McClellan: White House gave FOX commentators talking points
By SilentPatriot Thursday Jul 24, 2008 8:10pm
This just in from the Department of the Obvious: Scott McClellan admits to Chris Matthews that the White House made a deliberate effort to use FOX News commentators like Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly to disseminate White House talking points.
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Matthews: "Did you see FOX television as a tool when you were in the White House? As a useful avenue to get your message out?"
McClellan: "I make a distinction between the journalists and the commentators. Certainly there were commentators and other, pundits at FOX News, that were useful to the White House." [...] That was something we at the White House, yes, were doing, getting them talking points and making sure they knew where we were coming from.
Matthews: "So you were using these commentators as your spokespeople."
McClellan: "Well, certainly."
Straight from the source. Enough with the "fair and balanced" crap already.
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frist?
Trouble is, the democracy-challenged folks that watch Fox's propagandist drivel, will
blame the liberal media, viciously attack McClellan, deny everything, while playing the victim and whining, like only the right wing can.
Sure, it's nice that Scotty has admitted it, but then again, who hasn't figured it out anyway. Much like his book, is it a matter of better late than never or too little, too late?
The follow up question should have been...
"Gee, Scott, were these people rewarded with access to the White House or like Armstrong Williams, were these people just cut a check for their 'helpfulness and patriotism'?"
Too many people in the past 7 years have said too stupid things for them not to have been paid to say them.
Well, when Tony Snow invited Hannity and all the other right wing media spinners to the W.H. for a face to face with dipshit himself it kind of was obvious then.
Nice of Scotty to come clean, though
aw, come on, he's just bitter. Bitter I say!
The Republicans do have a daily talking point website, saw it once.
Its good for them as they all talk off the same script, but that encourages group think and conformity.
Its talking points and ideology dictated from on high, no discussion allowed, so a bad thing for individuality,
and just ends up cloning mindless Rethugs.
hardly surprising. Fox propoganda network isnt news, its a 24 hours republican/right wing propoganda machine. They do not report news (except large breaking news like 9/11), their sole purpose, which has been admitted by their leaders, is to elect Republicans and push the neo-con position and viewpoint.
Lets all drop the pretense.
To be fair. Everyone tries to play the refs but Fox Noise is the only one the plays along completely.
Well, well, WELL!!
odanny @ 5:
Tony Blair did the same thing in the UK in 1997, invited all the MSM to Downing Str for a quiet chat.
same rethug mentality, onmessage, no dissent allowed.
TB was New Labour and supposedly socialist but rather necon in some ways, quite happy to go along with Chimpy's wars.
I'll bet no trolls will visit this post.....can't blame this one on Obama's FISA vote. LOL.
I'm happy that someone gave Scotty a moral enema and the "shit" (so to speak) is finally coming out. Only problem is, we knew his (and his masters) shit stank a long time ago.
Why didn't he come out when the US soldier death toll hit 2000??
That's not the Scotty that the W.H. used to know and love. What have the librul media done with the real Scotty?
Faux news -
we reportwe get our talking points straight from the White House,you decideyou're a dumbass if you actually believe what we sayjoeedugan @ 14:
Throw somebody under the bus, and guess what they get angry.
and you bet your keister rupert murdoch will try to duck out like mola ram escaping through the trap door in "temple of doom". i hear mr. deng's already sucking up to obama, zbegniew & hagel.
leave no stone unturned, folks.
I'm surprised Scotty hasn't mysteriously died from some kind of heart attack or car accident. I still think he's holding back a LOT, or they never let him get too, too close, but he's still trying to say that Bush is a good guy.
So the advertisers are in effect making a political contribution.
The definition of a Fox News moral crisis: When the Whitehouse talking points vary from the morning memo.
I sure wish McClellan would stop insisting that 'everybody does' what his shit-stain fascist bosses do. Everyone does *not* do that.
Anybody else remember this?
Six weeks before the 2006 elections:
Media Matters (Mon, Sep 18, 2006):
White House soiree: Boortz, Hannity, Gallagher, Medved and Ingraham were reportedly invited to meet with Bush in the Oval Office
From the AJC article referenced at Media Matters (registration required):
gosh, who would have thought.
This caught my eye, too. It deserves broadcasting wide throughout the blogosphere and beyond.
Opens questions. Lots of questions. Who are the journalists at Fox and who are the commentators?
Did the journalists know the commentators were getting talking points scripted for them?
Will Howie Kurtz care?
