48 amThis administration is obsessed with manipulating people’s perceptions. Of course it’s a media game. But the Republicans and their “conservative” lackeys always pretend that “the media” is against them. They are the same group of thugs.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:49 amIf you want to see “division” just wait until this fall when Republicans up for re-election in 2008 run from Bush and the neocons at a dead sprint. Any politician with any notion of being elected will have one choice–end the war. No timelines, no benchmarks–just get us the hell out of there.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:49 amSo much for Bush’s trying to leapfrog the media, and talk directly to the American people. Now the strategy appears to be to lecture them on how to do their jobs. I’m sure Cambell Brown and her ilk needed no prodding. She seems to enjoy spewing rightist talking points.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:50 amLet me get this straight….
The White House calls reporters into a meeting to try to tell them how to report the news, and (1) they attended!? (2) the fact that the WH is calling this type of meeting wasn’t a great big story in itself?
Geez….
April 13th, 2007 at 11:51 amBush is desperate and will do anything to keep the Iraq Fiasco War funded for the rest of his term in office. Only way to stop the war is to remove the entire Bush Regime by impeachment.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:54 amMy money is on John Soloman as the first journalist/toady to run with the story.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:03 pmI’m a Uniter” … snark…. BushCo is a plague on this country. I am glad to see the tide turning on them and the realization by even the GOP that there are mighty bad times coming for most Republicans in this country. The stink of worst Presidency on our nations history is in the air folks.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:03 pmQuestion now is will “Bush the Cabinet/ and the next 300 Regugs below him all get away with their misdeeds and disappear in Jan/2009? to rise another day? I say most likely – just like in the Nixon Administration.
Exactly who were these senior congressional reports that went to the White House? They need to be watched to see how they are reporting.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:04 pmI don’t follow the media closely enough to do it myself, but by now it should be possible to name the individual reporters who jumped on White House command this time around.
A systematic documentation of the flow of Rove talking points should make it possible to say pretty definitively which media people are the worst. There won’t be any big surprises, or not many, but having it all laid out in summary, in tables that can be referenced and kept updated, could ruin some reputations. (Halperin, for example, has almost self-destructed by now, but there are a lot more lower-profile guys who are just as bad.)
April 13th, 2007 at 12:06 pmThe Bushites REALLY have NO compunction about LYING…
…I’m pretty sure their characterization of Senator Obama’s remarks came from his interview on Letterman…
…and I distinctly remember hearing Obama say that…
…(paraphrasing) “Yes the troops would get funding, but not without some kind of time table/ phased withdrawal plan…”
…But leave it to Bushiva, L’il Dick and company to…
…leave out the part they didn’t like…
…and the people aren’t burning sh*t up because?
April 13th, 2007 at 12:07 pmI want a list of these journalists and who they work for.
Send it to the Society of Professional Journalists and demand they censure these hacks for violating their code of ethics.
Publish this list in the media and shame these hacks.
Journalism is not propaganda. This bullshit has to stop.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:08 pmSoooooo………
The corrupt administration is lying and asking the MSM to aid and abet them in those lies.
And my surprise factor is…
About 0.00023%
Rounded up.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:14 pmThose journalists probably all work for Fox Noise.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:15 pmWe will rejoice when the amount of Bush water is reduced to the point that it fits in a bathtub or, better yet, a toilet and then we can flush it to join the rest of its kind.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:16 pmThis article did say one important and truthful thing, “The White House is in a losing fight”
The scary part is this; “wants the media to help them carry water.” As if we don’t have enough wingnuts spewing their filthy propaganda already.
A cornered rat will do just about anything to survive. We need to exterminate all of the rats so that we don’t have another plague again.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:16 pmGeez, talk about rearranging the deck chairs.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:17 pmAnd the media will do as they are told. Remember David Gregory dancing with Rove, whoopin it up. THAT is our MSM, whored to the max willingly by the White house.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:26 pmReporters’ names, please. We need to ask them a few questions.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:29 pmThe bloggers and sites such as Media Matter and Think Progress must stay on top of this, as we know the MSM sources like the networks and CNN, MSNBC and Faux News will not.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:42 pmHow is this even legal??? Don’t we have Freedom of the Press? Can’t they report the facts as they see them? What kind of “pressure” is the White House using exactly? Are media organizations being punished if they do not become a partisan tool of the administration?
I’m so sick of hearing about this administration using the Constitution and Bill of Rights as toilet paper.
Impeach these criminals already!!!!
April 13th, 2007 at 12:43 pmThe skull of Joseph Goebbels is smiling.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:44 pmThis is why I get so angry at Kos and other bloggers who rant so vehemently about Clinton’s vote to authorize the war. Not only do they totally mischaracterize what that vote meant and what her position on the war is, but it divides the Democrats, which plays into the hands of the Right Wing.
