Hannity falsely claimed Pitney "explained" that WH chose his question to Obama
SUMMARY: Sean Hannity falsely claimed that Nico Pitney "explained" that the White House "asked him to prepare th[e] question" on Iran he asked President Obama. In fact, both Pitney and the White House deny that Obama had prior knowledge of the question.
As purported evidence for his claim that President Obama "appeared to have prior knowledge of a question that he would be asked" at a June 23 White House press conference by Huffington Post national editor Nico Pitney, Sean Hannity falsely claimed on his Fox News show that Pitney "explained that a White House staffer called him earlier in the morning" and "asked him to prepare th[e] question" he asked Obama. In fact, both Pitney and the White House deny that Obama had prior knowledge of the question Pitney asked.
During the press conference, Obama said to Pitney, "Nico, I know that you, and all across the Internet, we've been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. ... Do you have a question?" Pitney replied:
PITNEY: Yeah, I did, but I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions last night from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating online, and one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of the -- of what the demonstrators there are working towards?
Following the press conference, Pitney provided an account of the circumstances that led to his question, writing: "I received a call from White House staff saying they had seen what I'd written and thought the President might be interested in receiving a question directly from an Iranian." Pitney added: "They were up front about not being able to assure that a question would be asked [and] they never asked what the question would be." From his post:
A few words about how this came about for those who are curious: as readers know, I've spent a lot of time writing and debating about the President's reaction to the events in Iran. Last night, after emailing with a few people about Obama's press conference and what he might say, I decided to throw it open to our readers. I received a call from White House staff saying they had seen what I'd written and thought the President might be interested in receiving a question directly from an Iranian.
The White House didn't guarantee that I would be able to ask a question. But I decided that if there was even a chance, I should try to reach out to as many Iranians as possible. With the invaluable help from some readers -- Chas, Chuck, and other Iranian Americans I wish I could name because they deserve the credit -- I was able to post a message in Farsi on Twitter and have my request for questions posted late last night on Balatarin. I ended up choosing the question I did because it was one of the consensus questions that many people had suggested.
Thanks also to the White House staff. They were up front about not being able to assure that a question would be asked, they never asked what the question would be, and they helped me move through the very packed briefing room when I showed up a bit late (sorry to the many toes I stepped on getting through).
Similarly, FoxNews.com reported in a June 23 article [emphasis added]:
Huffington Post National Editor Nico Pitney said he's been blogging about 20 hours a day on Iran since the June 12 disputed election that led to mass protests on the streets of major cities there. He said the White House apparently has been reading some of the entries.
"They reached out and said I hear you're looking for questions from Iranians, and we'd like to take one," Pitney told FOX News, noting that White House officials didn't guarantee that he'd get asked a question and they weren't told ahead of time what the question would be.
Prior to the press conference, Pitney had stated that he was soliciting possible questions to ask Obama from readers, writing, "Later today, President Obama is holding a news conference at the White House and I'll be attending. If I get called, I want to ask a question that comes directly from an Iranian. ... The popular Farsi-language social bookmarking site Balatarin has posted our request for questions here, and users there will be able to vote on them."
In a June 23 post on his blog, The Plum Line, Greg Sargent reported that White House spokesman Josh Earnest said that, in Sargent's words, "White House officials knew that Pitney might [ask a question from an Iranian] because of what he'd been posting on his live-blog for days now, which is to say, the views of ordinary Iranians." Sargent further wrote:
"Based on that work, we invited him to attend the press conference," Earnest told me. "We reached out to him yesterday. We spoke to him and said it was possible he would get a question. Sure enough, the President called on him and he asked the toughest question that anyone asked as it relates to Iran."
"We didn't want to know the question, and we didn't ask," Earnest continues. "This was a creative way for us to answer a question from an Iranian."
