Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann Slam Fox News Propaganda About Their Meeting with Obama

AlterNet. Posted October 27, 2009.

Recently Fox news commentators pointed to a meeting between President Obama and liberal commentators including Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann as evidence that the President has a special -- and unfair -- relationship with left-leaning media. In the segment below, Maddow and Olbermann hit back, pointing to out that unlike Bush, who invited only conservative media stars to the White House, Obama has met with both liberals and conservatives. Transcript below:

RACHEL MADDOW: Since Mr. Olbermann and I have been brought into this story by FOX News in this national story of White House versus FOX News, FOX News has decided to bring us into it, let‘s set the record straight here on what‘s being alleged and how the presidential -- how various presidential administrations handle the media.

I have been in national talk radio since 2004. And during the Bush administration, I tried many times to get myself invitations to the White House when they held White House availabilities for administration staff or even meetings with the president for talk radio hosts. And although these meetings were billed as talk radio meetings, just talk radio meetings, they were always, in practice, during the Bush administration, exclusively for right-wing talk radio hosts. So, I could never get an invitation, much to my chagrin.

[...]

This is what the Bush administration did and they had every right to do it. They invited in talk radio hosts and columnists who agreed with them. And all of us who didn‘t agree with them were out of luck.

Well, now, it‘s the Obama era. And, frankly, I did get an invitation to the White House. And the Obama administration also meets with conservatives, too. The last meeting like this that I was invited to was back in January, just before President Obama was inaugurated. It was roughly the same group of people who attended the meeting this week, give or take a few additions and subtractions.

We met at the Obama transition office back in January. You want to know what happened the day after our meeting with the president-elect, he went to a gathering of conservative commentators at George Will‘s house in Chevy Chase, Maryland. “Washington Post” wrote it up at that time, they said, quote, “During a three hour dinner conclave, Obama charmed eight of the right‘s most prominent commentators.” According to an Obama adviser that time, “Obama enjoys debating his ideological opponents more than his allies and plans further meetings with journalists of varying stripes during his term.”

Liberals could not get an invitation to meet with President Bush to save our lives. President Obama is now inviting us in -- and he‘s also been talking to people on the right.

You can be upset all you want that the president meets with people who you disagree with. But consider being fair and balanced in your criticism, at least admit that this White House has met with both sides while the Bush White House did not. You should especially admit that if you happened to have been a member of the Bush White House during that administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KARL ROVE, FMR. BUSH SENIOR ADVISOR: It is demeaning the office of the president by taking the president and moving him from a person who want to be talking to everybody and communicating through every available channel, but saying, “If you oppose me, if you question me, if you‘re too tough on me, by gosh, me and my people are not going -- are not going to come out, we‘re going penalize you.” And that‘s just is wrong, fundamentally wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: If you‘re too tough on me, me and my people are not going to come on.

According to Mr. Rove, that sort of punishment is fundamentally wrong -- that‘s something the Bush White House would never have done, right, former Bush White House Press Secretary Dana Perino?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA PERINO, FMR. WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Believe me there, were some people who really wanted me from the podium to go after MSNBC. And I just thought it was a bridge too far.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And not only did you not go after them, you gave them interviews as did the president, gave them all interviews.

PERINO: Well, towards the end, we didn‘t do a lot with MSNBC.

See more stories tagged with: fox, olbermann, obama, msnbc, george w. bush, rachel maddow

Liked this story? Get top stories in your inbox each week from Media and Technology! Sign up now »