April 13th, 2007 at 12:46 pm[...] Exclusive: White House Held Meeting To Pressure Reporters On ‘Division’ Among War Critics—Think Progress reports that, “last week, Bush administration officials invited senior [...]
April 13th, 2007 at 12:53 pmWhat I want to know is what it means to “pressure” the reporters? Were they just urged to make that argument or were they threatened somehow? Like if you don’t say it this way, we won’t talk to you anymore????
What does “pressure” mean?
April 13th, 2007 at 1:00 pmI bet Faux NoNooz reporters were sitting at the head of the table!!
April 13th, 2007 at 1:06 pmLet me fix this for you:
Those “journalists” probably all work for Fox Noise.
There you go.
April 13th, 2007 at 1:25 pmHeadline should read “Whitehouse puts pressure on reporters to function as stenographers again”. I find it rather sick that the Whitehouse should even be in a position to apply pressure on reporters to toe the line on GOP talking points. The news story here is the pressure being applied, not any supposed division within the ranks of Democrats. It is a different matter if the Whitehouse wants to pressure McCain to repeat the talking points. My guess is that most reporters still lack the backbone to stand up to administration pressure and I frankly don’t understand it.
April 13th, 2007 at 1:29 pmYou’re right, Spudge Boy. How silly of me to forget.
April 13th, 2007 at 1:34 pmDid they all get an envelope on the way out?
April 13th, 2007 at 2:33 pmThe AP has been a tool of the GOP for years, this is just the same old Republican Wind and Noise machine, powered by their methane driven sh*t machines.
April 13th, 2007 at 2:56 pmMinistry of Propaganda Threatens Lackeys.
-GSD
April 13th, 2007 at 3:16 pmYou know what the most amazing thing about this story is?
The fact that it came to light in the first place.
The corporate owners and editors of the GOP’s media arms may still be lockstep with Bush, but it looks like the actual reporters are starting to find ways to revolt.
April 13th, 2007 at 3:18 pmThose journalists probably all work for Fox Noise.
That’s just not true. AP, Time, The Times, The Post, ABC, NBC, CNN — the respectable media have Republican plants too.
April 13th, 2007 at 3:27 pm“Let me get this straight….
The White House calls reporters into a meeting to try to tell them how to report the news, and (1) they attended!? (2) the fact that the WH is calling this type of meeting wasn’t a great big story in itself?
Geez….”
Comment by Zooey — April 13, 2007 @ 11:51 am
—————
We need to start asking (taunting?) White House reporters about HOW LONG they’ve been going to such meetings in which the administration tries to tell them how to report the news, and whether they haven’t told us about such meetings long ago because they were doing what the administration wanted.
April 13th, 2007 at 3:49 pmBefore racing to draw and quarter the journalists involved, you need to know that part of the reporter’s job is to attend such briefings. The vast majority of them are off-the-record and non-controversial.
It’s possible, even likely, that the reporters did not know the subject of the discussion before they got there.
That said, the proper response in such a scenario is to tell the briefer that you’ll write what you damn well please and to leave the meeting.
What we don’t know:
>> Which reporters attended the meeting;
April 13th, 2007 at 5:07 pm>> What they said in response to the pressure to write slanted stories
This behavior is completely understandable for this crowd; they have no clue how to govern, and their skills are limited to manipulating public perceptions for the short term (as in “until the imminent election”). They are all at sea now because “getting elected” is no solution to the problems of the world crying out for true leadership and “getting elected” alone is itself useless for governing over a longer term.
April 13th, 2007 at 5:07 pmFrom the article:
“Last week, Bush administration officials invited senior congressional reporters to the White House and pressured them to increase their coverage of how Iraq war critics are “divided†over legislative strategy.”
“The White House is in a losing fight and wants the media to help them carry water.”
The smell of desperation continues to emanate from the White House! There is nothing new in the WH doing this. What is interesting is that they are doing it out in the open where their bullying can be reported on. The Librul MSM has been carrying BushCos water for 6 years. That they have to try intimidation openly is a very positive sign.
I hope we can all stand the increasing stench coming out of the WH as the continuing daily scandles continue to be exposed.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:03 pm“A Picture of Dorian Gray” comes to mind, as the bodies without souls that make up BushCo rot more quickly.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
[...] CEO is demanding a progress report and giving them a kick in the pants to get moving. And then there’s the media: Last week, Bush administration officials invited senior congressional reporters to the White House [...]
April 13th, 2007 at 10:13 pm[...] current stenography industry standard. But the War Department saying ‘pretty please’? Different times, [...]
April 14th, 2007 at 1:09 amEveryone needs to repeat again and again: We all know the media follows a well-coordinated right-wing agenda.
April 14th, 2007 at 10:07 am