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 the firestorm surrounding former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair’s use of plagiarism and lies in his news stories, eventually leading to his resignation.
As WorldNetDaily reported, Blair now is being investigated for possible violations of the law.
WND: Ari, I have heard you, as the president’s chief spokesman, repeatedly denounce the extensive lying of Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq. But I’ve never heard you express any such criticism of the four years of lying published with the consent of two editors in The New York Times who will not resign – and my question: Surely you don’t mean to suggest that the president believes that lying is wrong in Iraq, but all right in New York, do you, Ari? And I have a follow-up.
FLEISCHER: Lester, I don’t think it’s responsible to make a connection between those two. I think –
WND: And then my follow-up. (Laughter.) The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen writes of this, “The answer appears to be precisely what the Times denies, favoritism based on race.” And my question: Would the president disagree, or does he see this in the New York Times disaster more illustration of what his amicus brief said in the Michigan case?
FLEISCHER: Lester, I think it’s important to deal with this in a serious fashion. I think that people –
WND: I feel it’s very serious. I’m a shareholder in that newspaper. (Laughter.)
FLEISCHER: So why didn’t you sell? Lester? Surely, Lester –
WND: – Because it allows me to ask questions at shareholders’ meeting.
FLEISCHER: Yes, OK. I think that the New York Times is wrestling with a very difficult issue, and this is a matter that has troubled many people, including people at the New York Times and readers of the New York Times. And they are dealing with this. And I will leave it to the New York Times to explain it; they are doing so. And I have no intention of saying anything beyond that. But this is a serious matter; they have taken it seriously and it should be taken seriously.
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