Day By Day

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Lying, Liars lying

The Obama administration now claims it did not try to exclude Fox News from Thursday's round of network interviews with pay czar Ken Feinberg.   A treasury department spokesperson claimed, "There was no plot to exclude Fox News, and they had the same interview that their competitors did. Much ado about absolutely nothing".  
Yet the other networks know better and have said so
A Fox News executive told the Huffington Post Saturday that the network "absolutely" did request an interview with Obama administration "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg and that the White House acknowledged a mistake on the part of a Treasury department staffer in failing to initially include Fox News in the round of interviews Feinberg conducted Thursday.
"Of course we requested an interview," Fox News Senior Vice President Michael Clemente told the Huffington Post.
This directly contradicts reports by the Associated Press and Talking Points Memo, both of which reported that the White House had excluded Fox News because it did not request an interview.
Whether Fox News requested an interview was irrelevant in this case, however, as the interview was conducted a pool including ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and Fox News.
Clemente said that CBS News Washington Bureau Chief and current pool chairman Chris Isham — who did not respond to phone or e-mail requests for comment Saturday — received a call from the Treasury Department Thursday saying that Feinberg would be available to speak to all of the networks in the pool except for Fox News, and that Bloomberg would be included instead.
Clemente said that when Isham presented that scenario on a conference call with the other pool members — including Fox News — "they unanimously said, instantly, no, that's not gonna fly. Either Fox is in or none of us is doing it."
Once Isham relayed that message to Treasury, Treasury cleared it with White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, who approved Feinberg's interview with Fox News' Major Garrett.
Clemente said, however, that there was now a catch: every network would get two minutes with Feinberg instead of the previously planned five.
This administration is so messed up they can't keep their lies, err story straight...

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