These and other burning questions will be answered.....um....nevah?
well duh!
i'm wondering if it's possible to sue those freaks for something like false advertising, or fraudulent representation... or anything which forces them to drop "news" from their title...
Forget Fox News, they're just the most overt. The follow up should have been: What other media outlets besides Fox News did you hand your talking points to with the confidence that they would run with them? Did they include NBC, MSNBC, CNN, ABC or CBS or any print media outlets such as the NYT or Wapo?
Umm... the "Cheetos Brigade" already knew this.
As usual Mathews doesn't do very much digging on a pretty big claim by Scotty Boy. Yes most of us know Fox isn't a legit news organization (not that there are many left in this country) but Mathews should have started digging real hard on this topic. He should have asked:
- what stories exactly were fed to Fox?
- who was the person/persons in contact with Fox and how exactly would it take place? Was it a phone call directly to Hannity and Bill O' or was it to the producers?
- how often was this done?
- was Fox the only news channel that received this kind of attention or were there other networks/persons that were also contacted and given talking points?
- was Fox given questions that were written by the WH to ask at press conf. to make the administration look better?
- Did the president and or vice president know this and/or were they also actively involved in it?
- what if any kickbacks were given to Fox for their loyalties - money, access, personal favors?
Of course every administration has a go to guy or gal in the media that they try and use/abuse to get their message out. This is usually done by a reporter who is looking to climb the ladder and will do anything to get to the top (see NYT reporter J. Miller) or someone the adm. feels can be easily duped (see VP Cheney and MTP host T. Russert) but not by a whole news channel. Well until Fox came along.
klunk @ 26:
good point, confronting Faux directly is like banging head against a brick wall, slow and painful.
forcing them to rename themselves due to false advertising would be a good tactic.
tr @ 23:
I agree .
But I am , at the same time . "shocked.'.
And in additiion , I have checked the latest polls and it seems
that in at least 12 states ( as a minimum) McCain leads by 8% to 20 %.
Can anyone comment.
because McCain may win , in November.
Trawled Alien @ 29:
when that 'news' channel is run by a Republican hack, then its predictable.
SCHRODINGER'S CAT @ 31:
SCHRODINGER'S CAT @ 31:
then America loses, and we are all in for some pain.
McSenile wont last beyond three months in the job tho, ides of march, his VP and all that.
Get the Late Night Comedians, SNL, MADTV and so forth to parody them relentlessly. Mock them at every turn. Call out their bogus stories on the Evening News. Throw their "reporters" out of every press conference - preferably with a slick "Sorry, Journalists Only" sound-byte to go with it. Only by turning FOX into a national joke, with everyone from the Kentucky trailer parks to the Manhattan penthouses to the Wyoming ranches laughing at them will the right wing noise machine be silenced.
Nice to have it confirmed, but I think anyone with half a brain knew that
klunk @ 26:
Rachel Maddow stated several times on Countdown tonight that what Faux did is illegal.
Trawled Alien @ 33:
seattlepete @ 37:
what about CBS and their editing together of McNasty's interview with Couric to make him appear sane.
As a radical, I supported Bush in 2004, and support McCain in 2008 - the best men to run the Empire into the ground, good and hard.
My only regret is that Dubya can't do an FDR, and serve 4 terms.
Like THIS is news. And given that 97% of ALL media is owned by 6 entities . . . just who in the hell do you think is in charge here? It sure as shit ain't "we the people." Any control we think we have is a fantasy.
moniker @ 19:
My whole family watches that shit network and they've been turned into salt.
dahoz @ 4:
What do you mean? You've got it completely backwards! The White House wasn't rewarding the Fox News staff for being a mouthpiece for George Bush. Fox News was rewarding the White House staff for being a mouthpiece for Roger "Jabba The Hut" Ailes and Rupert Murdoch. Let's not put the cart before the horse (or the jackass in this case).
seattlepete @ 37:
It sure as hell would seem so, but, IOKIYAR.
ferrofluid (change 08) @ 39:
At least CBS didn't get their talking points directly from the government, as awful as corporate media is.
White House gave FOX commentators talking points
Sean Hannity has made a career out of repeating White Hosue talking points.
After 2001 FOX News became the official state party propaganda outlet. Sort of like TASS was in the seventies.
To their credit, I don't think they ever denied that fact. With the exception of Bill Oreilly, who's so delusional it's actually entertaining to watch him sometimes.
No kidding, Fox News is run by George Bush's first cousin, Roger Ailes.
jitter @ 47:
Only channel Cheney will watch.
