Comments on: Knoller Reflects On His Critics

[jburdman7]

Remember when one of the dems criticisms of the Bush (Sr.) admin was that we went in, then later abandoned the Kurds in Gulf I. Funny how I havent heard about that in awhile.

The real thought provoking question is, can the US win a war that can not be fought from beginning to end within one election cycle, to dodge the wrath of the opposition party's talking heads like 'retired general' Moyers.

To skeezix06, please do not confuse 'Bill Moyers' with 'the news hour'. You may compare Bill Moyers to Dan Rather and Helen Thomas. Just check your sources ;-)

[jburdman7]

The topic of 'how we got Iraq wrong' is a land mine. No one wants to admit that they screwed up. So the fingers point every which way.

But talking about who screwed up is a diversion from the current dilemma -

Are we ready for the possibility the middle east will turn into post Vietnam Cambodia if we leave?
What about international law, which has a 'you break it, you bought it' view of the US in Iraq?

Congress is considering declaring that they, retroactively, never did vote to authorize the war. This is our 'leadership'?

They essentially are driving around the better neighborhoods of denial. Eventually someone needs to live in the 'now' and do what is best. Not concerning itself with which failures are easiest to blame on ones political rivals.

Iraq is a situation that is spiraling. There is not time yet for the main topic of discussion to be the 'hard' question of how we got where we are. We have a 'hard' question pressing us right now. Are we willing to lose Iraq and watch it fall to the warlords? Or are we going to take volunteers from retired military, and civilians willing to help if they can stay stateside etc? To hold their country together until they can form their governmental systems in the midst of their sectarian rivalries.

Politicians act as though the result doesnt matter as long as we can assess blame somewhere else. Shameful!

[winegeek2]

You might not see yourself as a stenographer, but that doesn't mean you aren't.

Today is a prime example of the WH press asleep at the switch. Snow made this laughable assertion:

" So Im afraid what%u2019s happened there is that George Tenet may have been referring to something that has been misreported or at least twisted by people with political motives, but there has been no attempt to try to link Saddam to September 11."

Have you or your collegues read the Iraq war resolution? The administration tried to link Iraq (and by proxy Saddam) to 9/11 in their own IWR:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html

Why doesn't anybody except for Helen call them on their lies? When Snow said this,every reporter in that room should have thrown example after example to show this was a lie.

You are asking people to treat you with kid gloves just as you treat this white house. Sorry. Ain't going to happen. Yes, there is rage in this country toward everyone who has lied or enabled the lies which have led to where we are today. And the 4th estate failed when we needed you the most.

[skeezix06]

Perhaps you will approve of this summation more then.

You did a wonderful job of reporting...on White House trivia.

You want feedback...as long as they say only nice things about your reporting.

You and your colleagues promised to listen to all comments...and then discard those who actually gave you constructive criticism and solid alternative questions in response.

The thing that you, somehow, keep overlooking is the fact that an honest and competent media which reports and relays information to the public is an absolute necessity to our form of government. It is or used to be a counterbalance which prevented the kind of propaganda we heard in the Soviet Union. If you don't fulfill your responsibilities faithfully and accurately, our democracy is dead. Us little folk tend to take offense that our Constitution may no longer be relevant or applicable. (See Patriot Act and spying on U.S. citizens)

Walter Cronkite you ain't. You aren't Dan Rather either. And you aren't even in the same ballpark with Helen Thomas. With all respect that you are due, Moyers is a much better newsman and has a much better reputation than you do. ...Which is one of the reasons why I now watch NBC or PBS for the evening news.

[one_american]

While the left continues, unabated, to run in circles, screaming with their hair on fire...it would appear that alerting the left of this fact only makes them scream louder and run faster, fanning the flames further.

It is however, breathtaking entertainment.

[cheekygal-2009]

I remember way back then on a Political discussion board discussing the "Curveball" issue. He was known to be an alcoholic and a liar. Why, if this informant was known of by anyone in MSM, did one of you not ask about this individual?

"Curveball (informant)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Curveball was the designation for a claimed "Iraqi chemical engineer" who the United States claimed had served as an informant. Curveball would be the attributed source of pivotal information concerning weapons of mass destruction leading up to the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Intelligence agencies often use codenames generated at random, so the relation to "erratic behavior" may be purely coincidental. Nevertheless, many intelligence agents familiar with the case found the description to be apt.

Claims and background
snip
The LA Times reported that Curveball was actually the brother of one of Ahmed Chalabi's top aides. This raised additional questions about his reliability, as Chalabi was asked if he knew anything about mobile weapons labs a short time before Curveball emerged.

In November 2002, UN weapons inspectors investigated Curveball's claims, and found that details and information given by Curveball could not be verified.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curveball_(informant)"

[preamerikkka]

and the day that a reporter substitutes what they know for what the administration knows we'll be the DEADER for it.

[mattcat25]

The Bush scam in Iraq is about to begin to end. The GOP has put $billions into the pockets of their private war profiteer contractors. George W. Bush has never completed anything in his entire life! Why should he start now? Bush%u2019s war on Iraq is a bankrupt deal and Congress is the creditors. The GOP is now asking that we wait and see for another six months (again) to assess if the surge plan is working. The Surge isn%u2019t going to work, The Surge is the latest Bush plan that isn%u2019t working already and never will. The GOP is just wasting more time to collect more $billions and sacrifice more or our soldiers lives.

[joycewest]

Mr. Knoller, I agree that name calling is counter-productive for everyone. It distracts us all from much more interesting discussions. Setting aside the arguments over whether the press could have extracted any "gotcha" information from the president before the war began, I am curious about how White House press conferences are conducted in general.
I realize you may be past the point of addressing any further comments, but reading your latest post raised these questions in my mind.
So the president has a list of reporters he plans to call on at press conferences, but everyone knows he is free to deviate from that list. Do you know if you are on the list and in what order? How often does the president deviate from the list? Is being on the list so advantageous that reporters lobby to get on the list?
Is there a time limit on reporters or any limit to the number of questions a reporter can ask, if not in fact than in custom? What is the longest back-and-forth exchange between a reporter and the president that you can recall? Is there peer pressure for reporters to finish up so others can have a turn?
I understand that the president, like any CEO who will be put on the spot, rehearses possible responses in advance. Has this president ever given an answer you didn't expect?

[memekiller]

Here are your examples of having something "positive to offer":

%u201CHey Knoller. Let me give you a bit of advice. Do not try to reason with this crowd. They have turned on you now. Your only way out is to grovel and say how wrong you and the entire media were. You can%u2019t reason with them.%u201D

%u201CThose who are most angry at you, Mark, are the people who believe that the media%u2019s job is to advance the agenda of the Liberal Democratic Party.%u201D

We can't be reasoned with, are only out to "advance" the Democratic agenda, which, you find a "positive" counterpoint to accusing you of forwarding the Whitehouse agenda, and being a mouthpiece for conservatives. Okay. That's positive the way Limbaugh and Imus aren't incivil, meaning, it sounds right to your ears because they're part of the aristocracy.