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Network executives pressured to support bush { May 28 2008 }

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   http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0805/28/acd.01.html

COOPER: "You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?"



http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0805/28/acd.01.html

ANDERSON COOPER 360 DEGREES

Hillary's Last Chance?; Former White House Spokesman Under Fire Over New Book

Aired May 28, 2008 - 22:00 ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

........


Joining me now, CNN's John Roberts, Jessica Yellin, and Ed Henry, all of whom spent plenty of days trying to get answers out of Scott McClellan.

John, what do you make of his charges?

ROBERTS: I -- I fully believe that that's what he thinks now. Did he think it then I think is the big question.

I do know that, in that particular instance, I was asking him why he wasn't commenting on the Valerie Plame leak investigation, when he had in the past. And he acknowledges in the book that I was correct, that he had done it before.

When it became clear that he had been sold a bill of goods, as far as Scooter Libby and Karl Rove's involvement in the Valerie Plame leak investigation, he changed. I could see it -- I could see it in his eyes. I could see that he changed. He went from being a real Bush loyalist to feeling like he had been hung out to dry, betrayed.

And I got the sense, at that point, that maybe something would come of it. And I asked him a little bit about it. And he said, well, I'm not going to say anything now. I will wait until the appropriate time.

So, I fully expected him to talk about that. I didn't expect it to be this whole litany, this whole laundry list of grievances going all the way back to 2002.

COOPER: Jessica, McClellan took press to task for not upholding their reputation. He writes: "The national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq. The 'liberal media' -- in quotes -- didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."

Dan Bartlett, former Bush adviser, called the allegation "total crap."

What is your take? Did the press corps drop the ball?

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I wouldn't go that far.

I think the press corps dropped the ball at the beginning. When the lead-up to the war began, the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the president's high approval ratings.

And my own experience at the White House was that, the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives -- and I was not at this network at the time -- but the more pressure I had from news executives to put on positive stories about the president.

I think, over time...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: You had pressure from news executives to put on positive stories about the president?

YELLIN: Not in that exact -- they wouldn't say it in that way, but they would edit my pieces. They would push me in different directions. They would turn down stories that were more critical and try to put on pieces that were more positive, yes. That was my experience.

COOPER: Ed, McClellan also writes how he and the president were misled when it came to the Plame case.

And he writes, "He" -- Bush -- "too had been deceived and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me. But the top White House officials who knew the truth, including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney, allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie."

Now, McClellan added -- added that had his reputation crumbled away because of that story.

Does -- how much of that, do you think, plays a role? I mean, is he settling a score, as some of his critics are now alleging -- alleging?

HENRY: I think to some extent. I think, as John Roberts was pointing out, that Scott McClellan was really shaken by that whole episode.

But I think the exchange you played at the very top of this segment between John Roberts and Scott McClellan in the CIA leak case, but also other exchanges between the press and McClellan and other White House officials in the run-up to the Iraq war, I think, shows that the media was not perfect, but the media did ask tough questions. They didn't always get good answers. Scott McClellan and others in the administration were not always very forthcoming. As you saw in the CIA leak case thing there with John Roberts, Scott McClellan became famous for saying the same thing over and over: "I can't comment on an ongoing investigation."

I mean, the media was trying. They were pushing. I was not at the White House at that time. I was there in 2006, at the tail end of McClellan's time. But the media was pushing him. But he, frankly, was not that candid, not nearly as candid as he is in this book right now.

So, you do have to wonder, who is the real Scott McClellan, the one...

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Go ahead. Go ahead, Ed. Sorry. Finish your thought, Ed.

HENRY: No, but just who is the real Scott McClellan, the one who was constantly pushing back on the media back then, and doing a lot of the White House talking points, or the one who now thinks that those talking parties were not true?

COOPER: Up next: more from our reporters on Scott McClellan's book.

Plus, a new development tonight that could give Hillary Clinton her last chance to salvage her campaign. We're on the trail -- next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: More now from the reporters who spent day after day grilling Scott McClellan and the allegations in his book that the media went easy on the White House, continuing the conversation with John Roberts, Jessica Yellin, and Ed Henry.

John, it does seem that the media gave the benefit of the doubt to this administration. And, in hindsight, that clearly seems like a mistake.

ROBERTS: The media gave the benefit of the doubt to this administration to a degree that it was not deserving of.

And I know that, after the Iraq war -- and I was there for the initial invasion, and I had heard all of the spin -- call it propaganda, if you want -- Scott McClellan does -- in the run-up to the war. I saw what the situation was on the ground.

COOPER: As we talked about before, all wars are done through propaganda. I mean...

ROBERTS: JFK sold Vietnam on propaganda. Roosevelt used propaganda, to a large degree, in World War II.

But propaganda is part of selling a war. But when I saw the contradiction between what we had been told in the run-up to Iraq and what we found on the ground on Iraq, I vowed to myself, never again, as White House correspondent, would I ever let them get away with anything like we did in the run-up to the war.

COOPER: Jessica...

YELLIN: Anderson...

COOPER: Yes, go ahead, Jessica.

(CROSSTALK)

YELLIN: It strikes me that what Scott is doing right now is expressing a little bit of guilt. I mean, he was remarkably evasive over and over on any number of issues, from Katrina, to the vice president's shooting, to the CIA leak, and WMD.

And, at this point, he has become more than just disillusioned. He has become deeply, I do think, personally hurt. By the time he left the White House, he was expressing a lot of sort of regret. He wouldn't say it outright, but there were ways in which he made it clear that he really felt changed and he felt let down.

You remember he said: I asked Karl Rove if he leaked Valerie Plame's name. And Karl Rove said no.

Karl Rove had worked -- he had worked with him for all those years. One got the sense that he felt enormously disappointed by a boss, a mentor, and it just changed his outlook.

COOPER: Ed -- Ed, Jessica, whichever of you want to answer this, I mean, to what extent -- don't these spokesperson lie all the time? I mean, maybe lie is too dirty a word, but, I mean, their job -- they're P.R. people. Their job is to spin a story.

Their job is to focus on one thing in answering a question and completely ignore the actual question you asked. So, I mean, for a lot of these former spokespeople to now come forward and say, I'm -- if Scott had misgivings, he shouldn't have done this, I would think any human being would have misgivings about spinning all the time.

(CROSSTALK)

HENRY: Well, I don't think they lie all time, but I do think Mike McCurry, who was the Clinton White House press secretary, I think he once said that it is the art of telling the truth slowly, not quite lying, but telling it slowly.

And that's why White House correspondents are always trying to prod, prod, prod, until you finally get that answer, until you finally break through. But it, frankly, takes long time. And I think, when you were talking about people now challenging McClellan's competence, saying maybe he wasn't really in the loop on a lot of these things, it makes you wonder why he then was the public face of this administration for so long.

I mean, I know not all press secretaries have the same access.

COOPER: Right. Why did they allow the guy who was not in the loop to be answering all the questions for this administration?

HENRY: He was out there talking about -- he was talking about war and peace. He was talking about the major issues of our day.

And, while I understand press secretaries don't have as much access as the secretary of defense, or someone like that, still, this is a very important job. It's the public face of this administration, of the president of the United States. And, so, it is sort of shocking to now hear, well, he wasn't really in the loop.

COOPER: Jessica Yellin, Ed Henry, John Roberts, appreciate your conversation. Really good. Thank you. Appreciate it.



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