Joe Scarborough Reveals MSNBC Newsroom Booed Bush Speech --8/17/2007

1. Joe Scarborough Reveals MSNBC Newsroom Booed Bush Speech
MSNBC's Joe Scarborough revealed Thursday morning that on his first day at MSNBC, on the night of President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, "people in the newsroom...were booing the President basically from the beginning to the end." A couple of minutes into his Morning Joe show, Scarborough praised the Executive Editor of the Seattle Times for scolding his staff for applauding Karl Rove's resignation. Scarborough then recalled: "My first night here at MSNBC was the President's State of the Union address in 2003, and I was shocked because there were actually people in the newsroom that were booing the President basically from the beginning to the end." In doing so, they were just following the tradition set in 2000 when those at the NBC News flagship were on election night 2000 openly, according the then-General Electric Chairman Jack Welch, "all cheering for Gore." AUDIO&VIDEO [1] [1]

2. Begala Ridicules Limbaugh: 'Maybe It Was Just OxyContin Talking'
In a panel discussion on Thursday's The Situation Room, CNN's "from the Left" commentator Paul Begala launched another personal attack on Rush Limbaugh based on the talk radio host's past drug addiction. Near the close of the 4pm EDT hour of the CNN program, Begala and former U.S. Representative J.C. Watts discussed Rudy Giuliani and the possible factor of his family life in his presidential bid. Begala attacked the GOP, charging that the party "has made a practice of going after people's families," and then singled out Limbaugh for doing this (though Limbaugh has never officially worked for the Republicans). "Not just attacking Bill Clinton, we remember Rush Limbaugh attacking Chelsea Clinton. Maybe it was just the OxyContin talking." AUDIO&VIDEO [1] [1]

3. CBS's Bill Plante Defends 'Smart-Assed' Rove Question
Admitting it was "smart-assed," CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante nonetheless defended his now-infamous "If he's so smart, how come you lost Congress?" quip from Monday's White House South Lawn ceremony with President Bush to officially announce Karl Rove's resignation. Interviewed by CBSNews.com's "Public Eye" blogger Matthew Felling, Plante did concede that he welcomes scrutiny of how the press functions, especially in live press conference settings. Said Plante at the open of his interview: "Anytime you challenge or appear to challenge the President -- and I don't care if the President is a Republican or a Democrat -- there are people who will take issue with it and tell you it's inappropriate. And you kind of expect that. I knew that was I did on Monday was smart-assed, but I think that that's beside the point."

Joe Scarborough Reveals MSNBC Newsroom
Booed Bush Speech

The August 16 CyberAlert recounted: In an e-mail to his staff, Seattle Times Executive Editor Dave Boardman reported that in Monday's news meeting about planned story assignments, "when word came in of Karl Rove's resignation, several people in the meeting started cheering." In quite an understatement, Boardman scolded: "That sort of expression is simply not appropriate for a newsroom." Boardman conceded the display matched the overall politics at the paper: "If we wore our politics on our sleeves in here, I have no doubt that in this and in most other mainstream newsrooms in America, the majority of those sleeves would be of the same color: blue....That is not particularly surprising, given how people make career decisions and that social service and activism is a primary driver for many journalists." See: www.mrc.org [5]

At about 6:02am EDT on Thursday, August 16, Scarborough related, as he sat across from news reader Mika Brzezinksi:
"There is a story out of Seattle, and the reason I love it is because it's transparency in the news. You have an editor who was actually outing his own people. The Seattle Times newsroom broke into applause when Karl Rove resigned. And of course that's bad. What I like about it is that the editor actually wrote about it and went in and told the people in the newsroom that was unacceptable.
"And I've got to say, my first night here at MSNBC was the President's State of the Union address in 2003, and I was shocked because there were actually people in the newsroom that were booing the President basically from the beginning to the end. And I actually talked to [NBC/MSNBC executive] Phil Griffin about it, and he said 'well, how was it last night?' Because he was the one that called me out of the Ace Hardware store, got my vest on. He said 'how was it last night?' I said 'well, it's okay, I understand it's a little bit different up here than it is down in northwest Florida, but you had people in the newsroom actively booing the President of the United States.' Phil turned red very quickly. That didn't happen again."

Mark Finkelstein of the MRC's NewsBusters blog caught Scarborough's disclosure and posted an item on Thursday morning: media.newsbusters.org [6]

Check the posted version of this CyberAlert for an audio and video clip of Scarborough's comment.

As the MRC's Rich Noyes reminded me, the MRC's August 31, 2001 CyberAlert recounted:

On the election night, the NBC News control room was full of people "all cheering for Gore," retiring General Electric CEO Jack Welch told Vanity Fair as he denied he pressured anyone to call the election for Bush, "and two or three of us cheering for George Bush."

Welch's revelation about the candidate preference of most NBC News staffers came in reaction to, as the Names & Faces column in the August 29 Washington Post reported, "rumors that he asked the men supervising computer projections, 'What would I have to give you to call the race for Bush?' Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, is threatening to subpoena a video recording of that night from NBC." (General Electric owns NBC.)

The Post quoted Welch as calling that "a crazy story." An August 28 Reuters dispatch quoted from the interview in the upcoming October issue of Vanity Fair as Welch, apparently referring to at least NBC News President Andy Lack, maintained: "To think you could ever influence two old pros who wouldn't call an election for anyone if their lives depended on it, is just plain silliness. The facts are there was a room there (at NBC on election night) of young kids all cheering for Gore and two or three of us cheering for George Bush. That's all that happened."

As anyone who has seen appearances by Welch on C-SPAN knows, he describes his 20-something and 30-something employees as "young kids."

