Flashback 2007: Bloody-Handed Condi Rice Protester Never Painted as 'Ugly' or Even Liberal

Brent Baker revealed how the network news on Thursday night described Rep. Joe Wilson’s "you lie" comment at President Obama as almost an international incident, a "shout heard ‘round the world" that symbolized the "ugly" tone of anti-Obama sentiment and a sign of disrespect on Capitol Hill.

It’s probably not shocking to remember that on Wednesday, October 24, 2007, when Code Pink protester Desiree al-Fairooz screamed at Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that she was a "war criminal" at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, none of the networks described it as "ugly," and NBC painted it as another sign of disarray for Team Bush.

On the Nightly News, reporter Andrea Mitchell weaved the Code Pink protest into a story on how the State Department was struggling with contractors in maintaining security in Iraq:

ANDREA MITCHELL:Before she even confronted lawmakers today, the secretary of state came face to face with a protester --

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: War criminal!

MITCHELL: – on top of scathing criticism, even from her own investigators, of the huge State Department security operation in Iraq.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE (Secretary of State): The department is being asked to do things in numbers and in size that are well beyond the bounds of we had been asked to do before.

MITCHELL: An acknowledgement of the disarray, today her top deputy for security, Richard Griffin, resigned abruptly.

Mitchell ended the story: "Under fire, Secretary Rice today promised more oversight, cameras to track contractors and better coordination with the military. Andrea Mitchell, NBC News."

The tone was aptly captured by the headline in Nexis: "State Department unable to handle war in Iraq."

CBS anchor Katie Couric was anchoring from San Diego, and only noted the protest stunt in passing:

On Capitol Hill, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was confronted by an anti-war protester at a hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. The woman shouted "war criminal" before she and several other protesters were dragged away by the police. The secretary was unfazed by the outburst, and testified she expects there will be a Mideast peace conference between Israel and the Palestinians in November or December.

ABC mentioned the incident the next morning, as Good Morning America news anchor Chris Cuomo briefly noted: "A close confrontation for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Capitol Hill. A protester with painted hands to symbolize blood managed to get in the secretary's face, calling her a war criminal. Rice, though, was unfazed and went on to testify about Mideast policy."

None of the networks made any attempt to identify the protester as Code Pink or describe her as liberal or leftist or radical. She was merely "anti-war."

On Friday morning’s Today, NBC anchor Matt Lauer asked Rice about the incident, but he never described it as "ugly," but simply as something that may have "frazzled" the Secretary:

LAUER: Let me end on just a different subject. On Wednesday you were set to appear before the House Foreign Relations Committee and a protester walked right up to your face, Madam Secretary, and said--with red paint on her hands and said, quote, "The blood of millions of Iraqis is on your hands." She was taken out of the room. Not on a policy level, on a personal level, what was your response to that moment? Were you angered? Were you upset? Were you frazzled? How did you respond to it?

RICE: No. In fact, she was there, she was taken away. Look, I know what I'm doing and I know what this administration has done to liberate millions of people from the tyranny and the grip of Saddam Hussein and to give them a chance for a better, more democratic future.

More on that here.