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