Posted by Tina
You can read the article at NewsBusters and view a copy of the original newspaper article here.
Since Sam Donaldson has taken exception to Munroe’s method of questioning, as well as the comparison to him during the Reagan years, the following from him included in this 1987 article is pretty amusing:
“People see us in the news-gathering process. It is disorderly. They somehow seem to believe that the press…should conduct itself as if at a ladies cotillion on Sunday in its best clothes, and with its most polite manners. That is not the way the news business works.”
Mr. Donaldson nobody would have accused you of being a lady.
Yep…it is just as we have always thought…the left media has always been free to press hard for answers, insult, and show disrespect to Republican office holders, candidates, pundits and supporters but with most Democrats such behavior is considered scandalous. They soft ball the questions and in some cases (Obama) they giggle and sigh like dewy-eyed preteens at a Bieber concert.
My message to right-wing candidates, supporters, media and bloggers: Who cares what the left thinks…all is fair in love and war…”Let’s roll!”
Sam Donaldson never interrupted the president while the president was in the middle of a sentence. Not once. No one has ever interrupted a president before this one.
Here is what Donaldson ACTUALLY said IN RELATION to this story (Your quote is out of date): “Never once did I interrupt a president in any way while he was making a formal statement, a speech, honoring awardees or in any other way holding the floor. Yes, almost always when he was finished in the Rose Garden or in the Briefing Room or at a photo opportunity with other world leaders I tried to question him (only rarely was it a shout on the rope line, more often a more normal tone of voice) and other reporters of course did the same thing along with me.
What this man did yesterday is something new, to me wrong and unusual. I think it is probably the result of the growing incivility of the times, the competition among reporters and news organizations to be noticed not only for the work product but for the theatrics of the gatheringand there is one more factor, lets face it: Many on the political right believe this president ought not to be there they oppose him not for his polices and political view but for who he is, an African American! These people and perhaps even certain news organizations (certainly the right wing talkers like Limbaugh) encourage disrespect for this president. That is both regrettable and adds, in this case, to the general dislike of the press on the part of the general public.
For Tucker Carlson to say that he would if he can give this man a raise for this rude attempt to interrupt the president is reflective of what Ive said above and, to me, lowers my opinion of Tucker.”
Your boy was rude. Your hatred of Obama does not excuse it. This isn’t even a case of your usual, “Two wrongs make a right” excuse for bad behavior. There is no precedent for this.
CIVILIZED people care what the Left thinks. For the last three years you have been calling for sedition. NOW, you call for a war, and tell us “All is fair”, and “Let’s Roll?”
Are you serious?
Do you WANT violence? Who are you going to fight?
How?
I think maybe it’s time we had DHS take a look at your writings.
You are dangerous!
Question no need to get your panties in a bunch. We have all said it was inappropriate for Munroe to interrupt the President, including Mr. Munroe himself!
I’m well aware of Donaldson’s remarks about this event but that doesn’t change the quote he made in 1987 when questioned about the yelling and demanding manner that reporters used when Reagan was president.
Denials that the press have been rude and hostile to Republican presidents are laughable. The pretense that they are even-handed and nonpartisan a joke.
It is equally amusing that the president can get away with making snide, rude, and demeaning comments about Americans of the opposition party like a common street thug while serving as President…the fawning, giggling like a teenage girl, loyalty to this man is nauseating…and defensive accusations of racism when nuts like you, and Donaldson, are called on it is particularly funny. How desperate do you have to be to insert race from out of the blue!
I have done nothing but express my opinion and post information for discussion that I think might be of interest. Your interpretation, that I am calling for war, is paranoid and stupid. The “war” we fight is a war of ideas fought with the use of the written and spoken word. The opposing side does not choose to be civil, does not choose to be truthful, stoops to the lowest tactics to win political contests, and has no problem circumventing the law at the voting booth. Why on earth should I have any respect for their sensibilities as citizens of these United States.
I am exercising my rights as a U.S. citizen guaranteed by the First Amendment to the Constitution. I am participating in a venture to report and comment on what the media will not print and will not write. As for your notion of the “CIVILIZED” (That’s funny coming from you Q), I suggest you practice what you preach and turn your attention to others, like the President, for instance, who has called his opposition “the enemy” and has said “if they bring a knife, we bring a gun.” I suggest you look to his unbecoming handling of Mr. Munroe and the other reporters present…anything but presidential. Totally lacking in grace or humor. He views Munroe not as a citizen, not as a reporter, not as a person he is charged with serving, but as an arrogant potentate.
America can and will be better represented. I hope one day soon it will be by a more competent black man or woman!
I’d suggest little men in white coats for you but that might be interpreted as “uncivilized” rather than an appropriate retort to your ridiculous suggestions.
But poor Barack doesn’t even get to finish … before the barbarians let fly.
You just keep trying though … to show us all how you ain’t.
Yeah Libs, poor Barack They Bring a knife We Bring a Gun Obama didn’t get to finish.
Instead of handling the eager beaver upstart with presidential humor and authority, as Reagan always did when Donaldson was repetitive and tedious, he admonished Munroe and promptly stomped off losing his position of authority in the process.
As far as your evaluation of the right goes I have one word…no two:
ACORN
OCCUPY
“anything but presidential”
He said , Excuse me and called Mr. Munroe “sir”.
what was unpresidential about that.
