Posted on 11/12/2002 11:11:35 AM PST by Miss Marple
The following is from Bill Sammon's book Fighting Back,pages 27-29:
...Each member of the larger group of journalists took his or her turn pulling pool duty, after which they would share any presidential news or atmospherics with the rest of the press corps, often in the form of irreverently written "pool reports."
These reports, almost always penned by a newspaper reporter, were e-mailed to White House press aide Rachael Sunbarger, who then electronically distributed them to the rest of the press. But she also sent them to top White House officials, who eagerly perused them as unvarnished barometers of what the press really thought of POTUS, the acronym for President of the United States. These documents were especially insightful because they contained raw, unedited observations by journalists who were writing for their peers, not their newspaper editors or readers, and therefore expressed themselves more candidly. Because White House correspondents framed America's perception of the president, their unguarded reports were closely read by top administration officials, and on occasion, the president himself. Bush had been irked by what he considered a particularly sarcastic report in July, when he paid a routine call on the House Republican caucus.
"Our protagonist departed the White House near unto 9:20 this morning, bound for the Capitol in a determined effort to find Gary Condit," began Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, who archly recounted Bush telling the pool, "We're going to get a lot of things done for America."
"The president and the caucus got so many things done for America that the hour-long meeting lasted only 45 minutes," the reporter wrote. "The big news of the day was made when our protagonist spoke about education. He declared that education is 'a passion for me.'"
Milbank called this a "startling revelation" from "our hero." He said Bush "controversially" called for a Patient's Bill of Rights that "honors patients."
The reporter deadpanned, "'We're 90 per cent there,' quoth he."
Bush aides were livid. They felt Milbank, one of the most influential members of the press corps, had crossed the line by writing a snarky, condescending pool report that fairly dripped with contempt of the presideint. Unfazed, Milbank mischievously reacted to this criticism in his next pool report, which was written less than a month before the president's trip to Sarasota.
"The handsome armored presidential Chevrolet Suburban carrying our charge from the YMCA camp hurtled at 50 miles per hour through Estes Park and down the twisting mountain road. The motion set your pooler's stomach a-churning, bu the twisting doubtless had no impact on our POTUS, who has a constitution greater than your correspondent's.
With mock obsequiousness, Milbank called Bush "our maximum leader," and "the compassionate president." He lauded everything from the president's "good judgement" to his eyesight, which "is better than your pooler's.""Your pooler hesitates to point out that the president was 25 minutes late," the reporter wrote. "Doubtless this was not the fault of our usually punctual POTUS.
There is much more in the book, but because for two days in a row Dana Milbank has had articles posted here in which everyone takes his view as the truth, I wanted to make certain that Freepers understand that Milbank is about as anti-Bush as Terry McAuliffe.
ANYTHING written by Dana Milbank which contains ANY sort of controversy for the administration or the Republican party must be read with this passage in mind. Milbank is NOT trustworthy.
Milbank is to be trusted even less than Bill Kristol, and you know how I feel about THAT GUY!!
EVERYONE SHOULD BUY THIS BOOK!
I swear, people are such suckers. If Terry McAuliffe came on and said that stuff, they wouldn't believe him. Milbank is cut from the McAuliffe mold.
This passage is very revealing. It also demonstrates how immature Milbank is.
And hopefully you'll be able to find it -- our local Barnes and Noble store had it hidden in the back of the store somewhere...we had to search it out because the clerks were clueless...it was on the best-seller list for goodness sakes !
-- same store: Sean Hannity's Let Freedon Ring was UNDER the bestsellers' table, (Michael Moore's ??? book was on top), Slander by Ann Coulter was scattered thru'out the store (we found one copy in the children's section) and A Charge to Keep was placed in the shelves backwards...grrrrr !
Guerrilla journalism...
But hand grenades aren't Milbank's style. Try stink bombs...
The very same. Milbank is an artful practitioner of "creative misrepresentation".
One would think he would learn a lesson from this stuff after a while.
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