Why didn't they use CNN or MSNBC? Oh, that's right, those networks were already in the tank for the Democrats.
how will o'reilley attempt to slither out of this one. His normal ploy is to try and discredit the source with lies and innuendos and if that doesn't work, he just counts on the extreme ignorance of the heartland.
klunk @ 26:
Hahah! You're kidding, aren't you? Been there/done that--twice.
1. Fox has already been sued for using the slogan 'fair and balanced.' Fox won the case. The holding was basically that, in the entertainment industry, you can claim just about anything you want, and it doesn't matter. If Captain Kangaroo can call himself a Captain when he has no Master Mariner's certificate, Bill-O can certainly call himself a journalist, and Fox propaganda can call itself a 'news' network, etc.
2.Al Franken consulted his lawyer on behalf of Jeremy Glick to see if Glick could sue O'Reilly for slander for distorting what Glick had said on his show. The lawyer said that, in order for you to sue somebody for slander, they have to be credible in the first place, and the lie or distortion has to be the exception rather than the rule. But when you're dealing with somebody who habitually lies and distorts, you can't really sue them because they're not credible to begin with. (Or, at least not to anybody with an IQ higher than a goose.)
Well, knock me over with a feather, I say! Or, in the words of Gomer Pyle...Su-prize, Su-prize, Su-prize!!!
And it took him until he left the Bush W.H. to figure out they were bad... unethical... douchebags. Whatever Scotty.
Shocking. Too bad they have deluded half the country and nobody says a damn word.
I am Shocked! I would have never thought that would happen!
Americans now know most of the corruption that's taken place by the Bush Administration over the pass 7 years. Scott is just telling us what we already know. Now Americans don't seem to care that Bush put the US in a recession and a weak Military.
As millions of Americans lose their jobs and homes still they follow the Republican Party. Obama was greeted by over 200,000 people yet the Republicans can only say the people were trash. Now McCain is in a food store and looking like an idiot and he goes to a German restaurant with a few people and that's big news. A barrel of oil dropped 23 dollars while the price of gas is still over 4 dollars. Do the math and you'll see Americans are being robbed by the White House and the Oil Companies.
Faux News - Bush's propaganda outlet.
Yellow Cake is for Twinkies @ 48:
I believe you're mistaking Roger Ailes for John Ellis.
SCHRODINGER'S CAT @ 31:
I really doubt that McCain could even manufacture a win. He's going to drop the ball way before November.
Somebody in the White House must have farted on Scotty's best suit because he's come out swinging.
Trawled Alien @ 29:
I'd also like to know what range of topics these talking points covered. I think most of us assume that they would be the official White House line on things like the Plame cover-up, the torture cover-ups, domestic spying, the Iraq occupation, etc-- but I'd like to have it defined.
I'd also like to know just how petty it could get. Did the White House specifically direct their propaganda network to describe critics as "disgruntled employees", for instance. Did they direct Fox to make specific attacks on Democratic candidates, etc., etc.
It's probably safe to assume so, but still-- specifics would be good.
Well now. THAT'S shocking, isn't it.
Yellow Cake is for Twinkies @ 48:
No, Fox News is run by Roger Ailes, who was a hired Republican media consultant for Nixon, Reagan, and Bush Sr., and was one of the campaign managers (along with Lee Atwater) for Bush Sr.s election in 1988. You're probably thinking of John Prescott Ellis, who is Bush's first cousin, and who was running the Fox News election coverage on election night 2000, and who was the first (and only) network election news manager to call the election for Bush in Florida, and hence the election itself. The other 'real' news networks had already called the election for Gore.
But hey, just because the network is run by a Republican campaign manager, and the election news manager is Bush's first cousin does NOT mean they can't be fair and balanced.
Pericles @ 64:
Bush had plants at FOX, in Florida and on the Supreme Court. How could he not "win" the election?
whjatever scott's motivation, he is giving a heck of a lot of fodder that still has to be denied. When they deny what someone in the know is divulging they just come out looking very ignorant themselves. the veins on o'reilley's neck must be ready to burst.
Carol @ 36:
Nice to have it confirmed, even though I knew it just like you did.
Nice to have it confirmed. Period.
From the mouthpiece of the horse's ass.
harley @ 49:
It strokes his ego to hear his own words broadcast to the masses every day.
Confirmed, but old news.
