Video: Dana Perino tells Helen Thomas Americans "had a say" in the Iraq War when they elected Bush

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Video clips at the URL below.

Give Helen Thomas a Raise!
By: billw on Saturday, December 1st, 2007 at 10:29 AM - PST

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/12/01/give-helen-thomas-a-raise/

Leave it to the right-wing National Review Online to completely flub the title. I guess you have to be a 31 percenter to see this exchange their way.



If anybody in the White House press room these days deserves a raise it’s Helen Thomas, who continues to be the only journalist in the room to consistently uphold the duties of the Fourth Estate. Thank you Helen for keeping it real ever since landing a job at UPI all the way back in 1943.

Transcript and commentary after the jump.

Helen Thomas: No troops out from Iraq on his watch. I know. I’m talking about all troops.

Dana Perino: Well, 5700 troops will be home by the end of the year so that is some troops coming home. The President said the troop levels are going to be made by the commanders on the ground and we are going to have to talk about return on success. (return? You mean like the return of the $3.5 trillion this war is going to cost since your (mis)administration promised that Iraq was “a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.”)

Helen Thomas: Why should it be? Why don’t the American people have a say?

Dana Perino: The American people have had a say. They elected a President (no, they didn’t) who is their commander in chief (no, he is not) and is making decisions based on what his commanders on the ground are telling him.

Helen Thomas: Do You think that was the vote from the American people?

Dana Perino: They elected a commander in chief (not!) and the President is bringing home 5700 troops based on the recommendations of his commanders on the ground and based on return on success. Hopefully in the future we can bring home more but it’s going to depend on what Gen Petraeus reports and remember he will come back in March.

Helen Thomas: Why should we depend on him?

Dana Perino: Because he is the commander on the ground, Helen. He’s the one who is making sure that the situation is moving —

Helen Thomas: You mean how many more people we kill?

Dana Perino: Helen, I find it really unfortunate that you use your front row position bestowed upon you by your colleagues to make such statements. This is. It is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room, and to suggest that we, at the United States, are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive.

Helen Thomas: Do you know how many we have since the start of this war?

Dana Perino: How many… We are going after the enemy, Helen. To the extent that any innocent Iraqis have been killed, we have expressed regret for it.

Helen Thomas: Oh, regret. It doesn’t bring back a life.

So true, Helen. So true.

[Buzz Clik]

1. When they elevated Perino to this position, it showed they just don't care any more.

Think of the string of lying, dickish assholes that preceded her.

She pales in comparison.

[Frustratedlady]

4. To me, she is the most irritating of them all.

She is such a little snippet b****, I can't tolerate her voice, her manner toward others or her answers. God help her husband if she is married.

[Buzz Clik]

6. She's not bright and she isn't quick on her feet. And she has huge shoes to fill.

Tony Snow was the most sincere liar of the bunch. And then there's Dana -- slow witted and very poor at spin.

[LiberalFighter]

31. She is married to someone named Peter McMahon

[hobbit709]

2. How can she even look at herself in the mirror

while she's putting on her warpaint?

[LiberalFighter]

33. Probably spends time before the mirror asking the mirror who is the best press secretary

[acmavm]

3. Dana the Delusional Lying Bitch has one thing very very wrong...

<snip>

"...It is an honor and a privilege to be in the briefing room, ..."

Bullshit. It is a right of every legitimate journalist in the country to be there. And it is a 'duty' that the so-called White House press secretary not lie (now ain't that a joke??).

[dugggy]

5. Don't think the briefing room is big enough

if ALL the legitimate reporters showed up.

[acmavm]

10. I wondered how long it would be before someone posted this stupid

reply.

[dugggy]

19. Why is the obvious so stupid in your mind?

[blondeatlast]

22. That's going to be the new RW soin, though.

I Googles something along those lines this morning and 1 of 2 sources was saying pretty much the same thing.

I keep thinking people will see through their BS, but alas...

[Kucinich4America]

7. Mike Malloy has said (jokingly) that the Bush Crime Family somehow went back in time

to 1930's Germany, and brought Too Much Cappucino Perino to the present. I'm beginning to think it's true.

[ladjf]

8. That audacity of that little "twit". She should be embarrassed by

her lowly position as it relates to the stellar record of Helen Thomas. She shouldn't even be addressing her as "Helen", let alone trying to chastise her for doing her job.

[Bitwit1234]

9. Wait a minute...in 2000 when the supreme court appointed bush

we didn't even have an attack on the Twin Towers. then in 2004 when we ALL WANTED THE WAR TO END, bush stole the election and not by much either. So if the people wanted the war he would have had an overwhelming majority and they wouldn't have needed to steal it.

