Bizarro Meet the Press

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Registered: 03-31-2003
Bizarro Meet the Press
10
Sun, 05-16-2004 - 4:37pm
Was anyone else watching Meet the Press this morning? If not you missed one of the most bizarre moments in TV news I've ever seen.

http://drudgereport.com/flash.htm


Apparently the interview with Colin Powell (who was in Jordan) was suddenly interrupeted by Powell's aide who suddenly turned the camera away from the secretary and declared that the interview was over. It's unclear whether her intent was to avoid the question (which was a pointed one about Powell's UN speech before the war) or if she was some kind of control freak about staying on schedule. Powell and his aide were apparently an hour late for the interview and you can hear the aide saying that "He (russert) was going to go for another five minutes." She also is heard asserting "They can't use it, they're editing it." Well, guess again lady. The stunt peeved the folks at Meet the Press so that they put it on the air unedited. Powell seemed none too happy either.

Should NBC news have aired it uncut? I think so. The Bush administration's contempt for the press is unprecedented. From Ari Fleisher's condescending non-answers (I'm so glad he's gone) to the near phobic avoidance of press conferences they've adopted an adversarial relationship with the news media that is just insulting to the media's audience - the American public. That this aide, Emily Miller, thought it was okay to derail Tim Russert in mid-sentence in such a physical way is just outrageous.

Additionally, I'm sure it violates union rules to even touch the camera. I hope they get fined.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 05-16-2004 - 5:34pm

No I missed it. I try & catch it generally but I had to go out this AM.


Emily is going to get a 'talking to' I imagine.


Quote: >"Russert:

 


Photobucket&nbs

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Registered: 04-16-2003
Sun, 05-16-2004 - 6:26pm
This is indeed strange, considering the following article. I only posted the first part of the article that mentions Powell. The full article is at:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2100549/

The Buck Stops … Where?

Stop blaming your henchmen, Mr. President.

By Fred Kaplan

Posted Friday, May 14, 2004, at 2:41 PM PT

And so it seems I, too, have misunderestimated the president. This past Wednesday, I wrote a column holding George W. Bush responsible for our recent disasters—the torture at Abu Ghraib and the whole plethora of strategic errors in Iraq. My main argument was that Bush has placed too much trust, for far too long, in the judgment of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, despite his ceaseless string of bad judgments.

However, two news stories that have since come to my attention—one that appeared on the same day, the other more than two months ago—suggest not merely that Bush is guilty of "failing to recognize failure" (as my headline put it) but that he is directly culpable for the sins in question, no less so than his properly beleaguered defense chief.

The first story, written by Mark Matthews in the May 12 Baltimore Sun, quotes Secretary of State Colin Powell—on the record—as saying Bush knew about the International Committee of the Red Cross reports that were filed many months ago about the savagery at the prison. Powell is quoted as saying:

We kept the president informed of the concerns that were raised by the ICRC and other international organizations as part of my regular briefings of the president, and advised him that we had to follow these issues, and when we got notes sent to us or reports sent to us … we had to respond to them.

Powell adds that he, Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice kept Bush "fully informed of the concerns that were being expressed, not in specific details but in general terms." (Thanks to Joshua Micah Marshall, whose blog alerted me to the Sun story.)

So much for Rumsfeld's protective claim, at last week's hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, that he had failed to bring the matter to the president's attention. No wonder Bush, in turn, rode out to the Pentagon and praised his servant-secretary for doing a "superb" job.

It's amazing, by the way, how Colin Powell seems to have scuttled his good-soldier routine altogether, criticizing his president at first quasi-anonymously (through Bob Woodward's new book), then through close aides (Wil Hylton's GQ article), and now straight up in the Baltimore Sun. One wonders when he'll go all the way and start making campaign appearances for John Kerry.

'We kept the president informed of the concerns that were raised by the ICRC and other international organizations as part of my regular briefings of the president, and advised him that we had to follow these issues, and when we got notes sent to us or reports sent to us … we had to respond to them."

Powell adds that he, Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice kept Bush "fully informed of the concerns that were being expressed, not in specific details but in general terms." (Thanks to Joshua Micah Marshall, whose blog alerted me to the Sun story.)

So much for Rumsfeld's protective claim, at last week's hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, that he had failed to bring the matter to the president's attention. No wonder Bush, in turn, rode out to the Pentagon and praised his servant-secretary for doing a "superb" job.

It's amazing, by the way, how Colin Powell seems to have scuttled his good-soldier routine altogether, criticizing his president at first quasi-anonymously (through Bob Woodward's new book), then through close aides (Wil Hylton's GQ article), and now straight up in the Baltimore Sun. One wonders when he'll go all the way and start making campaign appearances for John Kerry.

We kept the president informed of the concerns that were raised by the ICRC and other international organizations as part of my regular briefings of the president, and advised him that we had to follow these issues, and when we got notes sent to us or reports sent to us … we had to respond to them.

Powell adds that he, Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice kept Bush "fully informed of the concerns that were being expressed, not in specific details but in general terms." (Thanks to Joshua Micah Marshall, whose blog alerted me to the Sun story.)

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2000
Sun, 05-16-2004 - 6:35pm

You have

 


Photobucket&nbs

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Sun, 05-16-2004 - 10:39pm
Well, condsidering what I had seen this mornng, I stayed tuned to watch the PM broadcast of Meet the Press.

I'm editing this to confirm that the PM airing of Meet the Press was the same as the am airing of the show. At fist I thought that it differed , but soon realized that the audio of Powell's aide was never very audible in the broadcast.

A repeat playing of the broadcast did make clear that it was not the scheduling of the interveiw, but the question, which caused the aide to try to pull the plug. It was obvious from Russert's phrasing that it was the final question in the interview as he phrased it "Finally, Mr. Secretary, in February of 2003, you placed your enormous personal credibility before the United Nations and laid out a case against Saddam Hussein, citing...."

before the questioning was rudely interupeted by Powell's aides.

