Speaker 1: Snerd La actually reminded me of this in the break.
Speaker 1: When the Republicans won the House in they had their
Speaker 1: orientation at Camden Yards the Bullpark in Baltimore, and UH,
Speaker 1: I was invited to address the freshman class of the
Speaker 1: Republican Congressional Caucus because those those freshman members, in large
Speaker 1: part I thought that I was responsible for their victory,
Speaker 1: given the program at the time and and discussing their
Speaker 1: candidacies all over the country and so forth. And they
Speaker 1: made me an honorary member of the freshman class of
Speaker 1: this UH actually when they when they were inaugurated, but
Speaker 1: they asked me to come down and make speech to him.
Speaker 1: And I went down there to Camden Yards and this
Speaker 1: was on c SPAN, and I got up. But one
Speaker 1: of the things I said to them was, do not
Speaker 1: fall for the temptation that the media here in this
Speaker 1: town is happy that you won and they're happy that
Speaker 1: you're here. They're not. This is a Democrat run town,
Speaker 1: it's a liberal run town. And you have gotten in
Speaker 1: the way of the natural order of things, and as such,
Speaker 1: you are going to be treated accordingly. You're going to
Speaker 1: be continually be treated really as the minority. I said
Speaker 1: that the cameras and microphones are still going to seek
Speaker 1: out the Democrats for what they think is what's going on,
Speaker 1: because the impression will be conveyed that they still run
Speaker 1: the town. Do not think that any media member that
Speaker 1: calls you up and wants to take you to lunch
Speaker 1: is doing it because they like you, And they're not
Speaker 1: doing it because they're making interested in making you look good,
Speaker 1: and they're not. They don't want to get to know
Speaker 1: you so that they can publicize what it is you're
Speaker 1: working on in a favorable light. They want to sandbag you. Uh.
Speaker 1: As you're gonna have some of these delicious little reporter
Speaker 1: AT's and info babes. I said, Coke Robert's gonna call
Speaker 1: you up, It's gonna back those big eyelashes at you. Uh,
Speaker 1: and a lot of other infobabe is gonna do the same.
Speaker 1: And Coke Roberts actually send me a note after that
Speaker 1: when she heard about it, said let's go to lunch.
Speaker 1: Bat the eyebrows at me. Uh never did, although I
Speaker 1: met her later. Anyway, I'm reminded of that when when
Speaker 1: I when I when I see what happened here? Uh,
Speaker 1: In in large part what got Libby in trouble talking
Speaker 1: to reporters. Now, the administration of Republican administrations caught between uh,
Speaker 1: rock and a hard place here, because they have to
Speaker 1: talk to report. The administration cannot dissociate itself from the
Speaker 1: from the national media. They've got to talk to NBC,
Speaker 1: they got to go on and meet the press. They
Speaker 1: have to talk to the New York Times. Uh. The
Speaker 1: problem is, I think, looking at this in hindsight, is
Speaker 1: that many in the Republican administrations think they can spend
Speaker 1: these people. They think they can turn them into friends,
Speaker 1: turn them into supporters. It is. It is one of
Speaker 1: the things that I guess, this is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I don't want to work in that town, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to spend too much time there, because
Speaker 1: it's seductive and you get caught up in it. Uh.
Speaker 1: That town as many things. Of course, it's national capital,
Speaker 1: it's the center power. It's also a place largely defined
Speaker 1: by the social pecking order, and Conservatives and Republicans are
Speaker 1: never ever gonna be high up in the social pecking order, unless,
Speaker 1: of course, their Supreme Court justices who turn lib and
Speaker 1: then they'll get great puff pieces written about them in
Speaker 1: the Washington post style section, and that's how the process
Speaker 1: begins at turning them. Uh. But given all of that,
Speaker 1: why anybody in the administration would think that they're going
Speaker 1: to be dealt with fairly by media people that are
Speaker 1: out to undermine them something I will never understand. You
Speaker 1: can say whatever you want to say about Bill Clinton,
Speaker 1: but the one thing that you have to say about
Speaker 1: him and his wife is they are ruthless and they
Speaker 1: will not put up with double crossers. I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about the media now and within their own administration. Uh,
Speaker 1: They're not gonna put up with people sandbagging them or
Speaker 1: undermining them. If if that happens, all hell is brought
Speaker 1: down on these people in a number of different ways,
Speaker 1: which is why there haven't been any Clinton Tell All books.
Speaker 1: That's why a guy like Sandy Burglar would risk his
Speaker 1: reputation in jail time to go in and do whatever
Speaker 1: he did the National Archives to make sure that the
Speaker 1: Clinton administration end up looking good when the nine eleven
Speaker 1: Commission started looking at the things that happened prior to
Speaker 1: nine eleven. Uh, this administration is not ruthless in anyway.
