CNN’s Campbell Brown Lectures Obama For Brushing Off Media’s Questions

Photo of Matthew Balan.

Campbell Brown, CNN Anchor | NewsBusters.orgOn Monday’s “No Bias, No Bull” program, CNN’s Campbell Brown lashed out at President-Elect Barack Obama for his flippant response to a reporter’s question: “Mr. President-Elect, reporters, we hope, are going to ask you a lot of annoying questions over the next four years. Get used to it. That is the job of the media, to hold you accountable. But this isn’t just about the media. It’s about the American people, many of whom voted for you because of what you said during the campaign, and they have a right to know which of those things you meant and which you didn’t. Apparently, as you made clear today, you didn't mean what you said about Hillary Clinton. So, what else didn’t you mean?”

During the press conference where Obama unveiled his national security team, Peter Baker of the New York Times brought up the tough primary fight between the President-Elect and Mrs Clinton: “...[Y]ou were asked and talked about the qualifications of the -- your now, your nominee for Secretary of State, and you belittled her travels around the world, equating it to having teas with foreign leaders. And your new White House counsel said that her resume was grossly exaggerated when it came to foreign policy. I’m wondering whether you can talk about the evolution of your views of her credentials since the spring.” The outgoing Illinois senator replied, “I mean, I think -- this is fun for the press to try to stir up whatever quotes were generated during the course of the campaign. No, I understand, and you’re having fun.”

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Brown reacted sarcastically to this “having fun” remark: “There we go again. The pesky media -- all we want to do is have a little fun, stir things up for our own amusement. I mean, really, how silly of that reporter to dare ask you, Mr. President-Elect, how it is that you completely mocked Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy experience just a few months ago, and yet today, you think there is no one more qualified than she to lead your foreign policy team? It’s a clever device, treating a question so dismissively in an attempt to delegitimize it, but it is a legitimate question. As annoying how you may have found it, it is a fair question.”

The full transcript of Brown’s monologue, which came during her regular “Cutting Through the Bull” feature just after the top of the 8 pm Eastern hour of the CNN program on Monday:

CAMPBELL BROWN: First tonight, though, as always, we are ‘Cutting Through the Bull.’ No one here needs to be reminded of how heated things got between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton during the campaign. She trashed him, saying he wasn’t ready to be commander-in-chief. He trashed her, mocking her foreign policy experience as first lady. Well, now, of course, they have put all of that behind them, so that she can become his Secretary of State. Naturally, given all that was said, this issue came up during an exchange with reporters today. This is worth listening to.

PETER BAKER, NEW YORK TIMES: You talked about the importance, just now, of having different voices and robust debate within your administration. But, again, going back to the campaign, you were asked and talked about the qualifications of the -- your now, your nominee for Secretary of State, and you belittled her travels around the world, equating it to having teas with foreign leaders. And your new White House counsel said that her resume was grossly exaggerated when it came to foreign policy. I’m wondering whether you can talk about the evolution of your views of her credentials since the spring.

PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA: I mean, I think -- this is fun for the press to try to stir up whatever quotes were generated during the course of the campaign. No, I understand, and you’re having fun.

BROWN: There we go again. The pesky media -- all we want to do is have a little fun, stir things up for our own amusement. I mean, really, how silly of that reporter to dare ask you, Mr. President-Elect, how it is that you completely mocked Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy experience just a few months ago, and yet today, you think there is no one more qualified than she to lead your foreign policy team? It’s a clever device, treating a question so dismissively in an attempt to delegitimize it, but it is a legitimate question. As annoying how you may have found it, it is a fair question. It was only in March of this year that Greg Craig, your new White House counsel, put out a memo over four pages long, outlining point by point Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy claims, calling them all exaggerated, just words, not supported by her record.

Now, look, maybe you regret what you said about Hillary Clinton. Maybe it was, as you suggested today, all just said in the heat of the campaign. If that is the case, and you are both now rising above it, then you deserve to be commended for that. And you could have been explicit in saying all of that today. You could have explained the evolution of your thinking, instead of belittling a question you didn't like.

Mr. President-Elect, reporters, we hope, are going to ask you a lot of annoying questions over the next four years. Get used to it. That is the job of the media, to hold you accountable. But this isn’t just about the media. It’s about the American people, many of whom voted for you because of what you said during the campaign, and they have a right to know which of those things you meant and which you didn’t. Apparently, as you made clear today, you didn't mean what you said about Hillary Clinton. So, what else didn’t you mean? The media is going to be asking, and you were wrong today. Annoying questions are about more than just the press having fun. Annoying questions are about the press doing its job and the people’s right to know.

—Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center.


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No longer a shameless Obamashill, now a tough little bulldog

"That is the job of the media, to hold you accountable."

Hmmm. Matthews is in the media and has a completely different job description... 

Yes, Brown, just like in Men In Black, we all got zapped with that memory zapper. We don't remember any of your escapades of the past year.

→ Campbell Brown

So Campbell's Brown is no longer the soup du jour?

Guess they discovered the ingredients.

  • LYDSEXICS UNTIE!