Who can tell if you’re only talking ideas?
You laughed at the deaths of 10,000 Syrians. You’re sick.
You’re dangerous. You’re seditious.
WTF…Q…etc: “He said , Excuse me and called Mr. Munroe “sir”.
what was unpresidential about that.”
Nothing was presidential about that. A more confident and experienced leader would have been more calm and collected. But I didn’t criticize his words, which were called for and the sir was fine, albeit condescending. I took exception to his turning away and stomping off like a kid. He could have said, If you will allow me to complete my announcement I will call on you when I am finished and be happy to answer your question.
People in the White House report that Obama doesn’t like questions or take advice very well even from his staff, so I am not surprised by his behavior.
I did not laugh at the deaths of even a single Syrian and if you weren’t being such an obnoxious butt head I might might bother to acknowledged the insensitivity of the remark even though it was not directed at the Syrians.
This is exceptionally weak, Tina, even for you. There is no comparison between loud and aggressive questions after a president’s speech, which is normal journalism in a free country, and Munro interrupting the president to shout a nonsensical accusation. Whyd you favor foreigners over Americans? is an accusation, not a question–similar to “When did you stop beating your wife?” It’s heckling, not journalism.
President Obama handled Munro’s outburst appropriately and respectfully.
“How desperate do you have to be to insert race from out of the blue!”
Oh, I’m so glad you asked this question.
I’ve wondered the same thing myself after hearing remarks such as the following:
You put your kids on a school bus, you expect safety, but in Obama’s America the white kids now get beat up with the black kids cheering ‘yeah, right on, right on, right on.’ Of course everybody said the white kid deserved it he was born a racist, he’s white.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/16/rush-limbaugh-obamas-amer_n_288371.html
“Look it, let me put it to you this way. The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/limbaugh.asp
“I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well.”
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/limbaugh.asp
“You just gotta be who you are, and I think it’s time to get rid of this whole National Basketball Association. Call it the TBA, the Thug Basketball Association, and stop calling them teams. Call ’em gangs.”
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203070015
“This [health care bill] is a civil rights bill. It is reparations.”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/rush_limbaugh_health-care_refo.html
“What they don’t know is that Obama’s entire economic program is reparations. If I were [Al] Sharpton, if I’d been guest-hosting Sharpton’s show and I got a call like that, somebody complaining, I’d say “Hey hey hey, shhh. Let me tell you the truth here. Everything in the stimulus plan, every plan he’s got is reparations.”
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203070015
“And as far as the media is concerned, Mrs. Obama deserves [to take a lot of vacations]. Look at the sordid past, look at our slave past, look at our discriminatory pa–it’s only fair that people of color get their taste of the wealth of America too.”
http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2010/08/07/rush-limbaugh-suggests-that-michelle-obamas-vacation-is-linked-to-reparations-for-slavery/
“Hey, Barack Obama has picked up another endorsement: Halfrican American actress Halle Berry. “As a Halfrican American, I am honored to have Ms. Berry’s support, as well as the support of other Halfrican Americans,” Obama said. He didn’t say it, but — anyway, there are those out there — greetings.”
http://mediamatters.org/research/200701240010
“Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?”
http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/limbaugh.asp
“Let’s assume you’re right [caller]. So, David Paterson will become the massa who gets to appoint whoever gets to take Massa’s place. So, for the first time in his life, Paterson’s gonna be a massa. Interesting, interesting.”
http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203070015
“Its a Triple Double Oreo. Do you like Oreos, is that? Well, what its going to be here, its actually a biracial cookie. Youve got three of the chocolate wafers, and then youve got the white vanilla cream, and then theres a chocolate cream. So youve got three The thing is, theres Oreo on it, the wafer. And then youve got the white cream, and you got another chocolate wafer, and then youve got the chocolate cream and then youve got the bottom wafer. The Triple Double Oreo. You wait, it wont be long before its going to be called the Obameo or something like this. Well, its a biracial cookie here!”
http://www.mediaite.com/columnists/obameo-rush-limbaugh-likens-obama-to-an-oreo-because-its-a-biracial-cookie/
These statements were all made by Rush Limbaugh. All are examples of Limbaugh “inserting race from out of the blue.” Sam Donaldson did not insert race from out of the blue; he was criticizing Rush Limbaugh, and others on the right who have defended him or made similar statements, for doing so. So perhaps you should answer your own question, Tina. How desperate is Rush Limbaugh?
“… They Bring a knife We Bring a Gun Obama ….”
I beg your pardon. He is our President. And while it is entirely customary for the press corps to erupt at the end of some presidential declaration or other … a respectful press corps does wait for the conclusion thereof.
Heckling is tacky, and getting to be customary on your side of the eisle. Who was that dweeb … Joe something … the “Liar” guy?
Like I said … tacky.
Sorry Libby but you have the manual and you lighted the way. You and I can agree that Munroe interrupted the President and call it rude behavior and inappropriate and all that. But you don’t get to pretend that the media has been very tough with Republican President, VP’s etc and at times down right hostile. And you cannot deny the way they blatantly promoted Barack Obama all the way to the WH and beyond. Or you could but you would look terribly foolish.