Editor’s note: Each week, WorldNetDaily White House correspondent Les Kinsolving asks the tough questions no one else will ask. And each week, WorldNetDaily brings you the transcripts of those dialogues with the president and his spokesman. If you’d like to suggest a question for the White House, submit it to WorldNetDaily’s exclusive interactive forum MR. PRESIDENT!
At today’s White House news briefing, WND asked presidential press secretary Ari Fleischer about CBS anchor Dan Rather’s recent interview with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Before WND’s question, another reporter broached the subject. Fleischer took the opportunity to congratulate Rather for the interview:
Question: On the CBS [Rather/Saddam] broadcast, you said this morning that the CBS position was that – that you had gone to CBS and asked for the ability to participate in the broadcast tonight and they said that it will be the president or nothing. We understand that this morning, at least, they have come back and said that they would find it acceptable if it were the president, the vice president or the secretary of state. Is that something –
FLEISCHER: Subsequent to the phone conversation that took place, CBS had said to the White House that they would be willing to have other guests on. And I want to make a couple points. One is, I think the American media generally are going to be facing some interesting and difficult decisions as Iraq puts people out to engage in propaganda. I believe that in this case, Dan Rather deserves to be congratulated for getting a serious journalistic interview with Saddam Hussein. However, we view what Saddam Hussein has said as propaganda and lies. And so the appropriate response is something that we will, of course, talk to CBS about, to see at what level and who could go out and respond to it. And that’s a conversation we’ll have with CBS.
Q: But are you going to accept their offer of the president, vice president or secretary of state –
FLEISCHER: Well, as I indicate, we will talk to CBS about the appropriate person to respond and timing of response, et cetera. I made the point I made.
WND later returned to the subject by making a comparison to World War II:
WND: At the time of Desert Storm, the first President Bush, as you remember, compared Saddam Hussein to Adolf Hitler. And my question is, from your extensive knowledge of the media, do you know of any instance where Edward R. Murrow of CBS ever interviewed or even tried to interview or even wanted to interview Adolf Hitler?
FLEISCHER: Lester, I addressed the topic earlier and I addressed in what I think is a serious journalistic issue. And I do think that journalists are going to get put into a position where they are performing their duty for the United States by having Iraqi officials talk to them. That’s appropriate. I think it’s also appropriate for the White House to have a response because this is propaganda. And that’s the White House view.
WND: My information is Murrow never even thought of interviewing Hitler – did he? Did he, Ari?
FLEISCHER: I’ve expressed my opinions on the issue.
WND also asked Fleischer about recent legislative proposals that clergy be required to report information about possible pedophile activity shared in the confidential setting of confessionals.
WND: Ari, does the president’s understanding of the First Amendment’s constitutional guarantee of the free exercise of religion mean that he believes that Cardinal McCarrick should go to jail if he does not suspend the seal of the confessional in cases of pedophilia, as being proposed by a number of state legislators?
FLEISCHER: Lester, it’s not the place of the president to decide who goes to jail in our country.
WND: No, I know, but the question is, does he believe that Cardinal McCarrick should go to jail if he doesn’t suspend the sacrament of penance?
FLEISCHER: Lester, I think you need to address your question to different people.
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