Media Protest Being Flown Away Without Candidate
The five television network Washington bureau chiefs and the Washington bureau chief of the Associated Press have protested to Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign after it tricked the press corps in order for Obama to meet secretly with Sen. Hillary Clinton in Washington Thursday night.
Fox News’ Chris Wallace told Fox viewers on Saturday about the letter of protest, and another source told Journal-isms that it had been signed by the network bureau chiefs and the AP.
“What seemed to be a routine evening waiting for Barack Obama aboard his campaign plane turned into anything but when the cabin doors closed and the passengers were informed the aircraft would be taking off immediately — without the candidate,” Chris Welch reported for CNN on Friday night.
As Wallace and viewers were waiting Saturday for Clinton to arrive at Washington’s National Building Museum to deliver her concession speech, Wallace explained that the Obama team violated the protocol of always having a press representative near the candidate, as one is with the president.
He said the campaign responded to the letter and there will be “further discussions.”
“The first sign something was amiss on the Thursday flight came when the pilot told those aboard — about 25 members of the media, a smaller group of Obama staffers and only a handful of Secret Service agents — that everyone was on board and that the plane would be departing for Obama’s hometown of Chicago, Ill., momentarily,” according to Welch’s CNN report.
“The press soon noticed there were far too few people aboard for a standard campaign flight. Something was different. It’s fair to say that the term ‘everyone’ was used a bit loosely — especially when the presumptive nominee appeared to be missing.
“As the plane taxied, communications director Robert Gibbs admitted that Obama was remaining behind because he ‘wasn’t going to be back in D.C. for a while’ and had ‘scheduled some meetings’ before he left.
“Obama staffers, including Gibbs and Linda Douglass, a newly appointed senior adviser and campaign spokeswoman, didn’t ask the reporters on board if they’d prefer to wait on the runway in Washington until the meetings concluded. They were going to Chicago. Without Barack Obama.”
Jeff Zeleney added Saturday in the New York Times:
“Shortly before takeoff, one part of the secret was divulged. Robert Gibbs, the campaign’s communications director, said Mr. Obama would not be flying to Chicago. Mr. Gibbs gave no reason for this mysterious pronouncement, and there was little time for questions, considering that the engines had started to whir.
“Sunlen Miller, who covers the Obama campaign for ABC News, filed an urgent dispatch via BlackBerry to report that the senator had abruptly changed plans and had given the slip to those who had been traveling with him all day. ‘I sent it as the wheels were going up,’ Ms. Miller said, recounting the agitation and confusion among her fellow travelers as the 757 lifted off.”
“Gibbs told MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ program that the campaign opted for secrecy to give the two candidates privacy from the glare of media attention,” the Los Angeles Times’ Johanna Neuman reported on the blog “The Swamp.” “These two candidates wanted to have a meeting that was private, where they could talk,” Gibbs said. “We probably can’t do that without a big media circus, so we did a private meeting … and the press corps and myself flew back to Chicago.”
Clinton’s speech Saturday, delivered before a throng of disappointed supporters, was praised by cable news commentators. “She rose to the occasion,” Tim Russert said on MSNBC. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said, “she reminded all of us that the election is bigger than her and bigger than Barack Obama” and that victory in November was paramount.
Clinton stressed the importance of her historic achievement as a woman candidate and repeated as a mantra, “that’s why we have to help elect Barack Obama our president.”
After the secret Clinton-Obama meeting Thursday, held at the home of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., the two campaigns issued a joint statement saying “Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama met tonight and had a productive discussion about the important work that needs to be done to succeed in November.” They provided no other details.
Clinton, too, had to elude the press. Andea Mitchell said on Friday’s “NBC Nightly News,” “In fact, Clinton, no slouch at ducking reporters, had already sneaked out in the back of a minivan to an undisclosed location two miles away, which turned out to be the secluded home of Senator Dianne Feinstein.”
NBC correspondent Ron Allen, also assigned to the Clinton campaign, said there were a lot of ways for her to leave her house undetected because it is surrounded by trees.
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