You may have heard already that members of Condi’s press entourage, including Jim Wilkinson and Mrs. Alan Greenspan, were roughed up by security as Condi visited with leaders in the Sudan. I have to applaud Mistress Rice for quickly standing up for her people and defending the freedom of the press:
(Yahoo) Jim Wilkinson, senior adviser to Rice, said he was grabbed and thrown against the wall at the entrance to the residence before he bulled his way through with Rice’s personal assistant in tow behind him.
“Freedom of the press is a wonderful thing and we don’t appreciate being manhandled at the front door,” a fuming Wilkinson told reporters.
When the second press group finally entered for a photo op with Rice and Beshir, NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell tried to ask a question about why Khartoum should be believed in its promises to crack down on militias in its western Darfur region, but she was cut off and pushed away by the Sudanese.
An enraged Rice came to talk to the press on the plane before taking off for the restive region of Darfur and apologised to Mitchell, saying she was demanding an immediate apology from the Sudanese.
“They had no right to manhandle my staff and the press,” Rice said. “It makes me very angry to be sitting there with their president and have this happen.”
But the ever-vigilant Shakespeare’s Sister notes the smell of hypocrisy in the air:
But the thing that bothers me is why she is outraged about the way the Sudanese government tries to block the press from doing its job in Sudan and not outraged about the stonewalling and manipulation of the press going on in America. Is it really so much worse to have reporters physically intimidated and stopped from doing their jobs than to covertly threaten them with lack of access, refuse to answer questions based on a ludicrous premise (see: “ongoing investigation”) that wasn’t applicable when the administration wanted to defend its members but is now of prime concern since its members have been implicated in a criminal act, and misdirect the press with diversionary leaks of bad information? What about paying the press to write favorable stories about the administration’s policies? What about letting gay male prostitutes with dubious journalistic credentials into the press corps to lob softball questions when things get hot? Don’t any of these things bother Rice?