Speaker 1: It doesn't punish or penalized people that attempt to undermine it. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it it seems to accept that you can talk
Speaker 1: to reporters from the Post, in the New York Times
Speaker 1: and these networks and get a fair shake. As I say,
Speaker 1: you can't not talk to him. Uh. And of course
Speaker 1: when the Wilson story breaks and he writes his op ed,
Speaker 1: that's full of lies. Uh. The administration is what we
Speaker 1: gotta we gotta refute this, and it was in the
Speaker 1: New York Times. So you start trying to refute the
Speaker 1: fact Cheney didn't send the guy, as he's saying, was
Speaker 1: the caseum, which was a big thing, and that did
Speaker 1: come out in the trial. Wilson was trying to make
Speaker 1: it known to anybody the Vice President's office sent him
Speaker 1: into jail and they didn't. When he when he comes
Speaker 1: back right his oup ed, they're all saying in a
Speaker 1: White House, who's this guy? And cool to see how
Speaker 1: this guy end up over there? We didn't do this.
Speaker 1: And that's when it was learned at Valerie Plame work there,
Speaker 1: and Valerie Plame recommended her husband to go. And then
Speaker 1: you've got the political connections to those two have, and
Speaker 1: there you know whatever their political and ideological orientations are.
Speaker 1: And Bamo you've you've got to You've got a a giant,
Speaker 1: you know, inter agency game of sabotage going on here. Uh.
Speaker 1: This kind of thing was just not permitted in the
Speaker 1: Clinton White House. They just wouldn't put up with it.
Speaker 1: Nobody had the guts to even try it. Uh. But
Speaker 1: you when you, when you have a desire to work
Speaker 1: with these people and try to spend and convert them
Speaker 1: into a liking you. And I'm gonna tell you, I
Speaker 1: don't care whether that's in politics or just in in
Speaker 1: in any avenue of personal life. If your prime objective
Speaker 1: is to make somebody like you, you've lost. That's not
Speaker 1: especially if they don't. And the and the idea to
Speaker 1: try to turn them, uh and explain your way of things.
Speaker 1: I don't understand the naivete these reporters show up for
Speaker 1: interviews conversations with Republican officials, administration, congressman senators with their
Speaker 1: stories already written, their minds already made up, because they
Speaker 1: have a prejudice about what Republicans and Conservatives are. And
Speaker 1: so the whole the whole point of of of talking
Speaker 1: to members the administration and Republicans otherwise to trip them up.
Speaker 1: And what happened here. Russer, Matt Cooper, Judith Miller. It's
Speaker 1: a bunch of journalists at the center, it is, and
Speaker 1: what Libby told them and in the FBI and the
Speaker 1: grand jury and so forth. But I mean this jury
Speaker 1: that came out and talked said they had a lot
Speaker 1: of sympathy for Judath Miller. The The New York Times
Speaker 1: in full Babe ended up in jail for not revealing
Speaker 1: her sources to Fitzgerald. Uh. Juror said, well, I really
Speaker 1: felt sorry for her. The defense was just just pounding.
Speaker 1: It was it was. It was just they were just
Speaker 1: too hard on her. Um, you don't hit the girl
Speaker 1: is one characteristic or aspect of that. But until until
Speaker 1: people learn that you know you you you, You're not
Speaker 1: gonna be able to bring a bunch of reporters in
Speaker 1: from Washington or New York and explain conservatism or your
Speaker 1: policy and have a sympathetic ear or even an ear
Speaker 1: that wants to understand what you're trying to do beyond
Speaker 1: me and why they keep thinking they can do this,
Speaker 1: Uh is also beyond me. And I know what you say, well,
Speaker 1: what would you do? Well, you have to talk to
Speaker 1: my understand and a presidential administration has to talk to me,
Speaker 1: have to do press conferences and and you you have
Speaker 1: to do all this. Uh, I myself have had experience
Speaker 1: dealing with these people, as you know. Uh. And give
Speaker 1: an example, and I can give you many. Yesterday, after
Speaker 1: the program, we got a phone call from a cable
Speaker 1: news network and they wanted to take five seconds of
Speaker 1: what I said about the end Culter Kerfuffel and use
Speaker 1: it all afternoon and all night last night. Now, I
Speaker 1: spoke for fourteen minutes on the end Culter Kerfuffel, and
Speaker 1: the five seconds they wanted to take was totally out
Speaker 1: of context and was uh irrelevant, but it fit they're
Speaker 1: preconceived notion in prejudice about what the holy end culter
Speaker 1: thing was about five seconds out of fourteen. But the
Speaker 1: same thing happened with the Michael J. Fax that people say, well,
Speaker 1: how come you don't go on these places and get
Speaker 1: your side of it? Why don't you going to explain yourself.
