Category Archives: Dan Froomkin

Open Source Press Conferencing

My brother the famous columnist invites you to suggest questions for Tony Snow’s first press conference.

Tony Snow, the new White House press secretary, is expected to hold his first full-fledged press briefing next Monday.

How he responds to the first questions put to him should be a pretty good indicator of whether President Bush is committed to greater transparency in the remaining years of his presidency — or whether Snow is just a new face for the same old stone wall.

So the questions on Monday would ideally be tough, important ones that on the one hand put Snow to the test, but on the other hand give him a fair chance to show that he’s serious about explaining White House actions more forthrightly than his predecessor.

And that’s where you readers come in. What questions would you like to see the press corps ask Snow on Monday? E-mail me with your suggestions — and please include your full, real name and hometown. I’ll publish the results on Friday.

Here’s the thing, though. I’m not so much interested in smart-aleck, gotcha questions. What I’m looking for is questions to which the average American would say: “Yeah, I’d like to know the answer to that.”

Of course, since Dan doesn’t actually attend White House press conferences, all he can promise is that he’ll print the best ones and hope some reporter gets inspired.

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My Brother’s Cyberstalker

A blog named Rosetta complains that my brother takes too many vacations.

Look, he’s here in Miami and showing off the baby, OK?

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Libby Fingers Bush, Cheney as Ordering Plame Leak

Why do I have to read news like this in my brother’s blog rather than major media? Read today’s column — scroll down to “Fitzgerald lets loose”.

[The NY Sun’s Josh] Gerstein writes that according to [special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s latest] filing, Libby “testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded ‘National Intelligence Estimate’ on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush.”

That reporter, of course, was Judith Miller.

Here’s an excerpt from Fitzgerald’s filing: “Defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was ‘pretty definitive’ against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was ‘very important’ for the key judgments of the NIE to come out.”

Gerstein writes: “Mr. Libby is said to have testified that ‘at first’ he rebuffed Mr. Cheney’s suggestion to release the information because the estimate was classified. However, according to the vice presidential aide, Mr. Cheney subsequently said he got permission for the release directly from Mr. Bush. ‘Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE,’ the prosecution filing said.”

That is, as my brother says “a shocker”.

Yet, he writes, “In fact, as of this writing, none of the major news outlets has published a word on the subject.”

(Although, I see that since he wrote that, at 12:35 the Associate Press has moved the story.)

Posted in Dan Froomkin, Politics: The Party of Sleaze, Politics: US: GW Bush Scandals, The Media | 5 Comments

Read ‘White House Briefing’

My brother has an unusually good column today, Caught on Tape, capping a good week.

You read enough of this stuff, and you wonder just how much incompetence and lying we must endure before a handful of Republican patriots wake up to idea that war crimes is an impeachable offense.

And then of course reality sets in: the Democrats would have to go first. Seen even a baker’s dozen of gutsy national-party Democrats recently?

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Dan Froomkin Column Revives Today

My brother’s paternity leave from the Post is over, and his column resumes later today, undoubtedly pleasing thousands of his rabid and Dan-deprived fans.

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Maximum Hit Count

He’s a week old, eight days if you round up, but little Max already has 26 hits on Google. OK, seven of them are from relatives, but still.

Posted in Dan Froomkin | 2 Comments