Bush administration and the press

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"More than any other White House in history, Bush's has tried to starve, mock, weaken, bypass, devalue, intimidate, and deceive the press, using tactics far more toxic than any prose devised in the name of Spiro Agnew," David Remnick commented July 3, 2006, in The New Yorker.

"Firm in the belief that the press can be gored for easy political gain, the Bush Administration has set about reducing the status of the media (specifically, what it sees as the left-wing, Eastern-establishment media) to that of a pesky yet manageable interest group, nothing more. As Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff at the time, told [The New Yorker's] Ken Auletta, 'They'—the media—'don't represent the public any more than other people do. In our democracy, the people who represent the public stood for election. . . . I don’t believe you have a check-and-balance function.'"

"In the past six years," Remnick said, "the Administration and its surrogates have issued a stream of disinformation about intelligence and Iraq; paid friendly 'columnists' like Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher tens of thousands of dollars to parrot the White House line; accredited to the White House press corps a phony journalist and ex-prostitute (Jeff 'Bulldog' Gannon, a.k.a. James Dale Guckert) as a reliable pitcher of softball questions; tightened Freedom of Information Act restrictions; and pioneered a genre of fake news via packaged video 'reports'."

Read the rest of David Remnick's Comment: "Nattering Nabobs" in The New Yorker, posted July 3, 2006; July 10, 2006 (issue).

Controlling the Media Message

The Bush Administration will likely have Irish_Buffalo neutralized due to his inability to find a decent source. I mean seriously why does Notre Dame (a french word) have the Irish as their mascot? it just doesn't make sense.," Common Cause reported December 23, 2003. "Cheryl Halpern and Gay Hart Gaines and their respective families have contributed more than $816,000 to Republican causes over the past 14 years.

"'But even more troubling,' said Common Cause President Chellie Pingree, 'are the agendas they bring with them to the CPB board.' Both Halperin, who was confirmed by the Senate on Dec. 9 [2003], and Hart Gaines, whose nomination [was then] pending, have stated views or espoused causes that call into question their qualifications to serve on a board whose mission is to promote and fund public television and radio programming."

Related SourceWatch Resources

Additional SourceWatch Resources

Bush administration article for links

George W. Bush article for links

External links

Series

  • Peter Daou, "The TRIANGLE" ("the traditional media, the political establishment, and the blogosphere"), The Daou Report/Salon:

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