White House press corps hasn’t asked Perino about DOJ politicization.
By on Jul 29th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
White House press corps hasn’t asked Perino about DOJ politicization.
Desipite yesterday’s explosive report confirming that top Justice Department officials, including Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson, had violated federal law, the White House press corps has not asked White House press secretary Dana Perino a single question about it. Both yesterday’s and today’s press briefings included no discussion of the report, nor a question on whether Attorney General Mukasey would follow through on a criminal perjury referral from Congress.
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perino must be ignoring helen thomas’ frantically waving hand then…
July 29th, 2008 at 2:42 pmWhy would the WH press corps ask Perino an uncomfortable question ? (well, except for Helen). Can’t we all just get along ?
In seriousness, I have to wonder of Politicization of the Justice Department is just too theoretical a concept for the Press to grasp the importance of.
Now if there were a piece of anatomy involved….
July 29th, 2008 at 2:43 pmDana… Dana… about the DOJ and…
Saaaaaaaay… isn’t that Britney Spears over there… and oh, look!!! She isn’t wearing any panties, AGAIN!!!!!!!
That little minx… uh, what were we discussing??????
July 29th, 2008 at 2:43 pmDid Jeff Gannon get his job back?
July 29th, 2008 at 2:44 pmOf course, the report was complete and understandable enough that there really isn’t much left to ask about the report itself.
However, I have a LOT of questions about the rest of the DoJ besides Goodling and Sampson, not to mention questions about the fallout from the report. You’d think that the WH press corps would, too.
So where’s Helen Thomas?
July 29th, 2008 at 2:44 pmyou expect the white house press whores to begin doing their job now??!?!
July 29th, 2008 at 2:44 pmyou guys act like the dismantling of America is news
don’t you realize there is a celebrity acting foolish and a pretty white girl missing?
where are your priorities?
/snark
July 29th, 2008 at 2:45 pmCan’t entirely fault the press on this. The reporters know that Dana Bimborino will give a predictable response . . . something like “I am not aware of that happening”, blah, blah, blah.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:45 pmwhy bother? the AG was on the Hill in the days before the report was released and basically said those that violated the law (and have been named and caught) have lost their jobs and that, to him, was sufficient. Congress isn’t going to do anything. Why should some reporter exert themselves for what is an extremely old story with no satisfactory outcome for anyone who actually might care about the administration of justice, as opposed to rank favoritism. It’s like beating the dead horse, eventually you know that she’s going to deny the very facts staring her in the face and spew mindnumbing bs. why start doing their job now?
July 29th, 2008 at 2:47 pmIf the news poobahs had any sense of humor (or irony), they’d just insert an old tape of dana saying the same old thing over and over….
sorta like the Daily Show does….
July 29th, 2008 at 2:51 pmDoes anyone really expect the White House press corps to ask anything resembling a tough, uncomfortable question to the person at the podium?
They are there to take notes, then parrot them to us -the unwashed masses- to let us know what our Caring, Glorious (mis)Leader is going to do next.
July 29th, 2008 at 2:52 pmGood boy . . . SIT! . . . roll over . . .
July 29th, 2008 at 2:53 pmAsking Miss Fluffball Dana about anything is probably just a waste of time these days…
July 29th, 2008 at 2:54 pmWas the Press Corps too busy hammering Perino with questions about McClellan’s assertions of the WH using FOX News as it’s pet parrot? Sorry…what the hell was I thinking?
July 29th, 2008 at 2:57 pmDear Think Progress:
“Desipite” is not a word.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:01 pm“Refferal” is not a word.
Ali, please correct these words: Desipite and refferal. Thank you.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:07 pmI suppose the WH press corpse (sic) may have been thinking that if they asked Dana Purina her thoughts on the latest scandal involving a blonde reich wing nazi zealot, she may have started crying “but I didn’t do it — Obama did!” Given that possible outcome, perhaps they just punted…
July 29th, 2008 at 3:10 pmMan, that liberal media will stop at nothing to keep neocons in power will it?