Referring to the exchange between Pitney and Obama, CBS News White House reporter Mark Knoller wrote on his Twitter feed: "Very unusual that Obama called on Huffington Post second, appearing to know the issue the reporter would ask about." Knoller later wrote: "[N]o one is saying the WH planted the question -- but it arranged for Pitney to ask a question."
Likewise, Michael Calderone first wrote on his Politico blog that the exchange "appeared to be ... coordinated," and later updated his post with the following response from the White House:
Deputy press secretary Bill Burton responds: "We did reach out to him prior to press conference to tell him that we had been paying attention to what he had been doing on Iran and there was a chance that he'd be called on. And, he ended up asking the toughest question that the President took on Iran. In the absence of an Iranian press corps in Washington, it was an innovative way to get a question directly from an Iranian."
From the June 23 press conference:
OBAMA: I think that the international community is, as I said before, bearing witness to what's taking place. And the Iranian government should understand that how they handle the dissent within their own country, generated indigenously, internally, from the Iranian people, will help shape the tone not only for Iran's future but also its relationship to other countries.
Since we're on Iran, I know Nico Pitney is here from Huffington Post.
PITNEY: Thank you, Mr. President.
OBAMA: Nico, I know that you, and all across the Internet, we've been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. And what --
PITNEY: Yes, sir.
OBAMA: Do you have a question?
PITNEY: Yeah, I did, but I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian. We solicited questions last night from people who are still courageous enough to be communicating online, and one of them wanted to ask you this: Under which conditions would you accept the election of Ahmadinejad? And if you do accept it without any significant changes in the conditions there, isn't that a betrayal of the -- of what the demonstrators there are working towards?
OBAMA: Well, look, we didn't have international observers on the ground. We can't say definitively what exactly happened at polling places throughout the country. What we know is that a sizeable percentage of the Iranian people themselves, spanning Iranian society, consider this election illegitimate. It's not an isolated instance, a little grumbling here or there. There is significant questions about the legitimacy of the election.
And so, ultimately, the most important thing for the Iranian government to consider is legitimacy in the eyes of its own people, not in the eyes of the United States. And that's why I've been very clear: Ultimately, this is up to the Iranian people to decide who their leadership is going to be and the structure of their government.
What we can do is to say unequivocally that there are sets of international norms and principles about violence, about dealing with peaceful dissent, that spans cultures, spans borders, and what we've been seeing over the Internet and what we've been seeing in news reports violates those norms and violates those principles.
I think it is not too late for the Iranian government to recognize that there is a peaceful path that will lead to stability and legitimacy and prosperity for the Iranian people. We hope they take it.
From the June 23 edition of Fox News' Hannity:
HANNITY: Now this was the president's first non-prime-time news conference since taking office. He answered a whopping total of 13 questions that ranged from the economy to -- get this -- his smoking habits. But one moment in particular has caught the attention of media watchers, and that was when President Obama appeared to have prior knowledge of a question that he would be asked. Oh, listen to this.
[begin video clip]
OBAMA: I know Nico Pitney is here from Huffington Post.
PITNEY: Thank you, Mr. President.
OBAMA: Nico, I know that you, and all across the Internet, we've been seeing a lot of reports coming directly out of Iran. I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet. And what --
PITNEY: Yes, sir.
OBAMA: Do you have a question?
[end video clip]
HANNITY: All right. Now, after the news conference, reporters asked the blogger how the president knew that he was in the room, and he explained that a White House staffer called him earlier in the morning, asked him to prepare that question, and then even escorted him to the briefing room, and when he arrived, well, there he is.
So, so much for an unbiased White House press corps.
Joining me now is the host of the documentary, along with his wife, Callista, Ronald Reagan, Rendezvous With Destiny, and the author of Real Change, which is now available in paperback, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
Mr. Speaker, good to see you. I'm sure that you had all the questions when you were speaker of the House. I mean, that wasn't a problem, right? They just handed them to you ahead of time?
GINGRICH: Well, I think if I'd been a liberal Democrat it might have been easier.
To me he's just Media-Matters 2008 Mis-Informer of the year.
