IMPEACH BUSH
"Dedicated to exposing the lies and impeachable offenses of
George W. Bush"
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Bush acknowledged he lied about Rumsfeld,
but media refused to call him on it
Media Matters November 9, 2006 Summary: Reporting on President Bush's announcement of Donald Rumsfeld's resignation, media outlets, with few exceptions, have avoided characterizing Bush's assertion the previous week that he wanted Rumsfeld to stay on as a "lie" or intentional misrepresentation -- this, despite Bush's own admission of a deliberate deception. Some outlets even failed to acknowledge Bush's previous statement that Rumsfeld would stay on as defense secretary until the end of his presidency. During his November 8 press conference, President Bush announced Donald H. Rumsfeld's resignation as defense secretary and nominated former CIA director Robert Gates to take his place, even though days before the November 7 elections, Bush had said he wanted Rumsfeld to stay on through the end of his presidency. Bush explained that the reason for announcing Rumsfeld's resignation after the elections was due to the fact that he "didn't want to inject a major decision about this war in the final days of a campaign"; however, media outlets, with few exceptions, have avoided characterizing what Bush did as a "lie" or intentional misrepresentation -- this, despite Bush's own admission of a deliberate deception. Some outlets even failed to acknowledge Bush's November 1 statement that Rumsfeld would stay. According to the Associated Press, Bush said on November 1 that Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney "are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them." The AP also reported that Bush "replied in the affirmative when asked if he wanted Rumsfeld and Cheney to stay with him until the end." Media soft-peddled Bush's lie * Bush "fudged" On the November 8 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, CNN chief national correspondent John King concluded in a report that Bush "fudged," even though King had earlier acknowledged that Bush admitted he previously claimed Rumsfeld would remain in the administration because he "didn't want the news to come out before the election ... so, essentially, he didn't tell the whole truth." Prior to concluding that Bush "fudged," King stated: "Did he lie to the wire service reporters? Did he just withhold information? You know, we can have a semantics debate to the end." * "Maybe he was deceitful, maybe not" On the November 8 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, host Tucker Carlson told Republican strategist Ed Rogers that Bush "knew that that was a lie" when he said Rumsfeld would stay on; later, when Rogers accused Carlson of "wanting to suggest that [Bush] was deceitful," Carlson backed off, saying, "[m]aybe he was deceitful, maybe not." Carlson then stated that "[m]aybe, [Bush] didn't know when he said that that he was going to sack Donald Rumsfeld," even though Bush himself acknowledged otherwise during the November 8 press conference. Noting that acknowledgement yesterday, Media Matters for America asked whether the media would note that Bush has been caught in an apparent lie about a Cabinet switch before. * Bush "reversed course" In a report on the November 8 edition of the CBS Evening News, CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod said only that "[t]he move comes after recent guarantees Rumsfeld was welcome until the end of Mr. Bush's term" and that "Mr. Bush completely reversed course." * Bush "misled" On the November 8 edition of ABC's World News, ABC News chief White House correspondent Martha Raddatz noted that "[j]ust one week ago, Mr. Bush said he expected Rumsfeld to remain as secretary to the end of his presidency," adding that "[t]oday, the president acknowledged that he had misled the press." Similarly on NBC's Today, NBC News chief White House correspondent David Gregory stated that the president "did admit he misled reporters last week when he said during a round of interviews he wanted Rumsfeld to remain with him until the end of his presidency." Additionally, The Washington Post reported that "Bush was already thinking about sacking Rumsfeld when he met with news service reporters on Nov. 1, but, by his own account, he decided to mislead them to preserve the secret," adding that "[t]he president answered yes" when a "reporter asked Bush if he wanted Cheney and Rumsfeld to remain through the end of his term." Media altogether ignored Bush's lie On the November 9 edition of NBC's Today, co-host Matt Lauer conducted an interview with White House senior adviser Dan Bartlett regarding Rumsfeld's resignation. Lauer asked Bartlett if there were Republican members of Congress who were "more than a bit mad" that Bush "didn't make this move a week ago, a month ago, or three months ago." However, Lauer did not mention Bush's November 1 statement that he wanted Rumsfeld to stay on, even when Bartlett stated that it was "too important of a decision -- who is going to be the leader of the military during a time of war -- to inject into the final weeks or days of a campaign." A November 9 USA Today article on Rumsfeld's resignation similarly failed to note Bush's November 1 statement in any way, reporting only that the resignation came after "[a]n editorial in the Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times and Marine Corps Times (publications owned by Gannett, which also owns USA Today) last week called for his resignation," and "a spike in sectarian violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan helped push the death toll for U.S. troops to 105 in October, the fourth-deadliest month since the invasion in March 2003." In a report on the November 8 edition of Fox News' The Big Story, Fox News chief White House correspondent Brett Baier also failed to note Bush's reversal on whether Rumsfeld would continue as defense secretary, despite noting that the president "said that he had made the decision before going into the election" and that Bush and Rumsfeld had been discussing it "over the past few weeks." Others simply called it a lie By contrast, on the November 8 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight, host Lou Dobbs noted that Bush's reversal on Rumsfeld "could also be framed as a straight-out lie," adding that "[y]ou have to give him credit for being candid about the fact that he lied, but he straightforwardly lied." Dobbs was responding to Republican strategist Ed Rollins's assertion that Bush's November 1 statement -- that "he was keeping Rumsfeld 'till the end" -- was "not an honest statement" and that Bush had "basically misle[d] the press." Similarly, on the November 8 edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360, host Anderson Cooper asked, "[W]hy would the president either say that last week about Donald Rumsfeld, when, apparently, he now admitted today, he knew all along that wasn't the case?" He added that Bush "basically said today that he was lying." During the same segment, King, who had previously said that Bush "fudged," stated that his November 1 statement "wasn't the truth." From the November 8 edition of The Situation Room:
From the November 8 edition of the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric:
From the November 9 edition of Today:
From the November 8 edition of Fox News' The Big Story with John Gibson:
From the November 8 edition of CNN's Lou Dobbs Tonight:
From the November 8 edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360:
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