Fleischer Defends the Media
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, June 9, 2008
What a spectacle: Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer jumping to the defense of members of the White House press corps against the charge by his successor, Scott McClellan, that they were "complicit enablers" in the run-up to the Iraq war.
There was undeniably something twisted about McClellan -- he of the robotic stonewall -- criticizing the journalists he had so ardently stymied for so long. But it's even more disturbing to see Fleischer try to make the case that the media did a really good job.
Not surprisingly, Fleischer was able to fish out a few examples of aggressive questioning from the voluminous press-briefing archives for his Washington Post op-ed on Sunday. But his argument ultimately boils down to an unpersuasive exercise in self-pity.
Fleischer cites McClellan's charge that the press "failed to aggressively question the rationale for war," and responds: "As someone whose duty it was to assume the position of a human piñata every day in the briefing room, I only wish Scott were right. . . .
(Continued here.)
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, June 9, 2008
What a spectacle: Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer jumping to the defense of members of the White House press corps against the charge by his successor, Scott McClellan, that they were "complicit enablers" in the run-up to the Iraq war.
There was undeniably something twisted about McClellan -- he of the robotic stonewall -- criticizing the journalists he had so ardently stymied for so long. But it's even more disturbing to see Fleischer try to make the case that the media did a really good job.
Not surprisingly, Fleischer was able to fish out a few examples of aggressive questioning from the voluminous press-briefing archives for his Washington Post op-ed on Sunday. But his argument ultimately boils down to an unpersuasive exercise in self-pity.
Fleischer cites McClellan's charge that the press "failed to aggressively question the rationale for war," and responds: "As someone whose duty it was to assume the position of a human piñata every day in the briefing room, I only wish Scott were right. . . .
(Continued here.)
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