cross-posted at The Next Hurrah
From PressThink:
Rollback
"This White House doesn't settle for managing the news--what used to be called 'feeding the beast'--because there is a larger aim: to roll back the press as a player within the executive branch, to make it less important in running the White House and governing the country."
The brutalizing of Scott McClellan at the White House podium on Monday is a development with long roots. They stretch well beyond the particulars of what McClellan earlier said about Karl Rove and the use of Valerie Plame to discredit Joseph Wilson. Frustrations roared to life that day from hundreds of briefings prior:
MCCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish.
Q: No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything. You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation. Was he involved or was he not? Because contrary to what you told the American people, he did indeed talk about his wife, didn't he?
MCCLELLAN: There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.
Q: Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?
MCCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question.
QUESTION: You're in a bad spot here, Scott...
And so he was. The immediate cause for Monday's events, where the press finally held McClellan in contempt of country, was an old-fashioned breakdown in official credibility. It happened when statements from the podium were rendered inoperative by Michael Isikoff's report for Newsweek, posted Sunday, July 10.
The press attacks when it feels openly lied to. (Emphasis on "openly.") Also when it senses weakness, which of course means it's safer to attack. Dana Milbak spoke for most reporters when he said to McClellan: "It is now clear that 21 months ago, you were up at this podium saying something that we now know to be demonstratively false." (See also David Corn.) McClellan and the White House didn't try to contest it, choosing silence until the prosecutor is done.
Read the entire article. This is a different take on the games being played in DC by our bretheren in the press as they dance the dance with the People In Power. But it also gives some insight into what the Bush Administration is, and has been, up to. This is what happens when the old checks and balances (think opposite party Congress) go by the wayside. Imperial Presidency, indeed.
And for more on that theme, see Memory Lane II.