GOP Hypocrisy: Dana Perino Accuses Obama of Editing Statements to the Press

Last updated on August 10th, 2014 at 05:44 pm

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Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino was in full spin mode yesterday in an interview with CBS’s Chip Reid. Perino accused President Obama of editing the statements of the Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair, while ignoring the fact that the Bush administration constantly edited statements and reports from scientists on the issue of climate change.

Here is the video:

Perino said, “Dennis Blair, the current administration’s DNI also said that this information helped us prevent terrorist attacks. He said that he didn’t know if back then he would have approved it, but what he does know is that it gave us an intelligence stream. It is very curious to me that they took that statement that he said to employees out of the press statement that they gave. I was just thinking that if the Bush administration had done that, if we had editing somebody’s statement to employees, and edited that out when we sent it out to the press, we probably would have been fending off calls for a special prosecutor, so there’s a lot of double standards going on here.”

Speaking of double standards, perhaps Dana Perino has forgotten about the Bush administration’s manipulation and rewriting of climate change studies? According to a 2007 report by the House Oversight Committee, “The White House exerted unusual control over the public statements of federal scientists on climate change issues. It was standard practice for media requests to speak with federal scientists on climate change matters to be sent to CEQ for White House approval. By controlling which government scientists could respond to media inquiries, the White House suppressed dissemination of scientific views that could conflict with Administration policies. The White House also edited congressional testimony regarding the science of climate change.”

Former Bush administration officials have no credibility when they criticize Obama. Perino also made the outrageous statement that she never answered the torture question as press secretary, when the evidence shows that she did so at least four times. The longer these faces from the Bush administration hang around and defend their actions, the worse things will get for the GOP. With all these former Bushies on television all of the time, it feels like they have never gone away.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association