The end of the interview:

"MR. RUSSERT:  Thank you very much, sir. 

In February of 2003, you put your enormous personal reputation on the line before the United Nations and said that you had solid sources for the case against Saddam Hussein.  It now appears that an agent called "Curve Ball" had misled the CIA by suggesting that Saddam had trucks and trains that were delivering biological chemical weapons. 

How concerned are you that some of the information you shared with the world is now inaccurate and discredited?

SECRETARY POWELL:  I'm very concerned.  When I made that presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information that the Central Intelligence Agency made available to me.  We studied it carefully.  We looked at the sourcing and the case of the mobile trucks and trains.  There was multiple sourcing for that.  Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing over time has turned out to be not accurate, and so I'm deeply disappointed. 

But I'm also comfortable that at the time that I made the presentation it reflected the collective judgment, the sound judgment, of the intelligence community, but it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading.  And for that I'm disappointed, and I regret it.

MR. RUSSERT:  Mr. Secretary, we thank you very much for joining us again and sharing your views with us today. SECRETARY POWELL:  Thanks, Tim.

(END OF PRE-TAPE INTERVIEW)

MR. RUSSERT:  AND THAT WAS AN UNEDITED INTERVIEW WITH THE SECRETARY OF STATE, TAPED EARLIER THIS MORNING FROM JORDAN. 

WE APPRECIATE SECRETARY POWELL'S WILLINGNESS TO OVERRULE HIS PRESS AIDES' ATTEMPT TO ABRUPTLY CUT OFF OUR DISCUSSION AS I BEGAN TO ASK MY FINAL QUESTION.

http://drudgereport.com/flash.htm



Edited 5/16/2004 11:01 pm ET ET by metrochick


Edited 5/17/2004 10:40 am ET ET by metrochick

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2004
Mon, 05-17-2004 - 9:52am
Raising my hand. I wasn't actually looking at the tv, but was in the kitchen listening. I thought it was some sort of technical problem, but when I turned to look,Tim Russert looked a little angry and said something about Powell's aide being responsible for the probem. I had never seen Tim Russert get angry before. There was some chatter on Powell's end and I think he said something to his aide about Russert was still asking questions and he told the cameraman to put the camera back on him. By trying to avert a hard question, his aide almost made Powell look as if he were ducking the question. In the end it she only succeeded in making herself look bad. I think Powell salvaged the situation for himself when he insisted on answering the question. It was bizarre! Wonder if she still has a job this morning.

Avatar for baileyhouse
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 05-17-2004 - 10:22am
Yes, that whole situation was very strange...but I had to laugh when John McCain made the comment about wishing someone would put the camera on a palmtree when he was asked (yet again) about the VP position under Kerry.

John McCain, Colin Powell two very good men involved with a very misrun admistration.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-31-2003
Mon, 05-17-2004 - 10:48am
<>

ITA. I thought Powell handled the situation pretty well. And I appreciate his honesty about his UN presentation.

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-16-2003
Mon, 05-17-2004 - 11:08am
<>

Having an echo is wonderful, its tough talking to a black hole. :-)

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Registered: 03-18-2000
Mon, 05-17-2004 - 12:18pm
I hear you.............hear you.........hear you.... hear you.... hear you.....
cl-Libraone~

 


Photobucket&nbs

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Registered: 03-31-2003
Sat, 05-22-2004 - 12:19pm
Coincidence? Last week, Tim Russert embarasses the Bush administration...this week Russert is suddenly the very first journalist to be subpeonaed in the Valerie Plame case. (An investigation which has been ongoing for almost nine long months.) Unbelievable.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5033875/

RUSSERT SUBPOENAED IN CIA LEAK PROBE

NBC, fighting move, says journalist did not receive information

MSNBC and NBC News

Updated: 8:45 p.m. ET May 21, 2004

WASHINGTON - NBC News said Friday night that it would oppose a subpoena issued to Washington bureau chief Tim Russert by the federal grand jury investigating the leak of the identity of an undercover CIA operative last year.

advertisementRussert, the moderator of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” is the first journalist known to have been subpoenaed in the investigation, which the Justice Department opened after syndicated columnist Robert Novak reported in July that Valerie Plame, the wife of a former ambassador who criticized President Bush’s justification for going to war in Iraq, worked for the agency.

Novak has refused to reveal who identified Plame, saying only that the information came from two senior administration officials.

The Washington Post and the New York newspaper Newsday said this week that their reporters were asked to sit for questions in connection with the investigation but that they had not been formally subpoenaed.

NBC News promised to fight the subpoena in court, saying Russert was not among the journalists who may have received the leak, which Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, called an attempt to intimidate him into silence. Disclosing the identity of an undercover U.S. agent is a felony.

Grand jury casts wide net

At the request of the CIA, Wilson investigated allegations that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from an African country and reported that the claim was inaccurate.

After Bush repeated the allegation in his 2003 State of the Union address as one of the justifications for going to war, Wilson wrote an editorial column in The New York Times accusing the president of operating under false pretenses.

The grand jury, which was convened after MSNBC.com and NBC News reported in September that the CIA had requested a criminal investigation of the leak, has also issued subpoenas for records of telephone calls from Air Force One during the week before Novak published Plame’s name.

Wilson identified Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and Elliott Abrams, a Middle East specialist on the National Security Council, as the possible leakers in a book he published earlier this year. He has also accused Bush’s chief political adviser, Karl Rove, of having known about and encouraging the campaign to discredit him.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan has said that his conversations with Rove, Libby and Abrams ruled out their involvement.

By MSNBC.com’s Alex Johnson