Herr Dumbya "Didn’t Call On ‘Dot Coms And Other Oddballs’ Like The Huffington Post"

[Political Tiger]

After President Obama’s first prime time press conference last night, Bill O’Reilly asked former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer for his reaction. O’Reilly noted that Obama had a prepared list of reporters from whom he planned to take questions. Fleischer explained that former President Bush used a similar method to avoid taking questions from “dot coms and other oddballs.” In response, O’Reilly suggested that Obama’s “oddball” screening was perhaps not as effective as Bush’s because the President called on the Huffington Post:

O’REILLY: George Bush came in with a list of guys he was going to call on?

FLEISCHER: Yes, I used to prepare it for him. I would give him a grid, show him where every reporter is seated. And there are some reporters, you know, in that briefing room, you can imagine, Bill, you get a lot of dot coms and other oddballs who come in there. They’re screened.

O’REILLY: Like the Huffington Post. Now it gets called on.

FLEISCHER: And I used to seat them all in one section. I would call it “Siberia.” And I told the president, “Don’t call on Siberia.”

......

If Bush was relying on Fleischer to screen the “dotcoms and oddballs,” he was poorly served. Take, for example, case of Jeff Gannon, the male escort-turned-White House correspondent for the right-wing news outlet Talon News. The White House press office granted Gannon access to the White House under an assumed name and with no background check. Once Gannon got in the door under Fleischer’s watch in 2003, he was called on by Bush at a press conference in January 2005. Gannon lobbed Bush a softball:

GANNON: Senate Democratic leaders have painted a very bleak picture of the U.S. economy. … Yet in the same breath they say that Social Security is rock solid and there’s no crisis there. … (H)ow are you going to work with people who seem to have divorced themselves from reality?


http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/10/fleischer-obama-media/

[Cirque du So-What]

1. Fleischer is utterly irrelevant

and displays just how out-of-touch he really is. His beloved corporate media will soon be pushing up daisies, but the 'Siberians' are just hitting their stride.

[npk]

2. I'm surprised Bush didn't slip up one time and say something like,

"Lets got to Miss Siberia." I guess they had him trained very well.

[AllentownJake]

3. I'll be worried when I see a Bush admin person say that's exactly what we would do in that situation

:rofl:

[WI_DEM]

4. but didn't he call on Gannon, the male escort?

[backscatter712]

5. HA-HA!!! They've lost their media monopoly!!!

Cable news is soooooo 20th century.

[Ikonoklast]

6. Ignore the changing way information is disseminated at your peril

At one time, newspapers ruled political opinion, not so much now after the rise of network news. Cable news gave them a run for the money, siphoning off viewers, but their demographics bode ill for the future of both network and cable news.

Look at Billo's demographics. His viewers are actually dying out because they are so old, and not getting replaced by anyone.

The internet is the future, and younger people get their information right here.

Republics ignored the power of internet news sources and fund raising and look where it got them.

[JSK]

7. This is nauseating.

n/t