July 29th, 2008 at 3:11 pmThe media was too busy rolling over to the White House on energy. Bush wants a bill by Friday and he needs it to beat ExxonMobile’s earnings release, sure to show guargantuan profits like BP and ConocoPhillips.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:14 pmI guess even David ‘Stretch’ Gregory couldn’t get his hand up in time to question something in Dubya’s regime, huh? All those cocktail parties and BBQ’s must really work.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:15 pmWhy should they bother to ask her anything at all about anything? All she does is stammer and stutter while she’s trying to get through the lie that she always gives as an answer. Meh. I really can’t stand to watch any of her pressers.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:28 pmJeff Gannon must be back throwing softballs to Cappuccino Parino. She would lie but I would like to hear what kind of lie they tell her to say.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:31 pmFOX has this story about the DOJ buried. Why not help by clicking it and pushing the story to the top. Will of the people. People!
July 29th, 2008 at 3:44 pmhttp://www.foxnews.com/wires/2008Jun25/0,4670,JusticeSelectiveProsecution,00.html
What this proves is that the white house press corp is told what questions they can ask and what questions they can’t ask. Either that or Perino only calls on reporters she knows won’t ask embarrassing questions of the administration. Any way you look at it, these press conferences are a total waste of time and energy.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:48 pmIgnoranceIsNotBliss Says:
Why should they bother to ask her anything at all about anything? All she does is stammer and stutter while she’s trying to get through the lie that she always gives as an answer. Meh. I really can’t stand to watch any of her pressers.
Frankly, I’ve thought for years that the Washington Press Corps, if they had any integrity at all, wouldn’t even attend these dog and pony shows. If they had any integrity, they’d be doing or supporting investigative reporting, instead of accepting and then repeating the administration’s lies. Our “free press” is largely an illusion now. Just like our democracy and our Constitution.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:51 pmHeh. Instead of the “WHITE House” we ought to just call it the “WHORE House” and get it the hell over with.
July 29th, 2008 at 3:51 pmLook for the yellow streaks down their backs. Where’s Helen?
July 29th, 2008 at 4:05 pmToday’s Republican Party is a freak show of hate-filled sociopaths, immoral religious and social extremists, insecure, overcompensating, irresponsible, dangerously incompetent, war-mongering imperialists and greedy, exploitive corporate anarchists. Just look at the odious and inadequate carnival barkers and snake oil salesmen the Republican Party had competing to be their presidential candidate. Being an Irish Catholic Democrat raised with four younger siblings by an uneducated single mom, I have never agreed with social conservatives, but compared to Bush’s Republican Party Eisenhower’s Republican Party was a liberal bastion of social and economic enlightenment and pluralism. Defending the actions of today’s Republican Party is advocating ignorance and evil over common sense and common decency. It would be hard to imagine that any presidential administration, Republican or Democrat, could have been as malicious, polarizing, undemocratic, corrupt or destructively pernicious to the founding causes and defining principles of our republic than George W. Bush’s. I am surprised that I am ashamed for the “good” Republicans, only because I could not have possibly imagined how “bad” some Americans were capable of being.
July 29th, 2008 at 4:21 pmSo why would the WH press whores – ooops, I mean — corps want to ask about corruption in the DOJ? You think that’s newsworthy? Goodling is so yesterday!
July 29th, 2008 at 4:26 pmNEW YORK (July 25) — A new documentary about White House reporting legend Helen Thomas premiered this week at the National Press Club, with plans for its television debut on HBO in mid-August.
But Thomas, 87, missed the showing on Wednesday night because she is still recovering from an illness that has sidelined her since May and is likely to keep her off the job until at least Labor Day.
July 29th, 2008 at 4:33 pmWhere is Helen Thomas?
Helen Thomas has been battling a stomach infection since May. I think I read that she may not be able to come back.