He likes to edit to put his adversary in the worst light.
Some day he'll make a verbal mistake and Media-Matters will give Mr. Hannity his Literary Last Rights.
Speak truth to power.
Mr. News
Lies fall from Hannity tongue
Like dew from lotus
Seanie lies like rug
Lies build up like toxic waste
Needs a carpet bomb.
Sensei offers reassurance
Neons heart is warmed
But Hannity still lied about it, and then used that strawman argument to attack Obama unfairly.
Thanks for not breaking your pattern of dishonest behavior intended to portray Obama in a poorer light than he deserves.
While I can understand it, but I sometimes wish that MMfA would not filter out certain words or call specific people what we really think about them...
I suppose creep works... but I have used these unfiltered but potentially evil words before: ass-clown, dumb-ass, whore, and C.L.B. (Creepy Little Bastard) to describe Sean Hannity... and they fit much better than simply creep...
I suppose if I took my time more ways could come to mind but that works for now in describing Hannity.
C'mon, now. Let's be honest here! The White House and Pitney had contact, and both had a clear understanding that Pitney would ask a question from HuffPo from an Iranian.
The fact that the WH did not know the exact question or wording of the question is completely irrelevant.
MM is not being totally honest here. Hannity is correct.
Not cool, MM. Not cool at all.
^
So, no, you're a liar when you say that no one "has said that the President knew what the question would be." That's exactly what Hannity said.
Then Hannity said that a "White House staffer called him (Pitney) earlier in the morning, (and) asked him to prepare that question..."
So, again, Hannity said that the White House staffer knew what the question would be, since that WH staffer asked Pitney to 'prepare that question.'
Both you and Hannity are liars. MMfA doesn't seem to want to call people liars when they lie. They assume it determines motive. I think your motive was to deceive, as well as Hannity's. Like I said, this had all been clarified before Hannity's show, so both you and Hannity are liars.
So much hypocrisy about other people who aren't liars and cheats by people who are.
Since you want to hear negatives about Obama, that's what you take out of this story. The fact that you find "irrelevant" the fact that the WH did not plant the question, or have prior knowledge of it, proves either your lack of logic, or your prejudice. On the logic front, even Hannity tops you. He knows the relevant difference between knowing "a" question will be asked on the biggest topic of the day, and "the" question that will be asked.
"Not cool?" Look in a mirror.
Fascinating, ain't it Conchobhar? That's exactly it.I've looked at two MMFA items on this topic this morning, and on each thread there is one poster who has completely bought this spin.
It's still amazing to me, and why I like this site and it's liberal, freedom-loving policy of not silencing opposing viewpoints, no matter how misguided they are.
MMFA documents the BS, most of the posters here understand it, yet there's always a couple ready to come here and argue based on their own confusion, prejudice, and inability to see what's right in front of them in black & white.
I appreciate those who are constantly fooled by the media, and post comments here to let everybody know it. If not for them, I might laugh off propagandists like Hannity as being too incompetent to fool anybody.
You nailed it, Mi Colonel. The liberal believes in freedom for people he disagrees with, and whose use of that freedom he may well find disgusting, offensive, etc. The conservative calls that "moral relativism," and trumpets his transcendant "values." Iran's Supreme Leader is a prime example, and not so different from the Dobsons and Robertsons over here. (Except of course, that we've kept them from assuming power, so far.)
Lie-la-lie, Lie-la-lie,Lie-la-lie, Lie-la-lie,Lie-la-lie,Lie-la-lie,Lie-la-lie,Lie-la-lie,Lie-la-lie,Lie-la-lie,Lie-la-lie,Lie-la-lie
Off topic, I remember listening to the S & G Concert in Central Park from my apartment nearby. Would have gone to the Great Lawn to be part of the event, but one of my kids was sick, and we opened his br window to listen.