Campbell, that was a hard

Campbell, that was a hard question.  Mr President-Elect, at His Own Right Hand, Barry Obama, isn't used to hard questions.  You should of asked something about Hillary's pantsuits.

Honey, are you suprised this guy is blowing you off?  Get used to it.  He did it all through the campaign, but you liked it then.  Ms Brown is pretending to be tough, now that it doesn't matter.  We all know you'll soften up again in about three years. 

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."  - Sir Winston Churchill

the hardly questions

forget about 'the big 'o'' ever answering any hard questions .. ain't gonna happen .. that might let the truth out ..

never look a gift skunk in the tail

Well I'll be

Well I'll be danged....Brown spoke the truth...she will be in the minority with her talking head brethren, heck little apple-cheeked Ed Henry got it from O also...and he works for CNN and they don't come anymore left.

I do hope there are some real questions to the Pretender...and demands for some real answers from some in the press...

Good job Campbell...you are actually doing your job, along with a few others....hope to see more, not less.

Time will tell.

"America isn't the problem...America is the solution." ~ Rush Limbaugh

 "It’s a clever device,

 "It’s a clever device, treating a question so dismissively in an attempt to delegitimize it, but it is a legitimate question. As annoying how you may have found it, it is a fair question."

Really, where was this for the last 2 years!! Are they that blind that this is BO's bread and butter game plan?! This makes me sick.

 And Ms. Brown, don't even try to take the high journalist road on this, you are the reason for this, you and you ilk created this monster, now you can deal with it.

 

vicis pro insurgo est propinquus

Don't Be Fooled

Right on. No one should be fooled by the occasional "jounalist". This group failed the country big time and they continue to do so. The are a rotten group of biased scoundrels and they are 99% "liberals". IMO, they already have blood on their hands. Our enemies are laughing up their sleeves as Barry cuts the military and hires more "diplomats". He should have been vetted by the media and certainly not fawned upon as he was. Due to their playing upon the ignorance of so many, our nation is in grave danger. S.O.B.'s.

NEVER,NEVER trust a "liberal"

Comical

It's comical how "the press" suddenly wants to do "their job" AFTER the election is over.  If they had done a better job before November 4th there wouldn't be any need for them to play catch up now.

It's also funny watching

It's also funny watching when a few in the last couple of days do their with real job, with real questions.... watching their Chosen One, make light of them, brush them aside like a few crumbs from the table with his napkin....

Delicious.

"America isn't the problem...America is the solution." ~ Rush Limbaugh

at least he didn't

brush his shoulders or rub his cheek with his middle finger, bt ;-)

At least this time he didn't - they'd better watch out when questioning his highness in the future though.

CapeC... That is IF they

CapeC...

That is IF they get another chance!

"America isn't the problem...America is the solution." ~ Rush Limbaugh

And you notice how, as I

And you notice how, as I said in the other thread, he says "quotes were generated" during  the campaign, as if they were spit out by a "quote generating machine" and he had nothing to do with them. He didn't say mean things, they were broadcast through the fillings in his teeth against his will.

The old saying goes "you start as you mean to go on."

I guess this means we are in for a President who will not accept responsibility for his own words.

 

one clip that should be played over

and over again is the Tom Brokaw/Charlie Rose one - you know, the CYA Friday before election program.  'We just don't know who this man is...blah blah blah  We just don't know a thing about him...blah blah blah!'

'Twill be fun to watch as the journalists begin to do the job they should have been doing the past 2 years! 

Be Careful!

Be careful Campbell!  Now that Democrats will be back in power soon, I have two words for you.... Vince Foster.

Watch your back.  If confronted, just deny you are Campbell Brown.  Just say you're Ally Sheedy.

Be Careful!

To PeterD:

 

Perfect two words . . Vince Foster. Then there is Ron Brown who was shot in the head but 'died'  in a plane crash.

 

 

I thought McCain was the hot head who shot off his mouth

At least that's what Obama and his campaign team have said repeatedly. They must have been projecting though, especially considering the fact that Obama just explained away all of his insulting (some would also say mysoginistic) attacks on Hillary Clinton as being "in the heat of the moment".

Hopefully President Obama won't be flying off the handle like this during negotiatons with our friends and enemies.

could be fun

This is a most dangerous moment in American politics with The Obomination moving into the White House, but yet... if this keeps up it could be fun to watch. Imagine The One's whole schtick unravelling over the next two years as everyone that voted for Him finds out they've been had.

[ I can dream can't I? ]

C'mon Brown, what makes you

C'mon Brown, what makes you so different as to expect he'll be any more forthcoming to you and the MSM? You're not the objective press. You didn't look out for us these past eight years by reporting things honestly, fairly and as they truly were. You must live with this monstrosity of a creation you helped spawn. Get used to it.

 

 

Amen!

Payback is sometimes not so much fun to receive, but I'm looking forward to being an innocent bystander to their demise!

The only problem is that it is OUR COUNTRY we are talking about!  And that scares the living dickens out of me to think what damage he can do in the next few years!

So Peter Baker asked the question -- will we see more?