Everything Scotty has told us we already knew. Now it is pretty much verified. But the repugs think we are all too ignorant to have figured it out when all of Fox's pundits kept using the same "key" words and talking points. Bet they thought we would never figure it out. That has been the admnistration's mistake for years, we are smarter than they give us credit for. Just nothing we can do about their criminal activities. We can talk and complain til we are blue in the face and nothing happens. Never has, never will. "Just keep sending us your tax money boys and girls and we will run things. Don't bother your pretty little heads about it." Look where that got us. And things won't change when Mclame gets elected. And elected he will be. There are too many idiots and racists in this country to have it any other way. I already know I will be crying on election night because our country is doomed. God help us.
This is no different than Chris Matthews on his anniversary stating that someone from the vice presidents office calls them on a daily basis to state what they should or should not say. Not surprised our news is being suppressed. Hopefully none of you are surprised as well. I turned off my television 2 years ago. I had a strong addiction to 24 hour news channels and found myself quoting people I now loath. Once I began to search for my own news the truth came before me. We have lost our constitutional right to free press. The organization (reporters without borders) that rates press freedom places us today as of 7/25 between Nicaragua and Togo in their index. Are you okay with that?
seattlepete @ 37:
Thanks for mentioning this.
I tracked it down & watched.
Here it is.
Bush White House Fed Fox News Talking Points
Gee, maybe congress should investigate. They are so good at that.
I almost feel sorry for Sidney McSame.
Anyone who has gone to school for marketing would recognize that the Bush administration has communicated with the public with the approach of an ad campaign. Perhaps it's Karl Rove's style.
The talking points are distributed, and the talking heads chime in unison, on queue. Town hall meetings, packed with sycophants, and "spontaneous" press conferences (actually rehearsed) was other aspects of the marketing. It's marketing, like I've never seen before out of the White House.
no doubt the boyscout tony snow knew this too. yet mr gee golly didn't seem to have any qualms about it. what a facade.
drunkbryan @ 71:
I turned my tv off six years ago.
Even BBC radio produced for NPR sounds somewhat like American dribble. Perhaps they think we expect it.
MountainMan23 @ 72:
The case has already been waged, the Supreme Court has ruled. Fox, or anyone else, does not HAVE to tell you the truth.
Watch this and weep.
Ruthless People @ 65:
You forgot about the plant in Gore's own campaign headquarters. A rubber-faced shape-shifter named Leiberman.
crazylikeafox @ 42:
My condolences
Errrr... Scotty, I hate to be the one to break this to ya but ummmm.... some of us pretty much had that figured out. As in it was obvious.
moniker @ 19:
Aaah there it is... out in the open finally. We can refuse to purchase a thing from those who advertise on the Faux channel. As for me, I do my best to never turn that channel on at my home... never!
So is it now finally safe to say Fox News is a state-run organization? I mean, when the state is controlling the output of a 'news' outlet, is that not a step further towards complete totalitarianism?
carefulwiththatAXEeugene @ 76:
Some people will do anything for money. Pathetic!
truthseeker @ 83:
Yep... Faux is a state-run organization and therefore, as many have known for years, is only a propaganda spewing machine. Not one of the talking heads has two brains cells to chat with each other. They've got their hands out waiting for the green and that's it. Sold their souls for the 30 pieces of silver.
so scotty differentiates between the commentators and the newspeople?
horseshit
fox was fed talking points...we have already seen the memos on outfoxed
those talking points went from the commentators like lufa boy and the heil one right to the news desks, where you can hear the echo machine
there is no dem echo machine...they are too stupid to create one
like the mafia controlled cuba and vegas, fox is wholly controlled by the wingnuts
I am sure the FOX 'journalists' are/were professional, and not influenced by Rupert and Ailes. The problem is, there are not any known ones to exist. They are as rare, as dinosaurs who know calculus.
Too late McClellan. At this point, you're just stating what everyone already knows.
and how many of those talking points were out and out lies? I remember Sean Hannity talking about a discovery in Iraq of nuclear fuel being proof of WMD's one afternoon on his show. Earlier that same day it was reported that this was a cite that had been noted and sealed off earlier by the UN inspectors. I believe it was spent fuel and no longer weapons grade but Hannity kept the lie going all during his show.
Lynda Hill @ 60:
McCain dropped the ball 6 times last week alone.
The MSM picked it up for him. How kind.
Arrrrgggghhhhhhhh
There are two legitimate reasons to cancel the license of Fox News to broadcast:
1. They are and were a propaganda tool of one political party.
2. They preach and spread hatred and false information.
Will Obama and Congress work to cancel their license? They should.