only offers one explanation for Putin's comments to Bush about the media which is "Putin just doesn't understand the West"
From
Time:
"But when Bush talked about the Kremlin's crackdown on the media and explained that democracies require a free press, the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed. If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. "Putin thought we'd fired Dan Rather," says a senior Administration official. "It was like something out of 1984."
A similar articles from
CBS says:
"Bush (already hot after an earlier question about his spying on U.S. citizens) asked the reporter if he felt free. 'They obviously planted the question,' said one of Bush's senior aides."
This article from a small independent newspaper is the fairest I've found:
How, then, did our noble president respond to this attack on the integrity of the democratic ideals of his proud nation? As far as I'm concerned, he lied. "I don't know what journalists you are referring to," he said, then turned toward the American reporters in the audience and disrespectfully joked, "Any of you still have your jobs?"
I guess he was lucky that Matt Cooper of Time magazine and Judy Miller of The New York Times were not in the audience. Thanks to conservative pundit Robert Novak and a Justice Department infringement upon freedom of the press, they certainly don't still have their jobs. I guess he was lucky that Mary Mapes of CBS News was not present either. This hero of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal is now collecting unemployment checks because she and Dan Rather questioned the president's dubious military history. Without a doubt, these were the journalists to whom the Russian reporter was referring, and unless Bush hasn't been keeping up on the news in his own country, I'm pretty sure he was aware of this, too.
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