May 06, 2009 MSNBC HARDBALL

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Ari Fleischer on D.L. Hughley Breaks the News talking about the White House press corps and how "tough" David Gregory was on him but a straight shooter when it came to his reporting.

Fleischer: David Gregory D.L., he started out in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I knew him a long, long time ago and he worked his way up and became a White House reporter and then became the host. But what you have to understand is that room is a TV show. It's not the reality. This is where they posture. They show I'm tougher. They know their editors are watching and they know their colleagues are watching. So they're going to show I'm the toughest guy. I can take down the Press Secretary.

Hughley: Who irritated the hell out of you? Somebody had to.

Fleischer: David Gregory. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. But, having said that, that's because that was a TV show in that room. David was the toughest interrogator I had but when it came time to go on the air the man was always fair. What he put on the air was straight down the middle. So that's the bigger story about life at the White House. They can be one thing in that room. The reality is when they come into your office ten times a day and are talking to you privately. They're gathering facts and background information, that's the real work that goes on and most of them are actually pretty polite at that point in their lives, but they're not so polite in that briefing room.

Greg Mitchell has a slightly different take on that in his article at the HuffPo:
Ari Fleischer Defends Press Coverage of Iraq -- Wrong Again!.

That was written back in June of 2008. I see some things never change. Fleischer is still using the same tired talking points and claiming Gregory did his job as a reporter. I think if that were true, he might have spent a little bit of time covering this-- Pictures of Anti-War Protests from Around the World-- and a little less time doing this.

As noted by Think Progress Fleischer was also still claiming that Saddam Hussein was at fault for our invading Iraq: Fleischer: On Iraq, ‘Saddam was the big liar.’.

Fleischer: We were wrong about weapons of mass destruction being in Iraq. […]

Hughley: When you found out that you were wrong, how did that make you feel?

Fleischer: You just scratch your head and say, “How could we be wrong?” It wasn’t just us that thought he had weapons of mass destruction. The Egyptians thought it, the French thought it, the Germans thought it the United Nations thought it, Bill Clinton’s CIA though it. We all thought it. Saddam was the big liar here.

Nothing like a little revisionist history on those weapons in Iraq Mr. Fleischer. And could D.L. Hughley have given this man any more of a softball interview? Hell he was harder on Bay Buchanan than he was Fleischer.

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Kit Bond discussing the confirmation of Leon Panetta for CIA and still pushing the GOP talking points on WMD in Iraq and failing to note the pressure put on the intelligence community by Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush administration.

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Dick Cheney on Face the Nation doing his last bit of spin on Iraq and Saddam Hussein before we finally get these criminals out of office.

Cheney seems to think that Iraq is better off now than before the invasion and occupation. Somehow I think that the over a million dead and millions more displaced there would tend to disagree with him but hey, what do I know.

Maybe they love living in a country poisoned by DU, with filthy conditions where they're separated from their friends and family that they have left and wondering if they'll have clean water, food or electricity to look forward to in the next day, week or month.

I'm sure other than that all those Iraqis are eternally grateful to Dick Cheney and the Bush administration and all of those in the United States Congress that allowed themselves to be bullied or scared into approving us invading their country for helping to have "liberated" them. Bravo. Mission accomplished. The rest of the world just loves us now, right? But of course, as far as Cheney is concerned, they can just go **** themselves, those ingrates.

I really don't know why he even bothers with the Bush history revision. Everyone knows he could care less what anyone thinks of him or the U.S. or the Bush administration and the damage that's been done while he and Bush have been in office.

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From Hardball Dec. 3, 2008. Chris talks to Joan Walsh and Michelle Bernard about George Bush's interview with Charlie Gibson on ABC.

Matthews: Joan I'm not sure what the message there is. Is the President saying in retrospect that he would not have invaded and occupied Iraq as a matter of geopolitical policy had there been no weapons of mass destruction? Is he saying that that was the single definitive reason why we went into that country and occupied it? Is that what he's saying?

Walsh: Yes. It seems like it. Charlie Gibson did follow up with that question Chris and he wouldn't quite answer it. But I just have to say that is the most astonishing, buck passing, self pitying answer I could have imagined. He acts as though the Intelligence agencies where some wholly owned subsidiary of some other administration, rather than his, his responsibility. He acts like people outside the administration agreed when he was responsible for pushing that faulty intelligence, for stove piping it and ignoring everything. That any kind of doubt, any kind of dissent and really cooking the books in terms of the case for WMDs. I mean it's really scandalous how he's distancing himself.

Somebody had to say it. Of course Matthews and Bernard are a day late and a dollar short with their commentary that follows. Matthews does some truth telling now when he was a cheer leader for the invasion along with the rest of them before we went in there. Bernard thinks that somehow Bush was trying to apologize to Powell during the interview. Yeah, sure he was.