So that's Peter Baker of the NY Times who asked the question. So, this seems to be a fairly bold move for a reporter asking real questions of a Democrat. Is that it, or will he make a career out of it?

Hmm. Just the other day, in a fawning piece on the selection of Susan Rice, he began with,  "President-elect Barack Obama has chosen his foreign policy adviser, Susan Rice, to be ambassador to the United Nations, picking an advocate of "dramatic action" against genocide as he rounds out his national security team, Democrats close to the transition said."

Then went on to quote Susan Rice:

"I swore to myself that if I ever faced such a crisis again, I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required," she told the Atlantic Monthly in 2001. She eventually became a sharp critic of the Bush administration's handling of the Darfur killings and last year testified before Congress on behalf of a U.S.-led bombing campaign or naval blockade to force a recalcitrant Sudanese government to stop the slaughter.

Well, after the Rwanda genocide, Mr. Baker, numerous quite similar conflicts in Africa should have challenged Susan Rice and the Clinton administration to "consider dramatic action." How about the horrific civil war in the D.R Congo (1996 - next door to Rwanda)?  Then we saw Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast and Angola - and before the end of the Clinton era, Liberia and Darfur were making a heck of a lot of noise. Between Susan Rice's visit to Rwanda and the end of the Clinton administration, more than 4 million more people were dead from war, genocide, and from the ravages of war. And Susan Rice has been a critic of President Bush for the est. 200,000 who have died in that conflict. Mr. Baker, the Bush administration labeled Darfur a genocide early on - and pushed, successfully to some degree, for the UN to act. The Clinton administration was afraid of using the term "Genocide," and millions died. I’d suggest that Peter Baker has a career in front of him, if he so chooses to hold these folks, this time - unlike last time - accountable.  

Now Gary, we're not going

Now Gary, we're not going to get anywhere if you insist on dragging up all this "old news."  The American people don't want that; they are tired of it.  They want to know how we are going to go forward, not get bogged down in blaming people for past actions.

What do you think?  Decent impression?

 

mb.. I could agree, but...

... t  h  e  y '  r  e     b  a  c  k  !

Ok Campbell here is a real

Ok Campbell here is a real question that Obama won't dismiss you as having fun.

"Is it true that you traveled to Indonesia at the age of 20? What country's passport did you use? Indonesia or US"

Let's sweeten the deal, I'll give you $100 if you have the journalistic chutzpah to ask him the question on TV and another $100 if you get him to answer truthfully. If you get him to admit to Indonesia, you get the Pulitzer.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, starving the poor one gallon of ethanol at a time. Fill your tank with E85 and cull a village.

Not ignoring the media...

Hussein O is not ignoring the questions, he truly doesn't know the answer so he simply votes here. Without a teleprompter or an earpiece he can't give the answer some white guy behind the curtain gives him. He's been that way his entire political career. A great speaker of written words but own his own he's dumb as a box of rocks.

 

Old, Retired and glad of it.

I'm confused.  Wasn't this

I'm confused.  Wasn't this woman having a love in with Obama too?

I am actually surprised to hear this from CNN.  But then again, I don't know if I want to be anywhere near a CNN reporter these days.  You could get yourself killed!!

If they hired Barbara West

If they hired Barbara West from the Orlando television market, they would actually have a real journalist not afraid to ask the questions they never wanted to ask.  Hmmm, maybe she'll run for Mel Martinez's seat in 2010...

Something tells me that if The One Who Was Born Nowhere In Particular had picked a bunch of radical, unknown leftists instead of so many Clingons, especially Hillary, Brown would still be well in Obama Rapture mode. 

One of the 24% who thinks George W. Bush was a great President. One of the 89% who wants to bring back the stock and pillory.

RR... Now would't that be

RR... Now would't that be priceless if she would run to take his seat!

I love that gal.

"America isn't the problem...America is the solution." ~ Rush Limbaugh

Yeah, it would be.  From

Yeah, it would be.  From what I can gather about her, she'd make a good senator, if she could keep from getting jaded like so many of the others that is.

Actually, I'm hoping she might get the opportunity to be on the national press scene grilling Libs.  Forget the 'fair and balanced' junk...it's only fair and balanced if one looks at total numbers of Lib and Con journalists across the board, not on one network. 

One of the 24% who thinks George W. Bush was a great President. One of the 89% who wants to bring back the stock and pillory.

This is going to be a very

This is going to be a very interesting four years.

There is indeed something these "jounalists" worship more than their communist politics... their own egos.

And when you have a press conference, you have a room full of egos, who are battling to control the conversation.  It doesn't matter that they are all liberals.  As long as there is one mike, these morons are going to be scratching and pulling hair to control that mike.  It's going to be like a 2-for-1 sale at a Payless Shoestore. 

Umm Campbell, where were you

Umm Campbell, where were you and the rest of the Media during Obama's campaign???  It's too late now sweetcheeks!!!

sober?

Looks as if Campbell Brown's glass of kool aid has worn off and has not taken another. Now she can concentrate on being an equal opportunity basher/commentator, which should last until late 2011 when the big O announces his re-election bid and all the jugs will be filled once again. Take another sip!!