July 29th, 2008 at 4:37 pmYep – an 87-year-old woman has more stones than the rest of the WHPC put together…
July 29th, 2008 at 4:41 pmThat is a very indicting fact!
July 29th, 2008 at 4:42 pmForget Dana, where’s Harry Reid? Why aren’t the Dems demanding a special prosecutor? There is a clear pattern here. Ms. Goodling has an interesting resume. Rove’s assistant to Abramoff’s assistant to the DOJ. Maybe, just maybe she didn’t think up this little plot all by herself.
July 29th, 2008 at 5:07 pmEspecially considering similar instances with both Lurita Doan and Ken Tomlinson who were forced to resign from their departments for the same thing. The connections between all of this is Rove and the RNC. It’s called a criminal conspiracy and it’s as obvious as the sun shining in a clear blue sky but we’re supposed to pretend we don’t see it.
There is no White House press corps. There is, however, the White House transcriber corps. Their job is to accurately repeat whatever the Bush crime family says. An actual real, tough question has no place with this covey of shorthand experts.
July 29th, 2008 at 5:33 pmDana Perino has a pretty good idea who will and will not ask the tough questions. She has a long history, for instance, of not calling on Eric Brewer of BTC News and Salon.
July 29th, 2008 at 5:33 pmWhen she does call on the reporter (may be Eric Brewer; I’m not sure) who writes for RawStory, she never uses his name. Instead, she nods or snips, “Go ahead.”
She’s a real piece of work — a loyal Bushie of the kool-aid-iest order who regularly interrupts the question and assumes its direction. That, plus the whole beginning-her-answers-with-the-word-”Look” pattern, makes me crazy.
At the same time, we all know the response before the question: “We’re processing the report and have to believe the researchers in Justice did their job. That’s all the comment we have.”
“But Dana, what about the longterm . . . ”
“We have no additional comment about people who no longer work in the administration; you’ll need to take that up with Justice.”
July 29th, 2008 at 6:01 pmCome on, it’s a game. The so-called White House Press Conference is a game, a sham, political theater. Half the press is shills and when they get no answer they pretend they have gotten some tidbit. Dana P’s role is to fend off questions that don’t further the Bush Party Line or to pretend she’s ignorant. So what good would it do? And why are the headline writers acting stupidly by bring this subject up time and time again? The only thing that counts is taking action, like issuing a subpoena and following up on it by jailing the person, or by getting a prosecutor to issue charges against an individual. Until that “action” happens, this is all the stupid smoke and mirrors we can expect from any media (including by the way the blogosphere).
July 29th, 2008 at 6:11 pmThe politicized White House press corps obviously sees nothing wrong with politicizing the Justice Department. A good Republican never criticizes or questions another good Republican’s actions.
July 29th, 2008 at 6:32 pmA good example of the reich-wing mind at work.
July 29th, 2008 at 6:35 pmMore “kabuki theatre” without the make-up, the good music or a worthy plot line. No one should be surprised.
July 29th, 2008 at 7:25 pmThe press corps are asleep at the wheel.
July 29th, 2008 at 8:33 pmI think a good starter question for Perino is does she know we have a DOJ.
I bet she’d say she will look into it and get back to them.
July 29th, 2008 at 10:55 pmIt took them long enough to find Dana Perino, the perfect press secretary for the Bush administration. With Miss Dana, they need not worry about a defection and subsequent tell-all manuscript, a la Scott McClellan. The beauty of Perino is that she reflects, pitch perfect, the density of the people for whom she is a mouthpiece…nice window dressing, total dearth of substance. Fascism is best served when all involved have a combination of petulance, ignorance, a complete lack of intellectual curiosity and an imagined sense of superiority.
I am waiting for the day that Helen Thomas gives her a taste of the back of a hand. I will personally pay bail if necessary.
July 30th, 2008 at 8:28 am