Ari Fleischer Blasts Liberal Press
In his new book, "Taking Heat," former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer turns the tables on the media he battled for four long years, blasting mainstream reporters by name for their liberal bias and inaccurate reports. [More below...]
And judging from the early reviews, the press doesn't like it one bit.
Calling Fleischer's tome "tedious and tendentious," New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani complains that he "takes a lot of potshots at the press [including The New York Times]," adding that "Taking Heat" - "reads like the very embodiment of the administration's disciplined, corporate-style message control."
"Full of excerpts from Mr. Fleischer's often contentious exchanges with members of the press," says Kakutani, the book "is essentially a collection of talking points hastily pasted together with large slatherings of the vitriol and exasperation the author seems to have accumulated during his years as a 'piñata.'"
"This sorry volume," the irked reviewer continues, "remains so focused on the author's adversarial relationship with the press, and so intent on promoting a positive image of the administration, that it will only ratify White House reporters' complaints that Mr. Fleischer was a 'tight-lipped and secretive' press secretary."
Further annoying the Times, the former Bush spokesman had the temerity to include the Jayson Blair fiasco in his litany of complaints about media recklessness, along with a foreign correspondent at USA Today who also fabricated reports.
To that Kakutani sniffs, "Neither writer was on a White House beat" - as if that somehow rendered Fleischer's complaint moot.
The Washington Post's Howard Kurtz was a little more dispassionate, noting in his Tuesday column that Fleischer meticulously documents examples of media bias throughout his book.
Still, Kurtz couldn't resist checking in with Helen Thomas, the Bush-bashing eccentric aunt of the Washington Press Corps, who inadvertently confirmed Fleischer's point about bias.
Fleischer's job, said Thomas, was "to defend what was indefensible." |
