I can't wait for the inevitable Dana Perino tell-all book, "I Knew - I really Knew."
White House won’t admit that Bush met with military analysts
By Eric Brewer | White House | Wednesday, 25 June 2008
http://rawstory.com/news08/2008/06/25/white-house-wont-admit-that-bush-met-with-military-analysts/At Wednesday’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Dana Perino claimed that she doesn’t know whether President Bush ever met with TV military analysts who participated in the Pentagon’s secret propaganda program that was suspended earlier this year after its existence was revealed in a NY Times story by David Barstow.
When I first questioned Ms. Perino about the program on April 30, she denied White House knowledge of the program, but as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald pointed out last month, Pentagon emails dating from March 2006 reveal that Pentagon officials communicated with Karl Rove about setting up meetings between the military analysts and both President Bush and his National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.
Here’s the exchange that I had with Ms. Perino Wednesday:
Q Has the President ever met with a group of TV military analysts assembled by the Pentagon?
MS. PERINO: I don’t know. But what — I don’t know.
Q Well, the Pentagon released emails saying that they were seeking such a meeting — that was in March 2006.
MS. PERINO: I think it would probably have been a good idea if they had. It would have been a good meeting.
Q What would such a meeting have discussed?
MS. PERINO: I’m not going to speculate on a meeting that I don’t remember, that I don’t know it happened. I just will say I don’t know, but I think it would have been a good idea had there been a meeting.
Q Can you find out?
MS. PERINO: Mm–we’ll see.
Considering that I’ve asked the White House before about the President’s involvement in the military analyst program, and that the White House has defended both the program and its involvement with the program as routine public relations activities, it’s odd that she’s being coy now. Normally, when a reporter asks the Press Secretary to find out more information about something she doesn’t know about, she readily agrees. I’m going to keep asking, so we will indeed see if on this topic, she and the White House have something to hide.
Incidentally, I tried to ask this question on three previous occasions—June 17, 23, and 24— but Perino and her deputy Tony Fratto refused to call on me. I may have had better luck today, because this time I sat in Helen Thomas’s front row seat. Helen hasn’t attended the briefing for over a month, and, according to Editor and Publisher, she is recovering from a gastric infection. Get well soon, Helen!
The preceding article was a White House report from Eric Brewer, who will periodically attend White House press briefings for Raw Story. Brewer is also a contributor at BTC News. He was the first reporter to ask about the Downing Street memo and the Pentagon analysts scandal at White House briefings.
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