Begala Ridicules Limbaugh: 'Maybe It
Was Just OxyContin Talking'

Nine months ago, during CNN's election night programming, Begala slammed Limbaugh as a "drug-addled gasbag who is self discredited." See: www.mrc.org [10]

[This item is based on Matthew Balan's item posted Thursday evening on MRC's blog, Newsbusters.org: newsbusters.org [11] ]

The discussion on the August 16 Situation Room anchored by Miles O'Brien:

SOUNDBITE OF RUDY GIULIANI: And the best thing I can say is, kind of leave my family alone. You know? Just like I'll leave your family alone. And if you want to judge me, you want to judge me, or I want to judge you, we judge each other on our public performance. I don't know your -- I don't know your private life. You don't know my private life.
MILES O'BRIEN: ...What do you think? Let's talk about this in general, the whole. Where should the line be drawn on families? Where is it okay? Talk about the Clintons. They protected Chelsea Clinton very well all throughout. And there was, the media, I think, respected that generally, don't you think?
PAUL BEGALA: They did. And George and Laura Bush, I think, did a very good job of protecting their daughters. This is not a partisan thing. I think the President and First Lady have done a good job of protecting those girls.
(CROSSTALK)
O'BRIEN: Are people crossing a line here, do you think?
BEGALA: I think so. I think Rudy is right. I think if an issue affects your ability to do the job, then it's fair game. And that's mostly financial, medical. I mean, there are personal things I want to know about Rudy and the other candidates. But the kids ought to be off-limits. I think you're right. Now the problem is he's running in a party that has made a practice of going after people's families. Not just attacking Bill Clinton, we remember Rush Limbaugh attacking Chelsea Clinton. Maybe it was the OxyContin talking. But somebody who supported George W. Bush was attacking John McCain's family. They have this beautiful little girl they adopted from Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh. She's dark-skinned. They were saying that this was a product of an illicit affair that McCain had had. So, Rudy is entering into a party that has really made a practice of demonizing people's families.
O'BRIEN: All right. J.C., that's your party. You better respond.
J.C. WATTS: Well, I'm shocked that we would think that it's only one party. I mean, I've seen both parties do it. And I'm saddened by it. I think what Rudy -- Rudy Giuliani said there, Miles, is: I'm a father, before I'm a presidential candidate. I think he was right. Obviously, that's going to come up. I think both parties do it. No party has a corner on going after somebody's family over other people. As a matter of fact, good way to get a history of your family tree is to run for public office.

CBS's Bill Plante Defends 'Smart-Assed'
Rove Question

Admitting it was "smart-assed," CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante nonetheless defended his now-infamous "If he's so smart, how come you lost Congress?" quip from Monday's White House South Lawn ceremony with President Bush to officially announce Karl Rove's resignation. Interviewed by CBSNews.com's "Public Eye" blogger Matthew Felling, Plante did concede that he welcomes scrutiny of how the press functions, especially in live press conference settings. Said Plante at the open of his interview: "Anytime you challenge or appear to challenge the President -- and I don't care if the President is a Republican or a Democrat -- there are people who will take issue with it and tell you it's inappropriate. And you kind of expect that. I knew that was I did on Monday was smart-assed, but I think that that's beside the point."

[This item was adapted from a Thursday afternoon post from Ken Shepherd to the MRC's blog, NewsBusters.org: newsbusters.org [12] ]
At the close of his interview, the CBS White House correspondent seemed to welcome scrutiny of the work he and his colleagues do, including the tone and content of live press conferences: "I'm absolutely and totally in favor of openness, even if it makes us look bad. The public is entitled to see what we see -- and, increasingly, they do because of live coverage. If that means they see me or hear me asking what they think is an impertinent question, that's fine. I've got no problem with it."

Below is an excerpt of the PublicEye interview:

Matthew Felling: "Interesting week. Anything surprise you?"
Bill Plante: "Nothing much, actually. Anytime you challenge or appear to challenge the President -- and I don't care if the president is a Republican or a Democrat -- there are people who will take issue with it and tell you it's inappropriate. And you kind of expect that. I knew that was I did on Monday was smart-assed, but I think that that's beside the point.
"Our asking questions should not be dependent on what the White House thinks the mood or the tone of an event should be. And the fact that they say 'no questions' or don't allow time for questions really has nothing to do with it. They don't have to answer, but I think we need to preserve and aggressively push our right to ask.
Matthew Felling: "This week, you asked a question, it got uploaded on the web, it got broadcast everywhere. Did you see any increased polarization or partisanship in the responses you received?"
Bill Plante: "Yes, the response was instant because of the Internet. In this case, my question got put up on DCFishbowl and then on Drudge, so then it spread like wildfire. That's no surprise, since there are people that monitor those sites and others everyday.
"When I did this 20 years ago in the Rose Garden, I yelled a question at Ronald Reagan at the 'Teacher of the Year' event as he was leaving and going inside. Several of the teachers complained and said I disrupted things and that it was inappropriate. In that case, I got a few phone calls but then had to wait for the angry letters to come in. Then after that, I wrote a Washington Post Outlook piece about questioning the President. It took more than a week to play out.
"But in this case, it was instantaneous, of course. But I know that's how things happen these days."

For full interview, go to: www.cbsnews.com [13]

For Noel Sheppard's August 14 NewsBusters.org post about Plante's question, go to: newsbusters.org [14]

In an unrelated note of interest, Bill Plante may be a biased liberal journalist, but at least one apple fell far from the ideological tree as son Chris Plante, also a journalist (formerly with CNN), is a conservative-leaning talk show host here in Washington on WMAL radio (630 AM): wmal.com [15]

-- Brent Baker