No, Hannity is not correct. Hannity stated:
The evidence shows that he did not know what the question would be. There were thousands of possible questions just on the topic of the Iranian election that he could have made. Hannity (and you) made a huge leap from Obama's knowledge of the general topic that the question was likely to center on to a claim that he had previous knowledge of the question. He didn't.
The fact is that every President has always had people preparing him for press conferences. This includes what questions he's likely to encounter and what topics specific journalists in attendance are likely to ask about. What happened with Pitney was very run-of-the-mill for press conferences and has been for all modern Presidents.
Look at it this way: Obama also knew that questions might come from Reuters, Associated Press, the Washington Post, Fox News, etc. So what if he also knew the guy from Huffpo was bringing one from Iran?
It is COMPLETELY RELEVANT to the assertion that Hannity is making.
I certainly don't fear opposing viewpoints (as should none of us--that's what makes this country great), but when you must, time and again, resort to lies and half-truths to make your point seem more valid, then what you've got to say is absolutely worthless and serves only one person--YOU (regardless of what you might think). The sad part... Sean Hannity [unless he is a sociopath] knows this as well as anyone of us each and every time he resorts to such tactics.
-- My $0.02
I agree completely with you regarding motivations.
However Hannity is correct. The WH did ask Pitney to prepare a question and the question was to be about Iran. It is also obvious that the President had pre-rehearsed his answer and simply used this laughable technique to try and sound like he really cares about the Iranian situation when it is obvious that he does not.
It is unknown but not out of the realm of possibility, that the question was indeed a plant. It came from a left wing blogger rather than the MSM. Of course anyone who would plant a question would deny having done so. So that is not surprising. Why did the WH have to escort into the press room an outsider to ask this question? Instead of going to all this trouble, why didn't the WH ask the MSM to prepare a question regarding Iran?
The reason they didn't is because it would be considered improper and throw out the whole idea of a press conference as an objective fact finding mission by the press. But by planting their own "question", they thought they could get away with some more smooth talking.
Obama used this press conference inappropriately as a town hall meeting. This is a public relations embarrassment for the President on par with the Jeff Gagnon affair during the last administration.
Also...
Zardoz:"This tactic of claiming to know what someone thinks, what their true motivations are is sooo tiresome."
AA:"I agree completely with you regarding motivations"
AA:"The reason they didn't is because it would be considered improper and throw out the whole idea of a press conference as an objective fact finding mission by the press. But by planting their own "question", they thought they could get away with some more smooth talking...Obama used this press conference inappropriately as a town hall meeting."
You have completely lost it.
" It is also obvious that the President had pre-rehearsed his answer"
OR
"Obama did not answer Pitney's question."
I mean, really, in reply to your own message, you can't even be consistent there?
REASMH - Rolling eyes and shaking my head.
Maybe he got so tired of other people handing him his azz, he's just decided to save some time and beat himself.
This is nothing like Gannon, who asked how Bush could deal with the Democrats who were "detached from reality".
And in the 21st century, bloggers are part of the new media. Get used to it.
You are not paying attention. I have said that it didn't upset me to have Pitney ask the question.
What you won't admit, and is patently obvious is that by placing Pickney in the audience and calling on him is the exact same type of setup as Ganon of which, you seem to be obsessing over.
Gannon's former career has nothing to do with the comparing both administrations using "a plant" during news conferences.
You compared the level of embarrassment, in which case there is no comparison.
It's also painfully obvious that you didn't read the text of this entire article. For had you actually read, you might have come across Nico Pitney's ACTUAL account of how the opportunity came about. You might also want to take in Foxnews.com's own reporting on the matter, as well as Greg Sargent's reporting on the matter. Neither the administration nor Pitney run away from the FACTS as accounted and reported (note: not your supposition because you don't like the President).