[electron_blue]

11. Where to start? First, Bush is only commander in chief of the military, *NOT* the

American people.

As for the idiots who voted for Bush, yes, that was their vote for the war.

[Vickers]

12. "he is the commander on the ground"

:rofl:

[Cha]

13. She's gotta a lot of

gall..that disingenouos fucking idiot.

Lap it up, shithead..your day's all most over.

[TomInTib]

14. "Return on success"?

Now just WTF does that infer.

I do know that "return on investment" requires "investment".

So where, pray tell, is the "success" factor?

And then there's that bit regarding Betrayus...

"it’s going to depend on what Gen Petraeus reports and remember he will come back in March"

March?....

That one shoulda brought down the house.

What a fucking twit.

[Turbineguy]

15. Dana Perino is correct

since candidate Bush made it clear that he would attack Iraq long before he was made president. The fact that people chose not to hear him say it is their own look-out.

That's the wonder of living in a republican paradise.

[dflprincess]

27. Umm... people did hear him

and they chose the other candidates - it was Bushco that refused to hear the people by making sure the votes weren't counted.

[nachoproblem]

16. to suggest that we, at the United States,

are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive...

but we have expressed regret that it's true.

*sigh*

[Beaverhausen]

17. When did Helen get back to the front row?

Lets send her more roses!

[Amerigo Vespucci]

18. It happened relatively soon after she was moved back.

It's a P.R. move, I'm sure...it's easier to put her back in her rightful front row seat than it is to deal with the bad press that comes from moving her.

It amazes me that the other reporters can sit in the room and listen to Helen and then five minutes later, when it's their turn, simply lob softballs at the bobble-head behind the podium.

SAMPLE:

Generic White House Reporter: "Dana, can you tell me the greatest challenge president Bush faces in being the BEST PRESIDENT EVER?"

:rofl:

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

20. Not to let Perino off the hook, but I'm pretty tired of the

American people getting away with murder... literally. It gets harder and harder to view the people as innocent bystanders. If we are to excuse every intellectual and emotional vice of the people as the product of a conspiracy then what's the rationale behind democracy in the first place?

These clowns who can't find their own state on a map have been electing troglodytes my whole life.

Bush didn't run on destroying the world in 2000, but so fucking what? He ran on being a moron, which is roughly as good. The American people didn't chose Bush in 2000, but they didn't reject him either. That election was pretty much a tie. About half the country wanted a moron, and they got one.

The 2004 election represented, to me, the very last amnesty offer for the American people. I would have forgiven them for Reagan and Nixon and Newt Gingrich and all these very wise things they're always doing. But they turned it down, so Fuck 'em. (And no, Kerry did not win in 2004. He lost by something like twice as much as Gore won by in 2000)

Voting for Bush in 2004 was on par with being a WWII concentration camp guard... not an architect of the holocaust, but a compliant cog in the machine. Actually, I am wrong about that. Voting for Bush in 2004 was much worse, because most German concentration camp guards were DRAFTED.

[bahrbearian]

21. "Hey Dana, is that 80 proof or 100 proof your sipping ?"

[KoKo]

23. Worst is the little "twit" thinks Presidents of US are beholden to the Generals in the Military.

Is Dana a "Regent Graduate?" I imagine most highschoolers would not agree with her...but then she must have spent or college years in one of those Fundie Christian Diploma Mill Schools where her puny brain got fried more before she got her credentials to Bush World.

[LiberalFighter]

32. She graduated from Univ of Southern Colorado in Mass Communications

Received a Masters from University of Illinois-Springfield

[Carrieyazel]

24. This henchwoman exemplifies the wretched incompetence and corruption that is: The Shrubbers.

[robbedvoter]

25. media coverage is not an honor and a privilege - it's our right in a democracy

F8ing royalists!

[grasswire]

26. NO NO NO -- "an honor and privilege to be in the briefing room?"

DAMN DAMN DAMN her uppity self to hell!

It is an HONOR and PRIVILEGE for the press to be in the WH briefing room???

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

The arrogance!

Have they forgotten in the WH that they are the servants of the people?

RETURN creditialing of WH correspondents to their peers, as it was for many decades. REMOVE credentialing from the WH press office.

My BLOOD PRESSURE!~!

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

[NastyRiffraff]

28. EXACTLY, grasswire1

That statement got to me too. SINCE WHEN is it an "honor and a privilege" for reporters to ask questions of a PRESS SECRETARY? Ye GODS!

[Kucinich4America]

30. Especially of Helen Thomas

Who was in that briefing room long before that Valley Twit was even born.

[pingzing58]

29. Dana Perino goes down in history as part of one of the worst presidencies in history!!!

[greenbriar]

34. Helen should have said American's didn t elect the tard

theft did