Stephen Spruiell reports on NRO's Media Blog that disgraced CBS anchor Dan Rather interviewed Scott McClellan at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan on Wednesday night. This is surely a last straw in Bush betrayal. For his part, Rather pressed Scottie to confirm that certain brave anchormen with a deficiency in identifying modern typefaces were done in by a vast right-wing conspiracy of bloggers and Bushies.
With echoes of Watergate, Rather smells a Gordon Liddy-style covert operation that "seeks to orchestrate, perhaps even run some of what’s on the Internet." Bloggers who favor Bush may even be "paid by the White House political operation." To Spruiell's transcript:
RATHER: In the book What Happened, you say the press were “complicit enablers” who “neglected their watchdog role” [and were] “probably too deferential to the White House in the debate over whether or not to go to war.” And you say what you call the “liberal media” — quote-unquote — didn’t live up to its reputation and, quote, “If it had, the country would have been better served.” Give me some examples of why you think that?
McCLELLAN: Well… if you go back and look at that time period, and certainly I think people like Dan Rather were the exception to that rule, I say in the book there were exceptions […]
RATHER: A lot of journalists thought that — let’s set aside present company — that it was pretty well known that if you did tough questioning… that you would expect the campaign to try to injure — if not destroy — your credibility as a journalist. Did you take part in those kinds of conversations? Did you hear those kinds of things?
McCLELLAN: I didn’t directly, I didn’t hear anything like that. [Upper East Side liberals emit sarcastic guffaws.] No seriously, I don’t think I… my focus was on domestic policy moreso than on the, on the broader issues… if that happened, it happened at a higher level than I was at that time, if people were directed to do things […]
RATHER: Is there a special operation in the White House or in the Executive Office Building next door to it that seeks to orchestrate, perhaps even run some of what’s on the Internet?
McCLELLAN: Certainly there’s a large operation, part of the communications operation is the office of strategic iniatives, working to make sure that… the blogosphere has a tremendous amount of influence, and they just want to make sure that we’re helping to shape some of that narrative…
RATHER: To your knowledge, are there bloggers who are paid by the White House political operation? Some campaigns have —
McCLELLAN: — not to my knowledge, but that was not an area I focused on.
Scottie translation: Perhaps that evil Karl Rove was masterminding this behind my back, like so many other things. Bloggers no doubt are part of a Washington "gotcha game," McClellan would say, reading the Gergen script that he's been handed.
Rather tried to play gotcha with fraudulent faxes, and he ended up ruining his own career.