You, 'anotheramerican' have done nothing but contrive a "conspiracy scenario" to fit your inherent bias, and THEN try to pass that off as some kind of certainty, when the truth is that ALL you know as FACT is what's written in the MMFA article above.... I worry about those like you--I wonder if you BELIEVE what you are saying as you say it... or do you just WANT to believe it? You boldly assert that "Hannity is correct..." What EXACTLY is Hannity correct about? That Pitney was invited to attend? Or that he was some nefarious 'plant' by the administration? The WH invited Pitney simply because they knew he was taking actual questions FROM IRANIANS, and they were interested in possibly hearing one of those questions. You know how I know that?... because both the WH and Pitney reported it. You then proceed to make your case without even the HINT of attempting to use ONE SINGLE piece of factual information as support.
If you haven't guessed by now, I do enjoy a good, honest discussion/argument about topics and ideas when people actually have something substantive to say. I wonder if that's what you came here for or if you just came to say whatever you needed to say to make your point?....
- My $0.02
The WH did ask Pitney to prepare a question...
No, they did not. They asked him to come to the Press Briefing and ask one of the questions that he, Pitney, had been soliciting online before Obama's team ever reached out to him. There was no 'preparing of a question' done. Pitney was already collecting sample questions from Iranians.
and the question was to be about Iran.
Nope, wrong again, dragon breath. The question was to be from an Iranian to President Obama. The question wasn't pre-determined to be about Iran. It was from an Iranian. That's all. Now, it's likely that most, if not all the submitted questions were about Iran in some way, but that was not the design criteria here. It was about an Iranian getting a voice through a proxy.
It is also obvious that the President had pre-rehearsed his answer....
Presidents always rehearse (not "pre-rehearse") their responses to expected questions on expected topics. You imply that there's something wrong with Obama having an answer he wants to give when confronted with a particular topic. I don't think this was a very good example of that, actually, but for you to imply that it's unusual or obnoxious is laughable.
What a tool you were, are, and continue to be.
I'm not sure if you're referring to me, but I don't claim to know what Hannity thinks. I can only claim to know what his repeated actions (over a long history) tell me. When facts are more than clearly presented and available, and a journalist/pundit, who has access to at least all the information I have access to, goes the 'extra mile' to CREATE a "truth"... well, it does become obvious that there is an effort involved there--and I don't need ESP to see that.
People who are so committed to an ideology that they will misrepresent facts and obscure dissenting viewpoints don't "...come to a conclusion based on an aside, a stray comment and then build a mythology around that...." I would argue that it's exactly the opposite. They have their view, their story, their "mythology" already firmly in place, and THEN they bend the truth just enough to fit that "mythology". I know the goal of his business is (as you said) "...attention, ratings and more advertiser revenue...." My only question is, "At what cost?" What does it cost us as a society as people (journalists no less) seize upon anything that might cause any sort of strife between us and use that rhetoric and those issues to cement wedges between us all?
- My $0.02
Calderone spit out a half-baked smear attack blog IMMEDIATELY following the press conference to attack Obama for daring to ask a question of a blogger up-front.
This is a classic case of the old-time DC media trying to keep their elite status in the pecking order.
THis is what I mean. You have no idea what the circumstances are, and unless you're telepathic you couldn't know what Obama feels, yet you build a series of statements that respond to an invalid assumption. Isn't it possible that the President is an articulate man who has a grasp of the issues and can address those issues off the cuff? BTW Every expert you've heard on this subject agrees that the WORST thing we could do is appear to be involved in Iran's election.
Hannity can only be criticized if it's possible to defend conservatism without being a lying buffoon.
I have seen criticisms of ABC,NBC,MSNBC as well but its always based on what the fact say.Yes the Media Matters intent is to point out Conservative misinformation.Since you have an entire Network(Fox) and the vast majority of talk radio focusing on conservative commentary ,there are a lot of sources for misinformation including the major Networks.Maybe they(Fox ,etc.) should try to be more accurate and factual and they wouldn't be in the spotlight so much...Just my theory tho ..not a fact...
Unless you can read minds like some conservatives claim to do ..one needs to stay close to the facts when commenting or forming opinions!!!