Speaker 1: I've learned that that that's not what happens. We denied
Speaker 1: permission for them to use the five seconds that they
Speaker 1: wanted to use yesterday. I don't know if they ended
Speaker 1: up trying to use it anyway. I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 1: didn't watch. I didn't get any email read. Normally, when
Speaker 1: I appear on a cable news network somewhere, somebody sends
Speaker 1: me an email rush righth rsh I saw you I
Speaker 1: or Factor Afternoon. I didn't get any of that. But
Speaker 1: I don't talk to him much because here's an example.
Speaker 1: I'll give you another example of the New Yorker Jane Mayer,
Speaker 1: who with Jill Abramson, who is the bureau chief of
Speaker 1: New York Times Washington, I think, wrote a book about
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas and just smeared the guy. And she was
Speaker 1: going to do a story in The New Yorker about
Speaker 1: twenty four and so forth, and it was going to
Speaker 1: be a basically a profile of Joel Cerno. And I
Speaker 1: was told that she wanted to talk to me about
Speaker 1: this because she knew that I was friend of SnO.
Speaker 1: So I called some people who already talked to her
Speaker 1: and found out that basically it was a story on
Speaker 1: how the program promoting torture and you're just going to
Speaker 1: be a treatise and torture. So I called her into
Speaker 1: those circuits knowing what this was about, and I talked
Speaker 1: to her for about twenty minutes, and the first fifteen
Speaker 1: were purely social. I'd been on a TV show with
Speaker 1: her wants but wait, wait, wait, way back, Bob Beckle
Speaker 1: hosted a local TV show in Washington, the panel show
Speaker 1: I Eat the McLaughlin Group, Like that night had appeared
Speaker 1: on the show where and she remembered that, and uh,
Speaker 1: and I have a good memory. I remembered that she
Speaker 1: had to hustle out of there and go play tennis.
Speaker 1: And I reminded her of that, and she was, oh, wow, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, You're right about it. She congratulated me and
Speaker 1: all my success, How wonderful it all was blah bla,
Speaker 1: talking about understand your friends with Joel, understand he had
Speaker 1: a party at your house for when um she was
Speaker 1: she was in the mall with her daughter, shopping on
Speaker 1: her cell phone, wasn't taking any notes, and then starts
Speaker 1: asking me about torture. You know, the last five minute,
Speaker 1: the last five minutes of what she really wanted my
Speaker 1: thoughts on and all this other stuff was you know,
Speaker 1: just just set up, knowing full well that it was
Speaker 1: about torture. I you know, did my best, and I
Speaker 1: was honest, and I did my best to tell her,
Speaker 1: I think, you know you're barking up a tree here,
Speaker 1: that it's got no branches on it. But that's just
Speaker 1: that the story was written before it was published. Is
Speaker 1: the point? So well? I can't figure out is why
Speaker 1: other people are not as I'm not trying to give
Speaker 1: myself credit. This has been learned by experience. It's no
Speaker 1: great insight of mine. I look at I got, I
Speaker 1: got sandbaged. I can't tell you how many times the
Speaker 1: first five years of this show, thinking you could be nice,
Speaker 1: fair and just be honest, and they will, they will
Speaker 1: report what you say. It's it's not that way with us.
Speaker 1: This it doesn't happen then, So why other people don't
Speaker 1: figure this out? This is why I get so fed
Speaker 1: up when I see some of my conservative brethren in
Speaker 1: the d C media trying to curry favor with the
Speaker 1: drive by media. That's why I get so bent out
Speaker 1: of shape when I see potential Republican candidates and elected
Speaker 1: officials trying to make the media they're best friends, because
Speaker 1: it's it's it's all temporary. Even if it works for
Speaker 1: a while, it's all I get se come back and
Speaker 1: the media is gonna end up stabbing you ask Senator McCain. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, they're dumping on him after him being their
Speaker 1: favorite Republican for four years. And is why it irritates
Speaker 1: me when elected Republicans go on Sunday shows and trash
Speaker 1: their own party and their own president just curry favor
Speaker 1: with these people. But in this case, you have the
Speaker 1: administration talking to them, and they have to talk to them.
Speaker 1: But to think that there was a chance that the administrations,
Speaker 1: especially on this subject, the war in a rock, Uh,
Speaker 1: there's just a different way to approach him, you know,
Speaker 1: approach him. You know, they walk into the office or
Speaker 1: you meet him for lunch or whatever. And and just
Speaker 1: I know why you're here, Mr reporter. You're here to
Speaker 1: sandbag the administration. You're here to do us wrong. You're
Speaker 1: here to lie about us blah blah, put him on
Speaker 1: the defensive. Uh. And Uh. The last thing they want
Speaker 1: is for you to peg them. The last thing they
Speaker 1: want is for you to be able to know it
Speaker 1: and then say what they're gonna do and then have
Speaker 1: them do it. It has worked for me in the past,
Speaker 1: but I don't even find it interesting enough to have
Speaker 1: time to do it anymore. But why this administration thinks
Speaker 1: that they can sit down and talk to these people
Speaker 1: and they're gonna fair shake beyond me,