Interviewing Bob Woodward on this morning's 'Today' about his Bush-bashing State of Denial, Lauer served as a cheerleader worthy of Katie at her perkiest.
At one point, Lauer summarized matters thusly:
"You paint a picture of a White House and administration that is not tone deaf in some cases but that literally in some cases puts their hands over their ears and said we don't want to hear the information if the information is not going to bolster our company line."
That's when, in the screen capture shown here, Lauer 'helpfully' mimed the White House's 'hear no evil' attitude that Woodward alleges.
In fairness, Lauer did criticize Woodward on one point: that he didn't come out with with his unflattering portrait of the Bush administration . . . sooner.
"As you uncover all of this stuff, some of this stuff is vitally important as this nation is at war and people are dying. Didn't you have a responsibility to go to a mountain top and scream this out and not hold it for the release of a book a month before the mid-term elections? . . . If it's a case of not listening to key military advice when Americans are dying, people could say it's disingenuous to wait for a splash with a book?"
Woodward made a telling admission in response:
"The publisher Simon & Schuster and my bosses at the Washington Post said the real obligation here, to use your analogy to get up on top of the mountain and tell the full story, is to tell it before the election. That's what we are doing."
With two big helping hands from Matt.
Aside: In her interview of White House spokesman Tony Snow that preceded the Woodward-Lauer love-in, Meredith Vieira might have scored the most inane question of the still-young month with this pearl: "Is there anything in the book you agree with?"
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Finkelstein lives in the liberal haven of Ithaca, NY. View webcasts of Mark's award-winning TV show 'Right Angle' here. Contact Mark at mark@gunhill.net
