After being bashed for years by an elite press corps full of ideological opponents, the Bush White House is fighting back in an upcoming book by former Washington Times reporter Bill Sammon, condemning the media and especially CBS.
"It's the beginning of the twenty-first century; it also happens to be the beginning of—or near the beginning—of a revolution in newsgathering and dissemination," President Bush said in an interview for Strategery, which is being released by publisher Alfred Regnery.
"I think what's healthy is that there's no monopoly on the news," Bush said. "There's competition. There's competition for the attention of, you know, 290 million people, or whatever it is.
Admin officials have especially strong words for CBS and its disgraced former anchorman, Dan Rather, whom strategist Karl Rove dismisses as "no serious reporter."
"The guy that it hurt most was Dan Rather and the executives at CBS," Rove is quoted as saying. "It further disgraced a network which is third in ratings and, if you look at the demographics of their consumers, it's like 70 percent Democrat."
"They made a decision in this instance -- I think quite prematurely and quite unfairly -- to pursue a story that attacked the president," he added. "And I thought it was, to me, one of the most incredible examples of how fundamentally unfair it was."
For further excerpts, see this page over at the Drudge Report.
