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Bush private fundraisers to remain private
Some pretty good back and forth today when White House Press Secretary Dana Perino was questioned about the video that surfaced showing President Bush, at a recent private fundraiser in Houston, saying “Wall Street got drunk” and helped cause the nation’s economic woes.
White House reporters this morning raised the always touchy question of why the public is not allowed to hear what the president says at fundraisers in private homes.
Here’s part of the transcript:
Q: Are you now going to take cameras and cell phones away from donors at fundraisers?
Perino: I don’t think so, no.
Q. How about letting us hear what he says at these events? It was evident in the video that there was a lectern and a microphone. You could very easily give us an audio feed of those statements that he makes at those fundraisers.
Perino: Well, first of all, we don’t record it if it’s closed press. The reason that there’s a lectern and there’s a microphone is because it’s a large room of people. And we’ve been down this road before. We are not going to be opening those closed-press fundraisers at private residences.
…
About the Bush remarks, Perino said it was a more colorful and blunt way of making a point Bush has made in public about the economy.
“I do think that people benefit from hearing the president in all of his candor,” she said.
“Now, some people in this (White House briefing) room have participated in off-the-record sessions with the president and they’re very beneficial. And in my, in our judgment, we think that closed press fundraisers are appropriate at private residences and we’re not going to change the policy.”
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