Posted on 02/09/2005 2:35:09 PM PST by bmastiff
White House Fights Back - and Wins
February 4, 2004
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
Many of you people often suggest to me the White House doesn't do enough to fight back when it's attacked by political enemies. Well, the White House is fighting back and they have succeeded. The Washington Post ran yesterday a 100% totally erroneous assertion in a story about the president's Social Security reform. The White House has responded. Not only did they respond. The White House demanded a retraction and correction, and they got it on the website.
Now, the first story, which was published yesterday, probably still survives, with a lot of people. Here's the basic thing that the Post said that is totally wrong, it was on Page A-13. It headlined: "Participants Would Forfeit Part of Accounts' Profits." And this is totally flat wrong. The article says that workers who opt to go for these personal accounts, "would ultimately get to keep only the investment returns that exceed the rate of return that the money would have accrued in the traditional system." That statement is also flat-out wrong. Both the headline and this assertion are completely inaccurate. The White House is seeking a correction from the Washington Post and they did get a correction on the website later in the day yesterday.
The reality is that under the president's plan, participants would get every single penny of both of their retirement accounts, both the principal and the interest. The Washington Post story suggests that President Bush's proposed personal retirement accounts actually benefit the federal government more than the accountholder by providing a clawback. Now, a clawback is typically a feature of a plan where the government guarantees a certain combined benefit from the traditional system and the personal account. Under such a plan, the better your account does, the less you get from the government. Therefore, the gains in the accounts are clawed back. And I heard, when I was driving into work yesterday, I heard Senator Corzine making this point and he put it a different way. He said that basically all these retirement accounts are is a loan from the primary system that you have to pay back. And it had some convoluted explanation I don't even remember now. But the reality is that neither assertion is true. The president's plan for personal retirement accounts does not have a clawback. Under the president's plan, you, and not the government, get all the gains in your personal retirement account. The amount you receive from the government is not reduced if your personal account does well. The better your account does, the better off you are.
So they're trying to make the claim in the Washington Post yesterday -- and throughout the left -- that if your personal account does really well, it's going to be reduced, your payout will be reduced in the standard account, the old Social Security system, so that at the end of the day, the benefits that you get are the same as if you had just stayed with the original Social Security plan. It's a total myth. It is not true. These are two false assertions that have been made, and the White House demanded a retraction. Now, who's the author of the article? The author of the article is a man named Jonathan Weisman. And guess who my source for this is? My source for this is Jeff Gannon of Talon News. Jeff Gannon tells us that Jonathan Weisman, "recently posted an article on a journalism web site, PoynterOnline.com discussing his dissatisfaction with how the White House dealt with him. He complained that in exchange for special access to administration officials, the White House wanted to approve attributable quotes for accuracy. He wrote, 'I think it is time for all of us to reconsider the way we cover the White House.' Last August, Weisman wrote an article for the Washington Post titled, 'Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle' which reflected a theme of the Kerry campaign's 'middle class squeeze.' It sited conclusions in a Congressional Budget Office report that had been requested by Democrats on the Capitol Hill. At the time, the Bush campaign suggested the results had been 'shaded' by the questions asked by Democrats."
Now, Jeff Gannon, Talon News, is the man that The Boston Globe has launched a two-man investigation of, to find out if he's a real journalist or not because he was too friendly with his questions to the president in the last press conference. The Boston Globe and others in the mainstream press upset that Jeff Gannon is on-site and present at White House press conferences where he dared to ask questions accurately quoting Senate Democrat leaders. That is considered an attack by the left when you accurately quote Democrats. That's an attack. This is what Gannon did in that White House press conference. For it, he got an investigation into who he is by the Boston Globe, because he was, "White House-friendly." In the meantime, Jonathan Weisman publishes a story in the Washington Post yesterday full of two false assertions, blatant lies about the president's Social Security system, after it has been learned that he posted an article on a journalism site complaining and discussing his dissatisfaction with how the White House deals with him. He complained that in exchange for special access that the White House had granted to him, to talk to administration officials, the White House wanted to approve attributable quotes for accuracy. And he didn't want anybody looking at his quotes. We now know why the White House wanted to look at his quotes. This guy, Weisman, got it wrong on purpose, and appears to be a Kerry campaign sympathizer and opposed to the president.
Now, all that is fine. He can be a sympathizer with whoever he wants. He can be for or against anyone he wants. The problem you people in the mainstream press have is you want to continue to lie about your objectivity. You want to continue to try to tell everybody you have no bias, you have no prejudice, you have no interest in the outcome of these events. You're just trying to do your job. You may go so far as to say, "Yeah, well, we're supposed to be confrontational. This is supposed to be a confrontational process up here as we're talking to people with power," and blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, fine. Well, go all the way. Why don't you say you don't like these guys and you're doing everything you can to defeat the president's programs? If you would just do that, there would be no complaints with you, other than you're wrong. But then you harp out and start investigating this poor old Jeff Gannon guy as somehow White House friendly as though that's some kind of a crime. The Boston Globe unleashes a big investigation of this guy to find out who he is. The bottom line here, the Post did not get away with it. It's another example folks, the mainstream media's monopoly is long gone. They don't get away with it.
END TRANSCRIPT
"I agree that the media can often distort things, but it is not right for any administration to pay pundits or to have fake paid for 'news' plants in press conferences."
I totally agree with you. We should also stop funding things like NPR and PBS. It seems silly that Americans are paying tax dollars for TV and Radio stations to run anti-conservative propaganda.
bump
bump
It's a warning: Don't try to be friendly to President Bush or we'll wreck your life.
...and?
That was before you had a media that took sides.
Exactly. It's insane.
I am glad to see Rush defend Gannon.
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